Cherryvale, Kansas

Journal Entry – October 7, 1871

The air clings like wet gauze, thick with the rot of leaves and the slow decay of something unseen beneath the surface. Even the earth groans in its silence. The sun is little more than a pale smear behind gray clouds, casting no warmth—only distorted shadows that stretch too long, too thin, as if reaching for the living. The wind does not howl; it hisses, threading between homes like a whisper hunting for ears. Somewhere nearby, a crow screams once, and then nothing.

In the square, Abigail stands alone, her eyes flicking toward me—not with curiosity this time, but with something deeper… darker. She clutches a doll to her chest, though I do not remember her carrying one before. Its porcelain face is cracked. When she speaks, no sound escapes. Her lips move, but her voice is swallowed by the breeze. I blink—and she’s gone. Or maybe I never saw her at all.

I walk past the baker’s shop and find the windows steamed from within, though it has been shuttered for days. A set of wet footprints trails from its door to the edge of the well, then vanish. The smell of myrrh returns—a scent I now associate with endings. A cat with no eyes watches me from a rooftop.

The veil between what is and what isn’t thins by the hour. October is not simply a month; it is a warning.