The current resumed its gentle gurgle, and the birds overhead picked up where they’d left off—like someone had hit play on the world again.
I helped him back to the bank, my heart pounding. I tried to laugh it off, said maybe we’d just spaced out and imagined it all. But Maceo’s wide-eyed stare told me he’d seen it too.
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
I kept replaying the shimmer, the silence, the way Malachai had looked—so calm, so certain—as if something in that rock remembered him.
