Morning light reached Vale like an apology.
The River ran soft and clear again, carrying small ribbons of gold where salt had been. The town was quieter now — rebuilding, repainting, remembering. But peace, Leona knew, was never universal. Some souls still carried storms too private for the River to wash.
Caleb was one of them.
He hadn't been seen since the night forgiveness returned. The mill workers said he'd gone up to the cliffs before dawn; the children whispered that the River had called him by name. Only Leona knew where he truly was — the old boathouse at the river bend, where the water met its reflection like two halves of a wound.
She found him sitting on the pier, staring at the current. The morning sun threw his shadow long across the boards, but his face remained half in light, half in memory.
"You didn't come to the square," Leona said.
Caleb didn't turn. "I've stood in enough crowds that wanted saving."
"Didn't you want it, too?"
He gave a small, dry laugh. "What I wanted burned away years ago."
The River beneath the pier was calm, almost glass. When Leona looked down, she saw her reflection — and his, beside hers — but something was wrong. His reflection was moving when he wasn't.
She leaned closer. "Caleb…"
He finally looked down. The reflection's eyes blinked out of rhythm with his own.
"It's been doing that since morning," he said quietly. "I think the River's mocking me."
"It's showing you something."
"It's showing me everything I wish I hadn't done."
The reflection in the water straightened, independent now, its movements slow and deliberate. It turned its face toward Leona's and spoke — though the real Caleb's lips did not move.
Mercy forgot me.
Caleb flinched. "You hear it too?"
"Yes," Leona whispered. "But that's not mercy speaking. That's you."
The air thickened, the sunlight dimmed. The River's glow faded into dull pewter. Around them, the reeds bent without wind, bowing toward the water as if in witness.
Leona knelt beside him. "Tell me what you see."
Caleb's breath shook. "The night of the flood. Your mother's trial. I carried the council's orders. I opened the sluice gates. I didn't mean to drown anyone — I just wanted it to stop."
"The flood?"
"The truth," he said. "Your mother was right. I was supposed to destroy her notes. I couldn't, so I hid them instead. And when the River rose, it took my cowardice with it."
Leona closed her eyes, the realization cold and familiar. "You're the reason the ledger was missing all those years."
"I thought I was protecting her," he said, voice cracking. "But I was just protecting myself. And when they called her mad, I said nothing. That silence became my mirror."
He looked again into the water. His reflection stared back, but now its eyes glowed faintly — not accusation, not forgiveness. Recognition.
The River stirred. Small ripples broke the stillness, spreading outward from where his reflection stood. Then the image reached up — a hand breaching the surface, translucent, trembling.
Leona gasped. "Caleb, don't—"
But he did. He reached down and took its hand.
For a heartbeat, the world inverted. The water's surface lifted, shimmered, and swallowed half the sky. Light folded in on itself. Leona stumbled back as the reflection pulled him downward, not violently but inevitably, like gravity remembering something it had lent to the living.
"Caleb!" she screamed, plunging her arm into the current. The cold bit to the bone — but then, just as suddenly, the pull ceased. The water stilled. And he was standing beside her again, drenched, shivering — alive.
He looked at his hands, then at the River. "I saw her."
"Who?"
"Miriam Prescott," he whispered. "She was waiting behind the reflection. She didn't scold me. She just asked, 'Will you stop holding what the River already carried?'"
Leona steadied him. "And what did you say?"
He exhaled, a sound between relief and grief. "I said yes."
When the sunlight returned, the River had changed again. The surface was mirror-smooth, yet no reflections appeared at all — no sky, no faces, nothing. Just clear, empty light.
"It's blank," Jonas said when they told him later. "Like it's starting over."
Leona smiled faintly. "No. It's teaching us to look without expecting to see ourselves."
That evening, Caleb came to the cottage. The lamp burned low, its flame steady and warm. Miriam's portrait glowed faintly, her eyes softer than memory. He stood in silence before it for a long time.
"I never told you," he said at last. "The day your mother was taken, she gave me this."
He reached into his coat and drew out a small, folded page — yellowed, fragile, edges singed.
Leona opened it carefully. Inside, a single sentence written in Miriam's hand:
When the River forgives you, go and forgive the mirror.
Caleb laughed quietly. "I didn't know what she meant until today."
Leona looked at the portrait. "She always knew what words would outlive their timing."
He bowed his head. "Leona, I don't expect you to—"
She interrupted softly. "I already have."
He looked up, startled. "Just like that?"
"Just like water," she said. "It doesn't argue with gravity. It just keeps flowing."
Later that night, as Vale slept, Caleb returned to the pier. He brought no lantern this time, only the piece of paper in his pocket. The River shimmered faintly, no longer silver, no longer blue — something in between, like the color of a sigh.
He knelt and unfolded the page. The ink began to blur, not fading but dissolving, returning to the water molecule by molecule. The words vanished, but the meaning stayed.
For a moment, his reflection returned — smiling, whole, at peace.
He whispered, "Goodnight," and the River answered with a ripple that reached the far bank.
In the morning, Leona found him there, asleep against the railing, the page gone, his expression calm. The River ran soft again, carrying petals from somewhere upstream — pale, fragrant, like forgiveness traveling disguised.
She smiled and whispered, "Rest now, Caleb. The mirror remembers."
Then she lifted the lamp, its flame catching the River's glow, and turned toward the square. Another day was waiting to be painted.