THE SHADOW I BECAME

CHAPTER FOUR: ECHOES OF FIRE

The town seemed quieter than usual that morning, but the kind of quiet that hides things, not peace. I watched Mira as she walked the streets with her notebook clutched to her chest, eyes scanning storefronts and alleyways the way a hunter observes the terrain before a strike. She was light on her feet, but every movement carried a weight a curiosity that didn’t belong here, in Durness, and yet felt natural, like it had been there before.

I followed at a distance, telling myself it was coincidence concern, even but I knew it was both. I had a habit of watching people like they were clocks, and she moved differently than the townspeople. She moved with intention.

Her first stop was the square, the one where the statue of the mayor had been toppled during the first wave of unrest ten years ago. A few locals were milling about, carrying out errands as if the square hadn’t been scarred by fire and screams. Mira approached an old man sitting on a bench, bent like a question mark, feeding pigeons from a tin box.

“Excuse me,” she said, soft but firm. “Do you remember the riots? The Night of Glass?”

He glanced at her, eyes narrowing. “Who’s asking?”

“I’m a journalist,” she said. “I’m writing about what happened here. About… the events that led up to it.”

He shook his head. “People like you. Always digging. Nothing good comes from remembering.”

I stayed hidden behind the corner of a shuttered café, notebook half-open in my hand. She wasn’t deterred. She scribbled something, eyes never leaving him. “I just want to understand. Who started it? Why?”

The man muttered something under his breath, words lost in the wind. She thanked him anyway and moved on. She always thanked them. I noticed it now the way she asked questions not to accuse, but to uncover, gently, almost reluctantly. Unlike me, she didn’t hide from the past. She faced it.

She wandered into the alleyways, notebook now open, pen scratching over the pages. I followed at a distance, careful not to be seen. She paused at a doorway, tracing her fingers along the brick, as if reading the texture for secrets. “People said the fire started here,” she muttered to herself. “But there’s nothing now. No trace. Just… memory.”

Memory. That word made a weight settle in my chest. I remembered this alley too, ten years ago the smoke, the heat, the panic, the scent of burning paper mixing with rain. Leona had run ahead of me, shouting instructions to the others. I had paused, thinking I could carry everything, the files, the camera, the truth. I had failed.

I stepped closer, unnoticed, heart tightening. Mira didn’t see me. She leaned over a cracked drainpipe and scribbled furiously. “If someone had documented this… someone would have noticed patterns, movements. Who benefitted?”

Her curiosity was like a blade, slicing through the fog I had wrapped around myself. I had built walls, rooms full of dust, reminders of quiet. And now she was tearing through them, step by step, question by question.

She moved toward the docks next. I kept my distance but stayed close enough to hear. She asked questions of fishermen unloading crates of fish, of the men repairing nets, of the workers who didn’t remember the riot but remembered the smoke, the fear. Every answer was a fragment, a shard of glass she collected. I wondered how she could hold it all together the way I never had.

At noon, she paused by the pier, looking out over the water. The sun caught her hair, glinting in strands of gold. She flipped a page in her notebook and murmured, “Everyone remembers differently… but some things can’t be hidden. Not completely.”

I wanted to warn her. To tell her to stop. To tell her she didn’t understand what she was stirring. But I stayed quiet. My fear was selfish. My guilt was old. I had spent ten years running from the echoes of fire, and now she was chasing them with a notepad and pen.

By afternoon, she returned to the square, notebook full of observations, questions, half-written theories. I followed her into the small café by the market the one where locals argued over tea and the color of bread crusts. She ordered coffee, black, no sugar. Her notebook open on the table, pen hovering over the page, she scribbled again, eyes darting toward the street every few seconds.

I took a seat at the far corner, pretending to read a newspaper. Her movements were too familiar, yet distant, like a reflection in a window you can’t quite touch. She leaned toward an old woman at the counter, speaking softly. “Do you know anyone who worked at the press? Ten years ago?”

The woman’s eyes flicked to me. Her hands trembled as she set down a cup. “The press… everyone left, or burned. Best not to ask too many questions.”

Mira nodded, polite, persistent. “I just want to know the truth. About what happened that night. About the people who vanished, the files that disappeared. Someone has to know.”

She didn’t realize she was speaking the words I had whispered to myself for a decade. Someone had to know.

I left before she noticed me, slipping into the streets again. I followed from a distance, heart pounding. I watched her ask questions, record answers, listen to stories. She had a way of drawing secrets out of people without scaring them, without making them defensive. It was a skill I had lost when fear became a habit.

By evening, she returned to the inn where she was staying. I watched her disappear inside, notebook under her arm. The fog was rolling in from the sea, golden and trembling at the edges, like it had been that morning when I first saw smoke rise over the city. I stayed outside, listening to the sound of waves, the cries of gulls, the soft scrape of her shoes against the cobblestones, fading into the inn.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she asked questions, the way she looked at the past not with shame or fear, but with determination. I remembered Leona. I remembered the fire. I remembered the files, the screams, and the moment I had turned away, leaving everything behind.

And now, Mira was asking the same questions Leona had asked, walking the same streets I had tried to forget, uncovering fragments I had buried.

I retreated back to the shop, heart tight, palms clammy. Dust motes floated in the dying light, catching the sun like tiny sparks. I traced my fingers along the counter, along the spines of books I had shelved a hundred times, pretending they were shields, pretending the past couldn’t reach me here.

But the photograph from yesterday her face half-hidden behind smoke, her camera raised kept returning to me. I remembered the weight of it in my hands, the certainty that I had failed. And now, Mira’s questions, her presence, her determination, were pressing on me in the same way.

Night fell over Durness, soft and thick. The fog rolled in again, hugging the streets, pressing against the windows. I lit a single lamp in the shop and opened the ledger, pretending to check inventory. But my eyes kept flicking to the door, imagining her silhouette in the doorway, pen in hand, eyes shining with questions.

I poured a whiskey I didn’t want and sipped it slowly, tasting smoke and salt. Ten years of silence, ten years of careful concealment, and now the echoes were stirring again. Mira hadn’t spoken a word about me she didn’t even know who I really was but her presence, her pursuit, was shaking the fragile walls I had built.

I wrote a few lines in my own notebook, messy, almost desperate: The past isn’t done with me. It never will be. Someone is watching. Someone is asking. Someone will find out.

The fog pressed harder against the windows, and I realized I wasn’t sure I wanted it to stop.

Because if Mira uncovered the truth, if she saw what I had done, then the fire, the smoke, the screams everything I had buried would rise again.

And maybe, after ten years, it deserved to.