When the Water Trickles

“You should go outside. It’s not good to sit so long in here.”

The girl didn’t answer. Squares of light from a window illuminated her legs tight against the chair.

“The snow is crisp outside. Do you want to go sledding?”

The girl shook her head.

Her mother sighed in the doorway. “It’s going to be dark soon." The old floorboards creaked as the woman walked back to the farmhouse stairs.

The girl peered out at the sharp-angled sun.

The quilt on her bed rustled across the room as something unseen stood up.

“Can’t you stay?” she said.

The smoky silhouette of a boy stepped into the light at the window. She knew he was watching the position of the sun.

“I’ll find you when the snow clears,” she said.

But what if she did? Some long dead boy buried in mud and forgotten.

The shadow of a hand fell on her lap. Hers joined it.

It thinned to just another line of windowpane.