The hill emptied slowly.
Not because anyone told them to go—but because fear has its own gravity once it’s allowed to move. People drifted back toward houses, toward animals, toward the small rituals that said *life continues*. Doors didn’t slam. No one ran.
They walked like people who had just realized the ground beneath them could c***k.
I stayed where I was until the sheep settled again and Maera’s wolves relaxed into loose, watchful sprawls. Only then did the bond soften enough for me to breathe without resistance.
The bell did not ring again.
That absence was louder than the sound had been.
Rachel wiped her hands on her jacket, though there was no blood on them. “They wanted panic,” she said. “Didn’t get it.”
“No,” I replied. “They got memory.”
That would cost more.
The sheph
