Inside, the cabin smelled of pine and dust and something else—something sweet and cloying, like old perfume or decay. The furniture was covered in white sheets. The fireplace was cold. But on the kitchen table, where he and Sam used to eat Froot Loops out of the box, lay a fourth letter, this one propped against a mason jar filled with dead fireflies.
Will got out of the car. The gravel crunched under his shoes like static.
Sam didn’t drown.
He did not come home.
Will read it three times. Then he folded it, slid it back into the envelope, and placed it in his “miscellaneous” drawer beside old batteries and a takeout menu from a Thai place that had closed six years ago. Will Harper
“Took you long enough, big brother.”
And somewhere in the cabin, floorboards creaked. A shadow moved past the window. And a voice—familiar, impossible, young—whispered through the crack in the door: Inside, the cabin smelled of pine and dust
Will Harper, who had not cried since he was twelve years old, sat down in a dusty armchair and wept. Because he knew. He had always known. He had just been so very, very good at silence.
