Seems the fate of the father was not long enough, may the son repent for his sins.
The bell tower in Greyhollow hadn't rung in years.
Not since the river swallowed the chapel—and most of what James Whitlow had ever loved. Now, only the cracked stones remained, tangled in ivy, their holy purpose eroded by time and silence. Wind brushed over the hill like a whisper too afraid to speak his name.
James stood at the crest, shoulders hunched against the biting wind, staring down at the place where it had all ended. The town called it a natural disaster. The Lord, some said, had His reasons. But James knew better. Tragedy doesn't come from God—it comes from people. From choices made too late.
Below, the river flowed fast and dark, bloated from recent rains. He remembered that day like a burn that never cooled. Mara, laughing, running barefoot through the chapel ruins, light caught in her wild curls, calling him down to the bank. Daring him to let go.
He should have stopped her. Should have reached out, shouted, begged. But he had stood still. Like always.
Now, she was part of the river. And he—he was just a man trying to live with the sound of a bell that no longer rang.
"Sir?" a voice piped up behind him.
James turned slowly. A boy—maybe ten, maybe less—stood there with a frayed coat too thin for October, cheeks pink from wind, brown eyes filled with curiosity and something else: that small-town boldness born of knowing too little about what truly haunts a man.
"You're the one from the newspaper, ain't you?" the boy asked. "The one what wrote the letter?"
James said nothing for a moment. Then he gave a slow nod. "Yes. That was me."
The boy stepped closer, crunching frost beneath his feet. "They say you killed her."
It wasn't said with malice. Not even accusation. Just a fact a child had picked up like an old coin in the dirt.
James exhaled. The truth wasn't so clean. But it never is, in stories like this.
"She died," he said, "because I waited too long."
He didn't expect the boy to understand. He didn't expect forgiveness either.
The letter had gone out a month ago in the Greyhollow Ledger, folded between advertisements for hay feed and obituaries no one read. James had written it in the dead of night, fingers shaking, heart heavy with years of silence. It wasn't an admission, not exactly. Just a recounting. A way of saying: This happened. She was real. And I was there when she stopped being.
No one in town had said a word to his face. But the eyes followed. The whispers lingered at the corners of grocery aisles and post office lines.
He welcomed it. He deserved worse.
"I don't think you meant to," the boy said suddenly, his voice small now.
James looked at him. "No," he said. "But I did it anyway."
The boy nodded solemnly, as if he'd expected nothing more or less. "You think she forgives you?"
James considered that. He hadn't believed in heaven since Mara died. He hadn't believed in much of anything. But some nights, in that thin hour between waking and sleep, he swore he could hear her voice. Not angry. Not even sad. Just... distant. Like music played from the other side of a closed door.
"I don't know," James said. "But I hope so."
The boy looked out at the river. "She was pretty," he said. "My gran's got a picture of her in the old choir. Said she sang like water over stone."
James smiled, faintly. "That's exactly right."
He watched the boy a moment longer, then turned back to the path. "You best get home. Cold's setting in."
The boy hesitated. "You coming back tomorrow?"
James didn't answer. He didn't know.
Later, in the room he rented above the butcher's shop, James lit a fire he barely felt. He took out the notebook he hadn't touched since the letter. The first page still bore her name, carefully written in ink too steady for the heart it came from.
Mara Elise Whitlow. Born 1987. Died 2014.
But that wasn't the truth.
She had been born in laughter, in soft summer mornings and messy art projects, in the sound of her singing off-key just to make him laugh. She had died, not in 2014, but over and over again—each time he forgot her voice, or left a photo to gather dust.
And she died again the day he stood on that riverbank, too full of fear to reach her in time.
They were young. Barely twenty. Mara had dreams of teaching music, of running a summer camp for orphans. She had a light in her that James had always found blinding—and he, with all his silence and shadow, had no idea how to hold it without dimming it.
That day, the river had swelled with the rains. Everyone said stay away. Mara, full of defiance and joy, said, "One quick look. One song on the water."
James had followed. But when she slipped on the rocks and the current dragged her under, his feet froze. Like stone. Like sin.
And by the time the sheriff dragged her out a mile downstream, it was too late.
The fire cracked. James stared at it until his vision blurred. Then he stood, walked to the window, and looked out toward the hill.
The bell tower stood like a spine without a body, reaching for a sky that no longer answered.
He would go back tomorrow.
He would tell the boy more.
He would tell the truth, again and again, until maybe—just maybe—the bell would ring once more.
Even if only in his memory.