Later that night, Elia returned home, the glass umbrella still in her hand. It hadn't stopped raining. Not once.
She examined the object under lamplight—its canopy shimmered not with reflections, but with moving images. A boy running through a sunflower field. A train sliding backward through snow. A woman, crying, holding a red stone. None of it made sense.
Until she saw him again.
In the reflection of the umbrella: the man in the green coat. Standing in her hallway.
She turned—nothing there.
But when she looked again, his reflection remained.
He raised his hand. Not a wave. A gesture. One finger pointed upward.
She followed the movement. Above her doorframe, carved faintly into the wood, was a symbol she had never noticed: a circle with a thread unraveling.
As soon as she saw it, her head swam.
The umbrella hummed softly in her hands.
And the man smiled.