Remsl

Then the carving faded. The water stopped. The laugh echoed once and died.

I watched him for an hour. He did not stop. His fingers traced the invisible grain of an invisible log, and as they did, I felt something loosen in my chest. A memory I’d locked away—the smell of my mother’s apron, beeswax and flour—drifted past me like a petal. Then another. The sound of my father’s boots on the gravel path. The exact weight of a robin’s egg I’d found when I was seven. Then the carving faded

“You’re the scribbler,” he said. His voice was the sound of dry bark flaking off a log. and as they did