Maya didn't remember dropping the shoe, but it now lay at her feet, half-soaked by the damp earth. Her hands trembled as she wiped them on her coat, her mother's voice still ringing in her ears like a whisper trapped in time.
You were supposed to protect her.
The words clung to her like wet fog, impossible to shake.
She took a slow breath and looked around. No more footsteps. No more movement. Whoever the man was—and whoever had screamed—they were gone.
But something was still here.
She felt it. Watching. Waiting.
Maya pulled out her phone, fingers stiff from the cold, and dialed 911.
The operator answered quickly. "Harrowfield Emergency Dispatch, what's your location?"
"I'm on the cemetery trail near Deurali Ridge. I think—I think a little girl was just kidnapped," she said, her voice shaking. "I saw a man dragging someone. A child. She screamed."
There was a pause, then a shift in tone. "Police are already en route to the area. Someone else called in a scream about ten minutes ago. Are you safe?"
"Yes. But I found her shoe."
"Stay where you are, ma'am. Officers are approaching. Can you see them?"
Maya turned slowly, but the mist had thickened, swallowing the trail behind her. The way back was gone. She couldn't even see the gate.
"No," she whispered. "I can't see anything."
Another snap of a branch. This time to her right.
She spun toward the sound, phone still at her ear. "I think he's still out here," she breathed.
Then—a flicker.
A shape in the mist. Not the man. Not a child.
A woman.
She stood barely visible between two pine trees. White dress, hair like dark silk across her shoulders, face pale as moonlight.
"Maya," the woman said.
Maya's legs buckled. The phone slipped from her hand.
It wasn't just her mother's voice.
It was her mother.
Exactly as she had looked in the hospital bed the last day Maya saw her—except now, impossibly, she was whole. Standing. Smiling, just slightly.
"No," Maya whispered. "You're not real."
But the woman stepped closer, the leaves not rustling under her feet. "She's not the first, Maya. And she won't be the last."
"What are you talking about?" Her breath came in gasps now.
"Deurali doesn't forget. It waits," her mother said. "Like it waited for you."
And just as quickly as she'd appeared, the figure vanished into the fog.
The wail of sirens broke through the trees, and flashlight beams began to flicker through the mist. Maya fell to her knees, gasping, as two uniformed officers reached her.
"Ma'am? Are you injured?"
"No," she said hoarsely. "But someone was taken. A little girl. And something else... was here."
One officer gently lifted her up. "We'll need a statement. Come on, let's get you back."
As they led her toward the patrol car, Maya glanced back at the shoe. It was gone.
Just like the voice.
Just like the girl.