Morning spilled golden over Stonemere, pooling light across the gardens and roofs. The rain from earlier in the week had washed everything clean—leaves gleamed, and the air smelled of beginnings.

Leor spent the whole day at the riverbank, building a fleet of boats from bark and twine. He sent each one into the current with ceremony: whispered blessings, tiny pushes of faith. Some drifted far. Some spun and sank. He laughed at both, because in his mind every voyage was victory.

From the garden, Elara’s soft hum rose and fell with the wind—a tune the river already seemed to know. Branwyn’s hammer sounded faintly behind her, shaping wood into purpose.

By the time the sun leaned west and the air turned honey-warm, Leor’s hands were slick with mud and wonder. He knelt near the water, watching light scatter across the ripples. Beneath the reflection of clouds, something shifted—too deliberate to be current, too silent to be fish.

A shape rose slowly—bark-skinned, hollow-chested, water streaming from the circles carved along its torso. The Hollowling’s single eye gleamed with reflected sunfire. Each ring on its body glowed faintly, humming a note that matched the rhythm of the river.

Leor froze.

The creature tilted its head, mimicking the sound of his heartbeat—soft, steady, curious. Then it whispered, not in words but in echoes: laughter from earlier that day, Elara’s hum while she worked, the splash of his own skipped stones.

It wasn’t trying to frighten him.
It was remembering him.

Leor’s chest fluttered. “Are you lost?” he asked.

The Hollowling lifted one dripping hand and touched the water’s surface. Ripples spread outward in slow, perfect rings. Then, as quickly as it had come, the shape dissolved back into current and light.

“Leor?” Elara’s voice carried from the garden. “Supper soon!”

He turned toward the sound, then glanced back to the river. Two faint orange glows pulsed beneath the surface—like eyes closing.

---

He ran up the hill to the cottage, bursting through the gate. Elara turned, laughter still in her voice from something Branwyn had said.

“Mama,” Leor panted, “I saw something in the river! It looked like a person made of bark and water. It didn’t talk—it just listened.”

Elara crouched, brushing the mud from his knees. “A spirit, maybe?” she asked gently.

Leor shook his head. “It felt… lonely. Like it wanted to be found but didn’t know how.”

Elara’s gaze softened. “Maybe it was waiting for someone who could hear it.”

He studied her for a moment—the warmth in her eyes, the song still resting in her throat. “Is that why you hum all the time? So things know they’re not alone?”

Her lips curved, half-smile, half-ache. “Something like that.”

Branwyn came from the garden, wiping his hands on a rag. “And you, Leor—did you listen back?”

Leor nodded. “I think so. It heard me laugh.”

“Then it’ll find its way,” Branwyn said. “We all do, when someone listens.”

---

That night, when the house had gone quiet, Leor sat by his window. The moon laid silver paths over the river.

“Come back,” he whispered into the glass. “You don’t have to hide anymore. I remember you.”

And in the stillness, the river answered with a faint hum—soft, familiar, and full of memory.

Leor smiled. Because some things, he decided, didn’t need words to be heard.