The Gift

Journal Entry – October 19, 1871

The man from the storm left this morning, though I could still smell the rain on him long after he’d gone. He said little — men rarely do when they fear what they can’t name. But I watched his hands as he packed. They shook, just enough for truth to tremble through his calm.

When he settled his account, he placed a small leather pouch on the counter instead of coin. I knew before I opened it that it wasn’t payment in any honest sense. Inside was a satchel clasp — brass, tarnished, engraved with a shape I’ve seen only in the margins of older books. The mark resembled a wheel divided into seven spokes, each etched with lines too fine to be coincidence.

He looked at me then, his eyes hollowed by something I could not yet see. “You keep it,” he said. “You already carry its kind.” And then he walked into the morning as if the air itself had forgotten how to hold him.

I should have thrown it away. Instead, I polished it until it shone. Beneath the grime, the metal was warm — alive, almost. When I turned it in my palm, I thought I heard something sigh from within, faint as a breath against glass.

At dusk, the sky split open again. No rain this time, only light — pale and trembling, pulsing with a rhythm that matched the beating in my chest. I do not believe in coincidence. The stranger left something behind that does not wish to be forgotten.

And neither, I think, do I.