Salt and Smoke

November 3, 1871

This morning the air tasted of iron.

I woke before dawn to the sound of Ma stirring the stove below — bacon hissing, the rattle of the kettle, the world going on as if nothing burned last night. The salt ring I laid on my floor had turned black and fused into the boards. The Kentucky book promised it would seal the unseen, but what kind of seal brands itself into the wood like a wound?

When I tried to sweep the remains, the broom snagged on something I couldn’t see — threads of smoke or cobweb that clung to my wrist and refused to let go. The smell of ash thickened the air, laced with a faint sweetness that didn’t belong. Blood has sweetness too.

Downstairs, Baxter stopped in for coffee on his way to the store. He asked if I’d slept. I told him I’d been reading late, and he smiled that kind, uneasy smile of men who sense more than they understand. When he left, I caught my reflection in the windowpane behind the bar — a smear of soot at my throat that hadn’t been there before.

In the margin of the book, scrawled by a hand not my own, the line waited for me: Protection requires offering. The door shuts only with breath. I’d thought it meant prayer. I see now it meant something else entirely.

There was something standing outside the circle last night. I couldn’t see it, but I felt the weight of its stare pressing against the back of my neck. When I finally looked up, the candle flame bent sideways — drawn toward the dark corner by the door.

The whisper came from there.

Not stop.

Not go.

Just— closer.