Brielle’s POV
The sky was the color of smoke, heavy and unmoving, like it had been holding its breath for too long. Brielle pulled her coat tighter as she stepped through the old iron gate of Ivywood Cemetery. The cold didn’t bother her. It was the stillness, the way the graves sat in long forgotten rows like they were listening. Waiting.
She walked between headstones until she saw her. Clarissa stood at the far edge, just beneath the gnarled branches of a weeping elm, her back to the path. She didn’t turn when Brielle approached.
“You came alone,” Clarissa said softly.
“You asked me to.”
Clarissa turned. Her face looked older than Brielle remembered. Not by age, but by something heavier. A weight pressed behind her eyes, a tiredness that spoke of decades of running.
“You look like h
