A Short Story by CherAnn Wright

The village sits at the edge of the Highlands where a constant misty fog gives it a

half-dreamy appearance. Jagged cobblestone streets wind between crumbling cottages that blur in the distance like a messy watercolor canvas. It clings to the border between the old world that refuses to let go and the new one pressing in; the two worlds separated by an abandoned railway.

Although I grew up here, it’s never really felt like home, at least, not the kind a person wants to return to. Especially now that my sister isn’t a part of it.

I follow the familiar narrow road and look back at the village in my rearview mirror. It feels more abandoned than ever. Like many others, I left at eighteen with nothing more than a suitcase of hopes and dreams and I never planned to return. But when the call came, it felt like the right thing to do.

The crunch of my shoes on gravel leading up to the house seems unnervingly loud. My sister and I walked this path, side by side countless times, to and from school. The familiarity stirs up a longing I thought was long gone.

My childhood home stands before me, scarred from years of neglect, evidenced by its cracked windows, peeling paint, and shutters that sway in the wind. Unease swells in my chest.

It’s not just my sister who won’t be here to greet me, my mum is gone now, too.

This house was a place of comfort and confinement mixed into one. Sewn together with love but shadowed by something less than joy. Our mother tried to do the job of two, but it isn’t humanly possible to fill a void when there’s little there to fill it with. She loved us, but I think hard times prevented her from being able to do it completely. We had no father, only an uncle who filled in when he had the mental capacity to do so.

But the truth is, I stayed away all these years because my sister was gone, and I couldn’t face her absence.

Rosie was the sister the river took from me years ago. The one whose death was never explained. I shoved her memory deep inside myself, behind walls too high to scale, but even now, I can still see her body being pulled from the water.

It was ruled an accident, but I never believed it.

Rumors followed. Some said she slipped and fell to her death. Others said she was high, blacked out, and fell. I always suspected something darker. My gut told me that someone out there knows what happened to her. Now that I’m here, my own haunting questions drag me back to places I don’t want to go.

Despite the sun being high above, the house appears lonelier and darker than I remember. I push the screaming gate open, and it’s as though it’s giving me one last warning to turn back. The path is almost indiscernible, choked with ivy as nature works to claim it.

Inside, a dank moisture mixed with an unclean odor stains my nostrils. It’s exactly as I remember it. Every corner holds a trace of the past with cracked tiles in the kitchen and the yellowing photographs on the mantel. Rosie’s face smiles out from one of them, still sixteen with a mischievous smile that made Rosie…Rosie. She was always up for curious adventures that sent our mum looking for her more than once.

I move through the rooms like a ghost as my footsteps break the silence. I reach my mum’s old study where canvases lean unevenly against the walls, some half-finished, each with thick paint that bleeds with desperate emotion. This was her private space. Rosie and I were allowed only by invitation. Now, I’m crossing the forbidden border into her thoughts, and I can see why she didn’t want us here. The brushstrokes tell stories of when she was alive, and others that foreshadow the days of her death. Most of them haunting.

My mother had been an artist, too, but unlike me, she never found success. Mainly because she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to give her innermost feelings to strangers. As I trespass into her world, I let my fingers brush across the textured surfaces she left behind, flipping canvases one by one, stacked like vinyl albums. My fingers, heart, and eyes sync to one another when the next canvas screams at me.

At first, it’s abstract with frantic blue and black brushstrokes that clash in a whirl of water. I struggle to make sense of it, but then the longer I stare, the clearer it becomes: the curve of a girl’s face turned toward the river, her mouth open in a scream.

I don’t realize I’m holding my breath as one word, yet a question, comes to mind—Rosie?
I flip the canvas with trembling hands. On the back is my mother’s cursive scrawl: She won’t leave me alone. HE should be the one lost in this darkness.

He? He who?

The only men in my mother’s life were my father, gone when I was four, Rosie only three, and my uncle Malcolm. She never wanted anyone after my father, and Malcolm became the fill-in—sporadically there when we needed him.

The more I pore over her art, the more I see their stories growing into the darkness that consumed her. Some were painted after I left, many after Rosie died. The ones that trouble me most are those surrounding her death. I look again at the painting of the girl in the waves and realize it was created within only days of Rosie dying.

But for some reason, I don’t think the girl is Rosie.

Who is she?

I take out my phone and snap a picture of the painting and of my mother’s scrawl on the back. I have to know…who is this man my mum writes about, and, if not Rosie, who is this girl?

I leave my car parked and walk back toward the village square. Mist curls in around me while hiding the rooftops in the distance. The only place still lit is the grocer’s shop with its windows blurred from condensation. A bell clangs when I push the door open, and a young woman greets me with a warm smile. She stands behind the counter, her dark hair pulled into a loose knot while a few curly strands hang loosely around her pale face. Her eyes are a striking blue, which is a stark contrast to the gloom of the shop.

“Hello. Can I help ye with anything?” she asks, her voice as sweet as her smile and her accent not as thick as others here.

“Um, yeah.” I hesitate.

“Wait.” She points. “You’re Evelyn…right?”

“Yes. And…?”

“I’m Isla. We went to school together.”

I study her for a moment before recognition hits. “Oh…hi, Isla.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about ye mum.”

“Thank you.” I give her a downward nod. “You work here?”
She shrugs. “I keep this place going…God knows why…nae one bothers shopping here anymore.”

I glance back at the door. “The village definitely seems to be dying,” I say as I attempt to brush the damp from my coat and step farther inside.

“Nearly,” Isla admits. “But a few of us have plans. Festivals, maybe tours. We’re even looking at reopening the station, if it’s possible. If we don’t do something, the Highlands will swallow this place whole.”

She still has the same outspoken wit I remember, always sharp and carefree. Isla always knew everything about everyone. In many ways, she reminds me of my sister. I decide to take advantage of it. “Tell me, Isla…do people still talk about Rosie?”

Her expression falters, though her eyes remain bright. “Your sister? Sometimes. Some things are kind…others not so much.”

“What do they say?”

She hesitates, then exhales. “That she was reckless. A party girl. Always poking into people’s business. I even heard your uncle once—at the pub, after too many pints. He said she was the queen of spreading gossip and lies. Especially about him. He didn’t know I was listening. He said something about her and some woman that she didn’t agree with. There was even talk of another girl who went missing around that time, but I always thought it was just nonsense, villagers inventing tales.”

I feel a slight tingle crawl underneath my skin. “What woman?”

Isla lowers her voice as I step closer to the counter. “Apparently another female disappeared, around the same time of your sister’s death. The last time she was seen was not far from where Rosie was found. People said she ran off, but my gran told otherwise.”

She pauses and fumbles with the receipt holder on the cash register and her face shifts briefly into an unreadable expression, as though she’s debating on whether to continue. “Don’t shoot the messenger,” she adds nervously, “but my gran said your uncle was involved with her…this woman. He was supposedly the last one to see her alive. At one time, people pointed fingers and claimed he killed her, and that your mum may have helped cover it up.” She shrugs. “That’s what my gran told me. She wasn’t one for gossip, but near the end she talked about all sorts of things she wanted to get off her chest. Again, I’m sure it was only her repeating what other folks had said.”

The air becomes dense as I try to swallow down a sudden hint of anger. I’m not sure if it’s because I feel the need to defend my family, or the sense that I may have been in the dark all this time, and I have no one to blame but myself.

I leave the shop and walk to the crumbling house at the edge of the village, near the abandoned railway station. My uncle’s house slumps near the tracks, at the border between the living and the dying. I pause at his front door, not sure if I should be here, but these questions have turned into an itch I can only scratch by knowing the answers.

I knock. The only father figure I had stands on the other side, and I have no idea how he’ll react after all these years. Excitement churns with dread as I wait for the door to creak open. Malcolm stoops more than he used to, but his shoulders still fill the frame. His face is weathered with lines carved less by age than by hardship. For a moment, neither of us speaks. His eyes flicker over me, then sharpen to a frown upon recognition.

“You should’ve stayed away.”

The words sting, though I’m not sure what I expected. I abandoned him, just as I abandoned my mum.

“I didn’t have much of a choice. Mum’s gone.” It’s the first time I’ve said the words out loud, and they catch in my throat.

Malcolm’s expression doesn’t change. “Ye didn’t come when she was alive. Why come back now?”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

He huffs and turns into the dungeon-dark room. I follow, closing the door behind me. His curtains are closed and the only light in the room comes from the television.

“Ye still didn’t answer. Why are ye here?”

“Maybe I just wanted to see you.”

He doesn’t say anything, just plops heavily into his rickety recliner.

I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. “And I wanted to ask you about this.” I show him the photo I took in Mum’s study, then scroll to her scrawl on the back.

His shoulders tense, barely, but enough. “Leave it be, Evelyn.”

“What did she mean by this?”

“How would I know?”

“Unless something has drastically changed, you were the only man in her life. You must know who she was talking about.”

Malcolm turns his gaze to the television as his jaw clenches. Finally, he mutters, “Ye sister was always meddlin’ where she shouldn’t. Look where it got her. Maybe ye should learn from it.”

An instant spark of anger hits me. “What do you mean?”

“Nothin’. Let it go.”

I take a breath as I bite back what I really want to say. My mother always told me never to ignore a gut feeling, and right now mine feels as though it’s stabbing me. He knows something about the man Mum scribbled about, and Rosie…maybe both.

I bite my tongue, despite my need to know, and leave.

The deteriorating railway station looms like a hidden relic. The iron bone structure is nothing more than a metal graveyard splotched with rust and ivy. A place that once connected worlds now marks the line between past and present.

There are no signs of life as I walk around the dilapidated building where passengers once waited for trains to take them away. Over time, many never returned.

I pause between the building and the riverbank, hesitant to retrace the steps Rosie and I used to take. The steps Rosie supposedly took before she died. The air smells of rusting metal, creosote, and something rotting, though perhaps that last scent is only my imagination.

My boots slide on loose shale as I make my way down the slope behind the station to the river’s edge. The mist hangs thick, and the water below churns with a sound that has always unsettled me. Even more so now.

I find the single tree that grows sideways, parallel to the water. It marks the place I’m looking for. Beyond it is a thick wall of ivy that hides the spot where Rosie and I used to escape. Our own secret hideout. 

There’s no way it’s gone undiscovered all these years, I think.

To anyone else it’s just overgrowth, but behind it is a narrow crack in the rock that opens just wide enough for two skinny girls to slip through. Cold droplets fall from the wet ivy as I part it. The opening is smaller than I remember, so I have to twist sideways, suck in my stomach, then hold my breath as I squeeze through.

It’s the first time I’ve been here since before my sister died.

The cramped passage gives way to a hollowed-out stone room no bigger than the bedroom Rosie and I once shared. The air smells of river water and old candle soot from the many candles we’d burned around this space. I shine my phone light along the walls covered in charcoal sketches, streaks of dried paint, and names etched in the stone with a pocketknife, including boys we crushed on. I picture her in the corner where she always sat.

Instead, on her spot is a folded piece of yellowing paper weighted down by a small rock. I unfold it and shine my flashlight on it.

Eve—if you find this… don’t blame him. If anything happens…

The ink trails off into stained smears, the rest nothing more than unreadable smudges.

Him. Who? Who did she mean?

My mind circles back to Malcolm. He was the only ‘he’ in our lives. Rosie never kept a boyfriend long enough for one to matter.

I shove the confusing letter into my pocket while my thoughts race as swift as a stopwatch. The confirmation of the rumors, Isla’s retellings of her grandmother, and every suspicion I didn’t want to hear. All of it pointed to one truth: she’d known something, and it cost Rosie her life.

I frantically search around for more signs of my sister being here before her death but find nothing.

The mist greets me at the small opening as I crawl back through the ivy, the prickly leaves clawing at my skin, nerves, and emotions. I emerge fighting the urge to cry, as though the cave has expelled my long-held grief along with Rosie’s ghost.

Malcolm’s face flashes in my mind: the image of his stiff jaw, and the strange twitch in his shoulders replay upon showing him the painting photo. The way he deflected by saying: Look where it got her.

My heart hammers from exertion and realization as I climb the slope back toward the station. The old railway tracks lie rusted and broken, but they pull my eyes back toward Malcom’s house. Everything in me screams that this man is by no means, innocent. Protected by my mother’s loyalty and the town’s blind eye. I can’t help but to think that Rosie is gone because of him.

The evening air tastes of smoke from the village houses. The only ones left that make up this dying world.

I tuck the note into my pocket and start walking.

I’m done asking. I’m going to demand that he tells me what happened.

The path to Malcolm’s house grows shorter while courage and anxiety pulls me along faster than my legs can keep up. My hair molds to my face like wet laundry. I stand in front of his door once more and pound this time, instead of a feeble knock. My knuckles sting from the force.

There’s silence on the other side, and I wonder if he’s left. I lift my hand again, and as I do, the lock finally clicks.

The door opens and Malcolm’s broad shoulders swell into view. He spits an exhale through his nose, and I still can’t understand the lack of joy to see me.

“If ye’ve come with more o’ your shite, you can just forget it.”

I hold up the folded scrap of paper, still damp from the cave. “I found this.”

He huffs, and I wonder if this reaction is something he’s always done and I didn’t realize it, or something I should read further into.

He doesn’t reach for it, but his gaze narrows. I watch as the back part of his jaw moves in a clenching fashion, then he says, “Where?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I snap. “It’s Rosie’s words. I think she knew something…something about you…and now she’s dead.” The words shoot from my mouth, yet they leave my lips as though I’m no longer controlling them.

Cool and warm air mixes around us from the half-open door. I see his expression falter as quickly as a blink, then it’s gone.

“I told ye, bes’ leave the past alone,” he mutters. “It’ll only rot what’s left of ye, the way it did your mum.”

For a long moment, neither of us moves. Then he steps back just far enough for me to enter.
The air inside is stronger with wood smoke and ash as the clock on the mantle clicks loudly. I hadn’t noticed it this morning.

“Sit,” he says as he points to the worn-out sofa and drops into his recliner. I remain standing with the note in my hand, using it to center myself as I rub it between my fingertips.

When he realizes I’m not going to sit, he says, “So, ye think I had something to do with  ye sister’s death?”

“Prove you didn’t,” I say, as I hold up the piece of paper once more. “She left this for me, Malcolm. She told me not to blame you. And now she’s gone.”

His head jerks toward me, eyes narrowing. “Ye’ve no clue what ye’re talkin’ about.”
I take a step closer, and the floorboards protest beneath my boots. “Then tell me what happened. What do you know?”

Something flashes in his eyes. Anger? Fear? Regret? I can’t tell. He looks away, toward the curtain-drawn window.

“She couldn’t leave anything alone,” he mutters. “Always diggin’, always stirrin’. Just like ye mum.”

I see a shift in his eyes. It’s just like the one I saw just before I left on one of the last trains out of here. I crumple the note in my hand as I hold it toward him. “Please…just tell me what happened.” This time my words escape with no demand, just a beg.

He breathes out a long, exhausting sigh and drops his head in what seems like defeat. After a long moment, he lifts his heavy frame from the chair and strides to the door, then pulls it open.

“If ye want answers?” He points toward the river. “Meet me where it began. Ye’ll have them there.”

I step outside and the air seems harsher than before. The door clicks behind me before I can say anything else.

As I approach the railway station, it seems to emerge out of the mist like a rising corpse. I wait near the empty tracks where lively passengers once stood. The rails stretch until the fog swallows them, as if the world beyond doesn’t exist. I hear the river churning in the distance as a cold breeze stings my cheeks, and for a moment I imagine Rosie is standing next to me.

I hear the crunch of heavy steps on gravel before I see him, then Malcolm’s figure swells from the fog. He stops a few paces away with hunched shoulders against the cold, and his breath heaves from his mouth.

“I’m tellin’ ye again…ye shouldn’t have come back here. This place has nothing for you now.” he mutters.

I step forward. “I’m glad I did because everything is pointing to the fact you had something to do with Rosie’s death. Why? She wrote it in her own words, Malcolm. She said, don’t blame him. Blame him for what?”

“I don’t ken why she’d write that. I loved yer sister just like I loved you… love ye still. Shite, like you two were my own daughters.” He lets out a heavy breath. “She wouldnae let it go. Always askin’, always diggin’.”

My pulse spikes but my words seem more like a whisper. “So, you silenced her.”

He looks past me toward the river with his lips pressed together as though they refuse to let go, and I’m the one prying the words from him.

“I told her to stop. I told her she was askin’ for trouble. But she wouldnae listen.”

“That’s not an answer.” My voice cracks. “Tell me what you did to her.”

His head snaps back toward me, eyes bloodshot and mixed in a mask of confusing expressions—the same as before. Anger? Grief? Regret? I can’t tell which. “You think ye want the truth, Evelyn. But once you cross that line, you cannae go back.”

“That’s not your decision to make. I deserve to know what happened to her.”

My stomach knots, and I curl my fingers into fists. “Tell me.”

At last, his shoulders sag and his voice drops to a rasp. “Rosie wasn’t meant tae die…”

It feels as though the earth tilts beneath me as he finishes his confession.

He shakes his head slowly, eyes fixed on the rails disappearing into fog. “It wasn’t meant tae happen the way it did.”

The mist swallows the rest.

The gloom of the fog clings around me like a second skin as I walk back from the station. Malcolm’s words echo with every step. Rosie wasn’t meant to die, but she had to…

I stumble into the stale, dank house, and the weight of its loneliness presses heavier now. Even though I was never close to my mother, she’s gone, and that brings its own tangle of emotions. But my sister’s story has been set free, and there’s no one left in this house to keep me here.

By the end of my conversation with Malcolm, we’d reached a mutual understanding, senseless as it seems. How do I forgive such an act? Yet, I know it is what had to happen.

What I do know is…I no longer have to feel guilty for leaving this place behind.

My mother’s canvases still lean against the walls with every brushstroke screaming at me. I move through them again, one by one, desperate to understand what I already know. When I pull at the stack closest to her desk, something slips loose from behind a frame and flutters to the floor: a folded sheet of paper, soft from being opened and closed too many times. My breath lodges in my lungs as I kneel to pick it up.

It’s Rosie’s handwriting.

Mum—Please understand. I didn’t mean for it to happen. She came at me saying she was Dad’s daughter and had every right to your house, to your things, to everything. She had papers that looked real…papers that would allow her to take everything from us. She looked just like me and Evelyn. The same eyes, hair.

Uncle Malcolm knew, but he thought she would go away. He tried everything and it didn’t work. Town folks saw them together and she was spreading rumors about him too…trying to ruin his life.

I confronted her, fought with her, but the rocks were slick, and in one moment she was gone…swallowed by the water. I tried to reach for her, I swear I did. Uncle Malcolm feared the village would think he killed her. He said they may come after me too. He couldn’t let that happen, so he helped me disappear. He’s helping me leave tonight, before anyone can find out. If they think I drowned, so be it. But please…don’t hate me. Don’t hate him.

The page trembles in my hands. I read it again. And again. Until the words blur. It confirms what Malcolm told me.

She wasn’t the girl in the river. She wasn’t the body pulled from the water. Rosie didn’t die here at all. Malcolm didn’t kill her—he helped her vanish.

For years I carried her death like a wound that wouldn’t close, convinced the river had taken her from me. But it wasn’t the river. It was Rosie herself. Rosie who crossed the boundaries first, stepping out of this place, leaving me with nothing but unanswered questions.

My knees give way, and I sit frozen on the floorboards with Rosie’s last words from this dying world in my hands. The house seems to finally settle with the weight of every secret it carries, and the truth has finally been set free…and so is Rosie.

Rosie lived.

She may still live.

I stand at the window with her letter pressed to my chest, watching the fog roll through the village.

I may never find her, but I finally know where my life will go now…forward.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this story. To check out the rest of my works visit my website.