Page 28 of Mate Night Snack
Katniss ducked under the low beams, dust thick in the air. Miriam had given her permission that morning after spotting her loitering in the hallway with her field notebook and a look that apparently screamed “on the edge of an epiphany.”
“There’s a box of old journals up there,” Miriam had said. “Not sure if they’ll help, but they’ve been whispering for attention lately.”
Katniss had paused. “Whispering?”
Miriam smiled and turned back to her baking.
Now here she was, crouched beside a wooden trunk beneath a window glazed with spiderwebs, flipping through a stack of hand-bound books with dates scribbled across their fronts. Some were cracked with age. Others smelled like cinnamon or rosewater, or dust thick with silence. The leather bindings were soft in places, brittle in others. Someone had loved these. Or at least clung to them like they mattered.
She opened the third one and froze.
The handwriting was small, neat, lined with careful loops. DatedAugust 1991.
Saw Mabel down by the lake again. She talks to the trees like they answer. Says her shadow keeps twitching in the water.
Katniss’s heart picked up speed.
Mama says the woods aren’t dangerous, just old. But Mabel says something’s different this summer. She says her dreams are getting louder.
Someone was howling again last night. Not a dog. Too low. Too sad. Mama says stay inside after dusk. But Mabel keeps going out. She says the quiet is better when everything else sleeps.
Katniss flipped the page. Her pulse thudded hard in her ears.
She said she saw a boy with golden eyes. Said he wasn’t real. Said she didn’t want to blink in case he disappeared. He smiled at her and said "you’ll hear the hum soon."
Twyla gave her a charm. Said it would help. Silver thistle wrapped in blue thread. Mabel wore it under her coat. Now it smells like smoke. She says it burned through the lining when she got too close to the water. She laughed when she said it. But her eyes didn’t match.
The handwriting grew messier in the final pages. Less structured. Less looped.
Mabel says something’s calling her. Something under the lake. Not a voice. A feeling. Like a string pulled tight in her stomach. I told her not to go back but she said the trees were waiting for her.
She didn’t come to school today.
Mr. Hollis says she ran away. That her mama’s lying. That girls like her don’t last long here. That she looked too long at things meant to be passed by.
Katniss’s hands had gone still, one finger pressed into the margin of the page. There was no closure. No confirmation. Just space and silence and ink that dragged out slower and slower until it stopped altogether.
She reached for another journal. This one from1994.
They found Eliza’s scarf at the Veil line. Burned edges. I heard Miriam arguing with Varric about letting humans in. She said “the town called her.” How does a town call someone? What does it use?
Twyla closed the café early the same day. Said the tea leaves were lying and she didn’t want to hear them.
I think Hollow Oak is choosing people. Testing them. Some stay. Some don’t. Some vanish. Some don’t vanish fast enough. I think that’s worse.
Katniss turned another page, hands shaking.
I saw someone in the woods last night. Tall. Yellow eyes. Didn’t leave tracks. The trees bowed when he passed. He smiled like he knew I was there and didn’t care if I followed. I didn’t.
The wind whispered a name I don’t remember now. I wish I’d written it down. I wish I’d looked away.
The final line trailed off, mid-sentence.
Katniss stared at it, unblinking.
Then she closed the journal and sat back hard against a storage chest. The ache behind her ribs had sharpened, pushing against bone like it wanted to break free.
This wasn’t about one missing girl anymore.
