Into the Fall

by Tamara L. Miller

“Matthew,” she croaked. Her hand reached out beside her. An empty sleeping bag deflated under her touch. Months later, she will say she woke that morning to find her husband missing, but at her most vulnerable—when fear and loneliness creep in on sleepless nights—she’ll admit in those few moments, she knew Matthew was already lost to her.

Sarah had once said that life was better when you acted like a sapling in the wind, twisting and bending when needed, so that the roots stay strong and whole.

“They say the wendigo is a forest-dwelling spirit with the body of an oversize emaciated man and the skull of a stag. It’s not good or evil, though it does have a rather gruesome habit of hunting people. They say no matter how much it eats, it’s never satisfied, and so it’s always hunting. But the most fascinating bit of the legend is that the wendigo’s victims are cursed to become wendigo themselves, doomed to hunt the forests claiming more victims.”

Memory was a misplaced faith; we believed in our pasts only as far as we remembered them.

It was like that, grief. Dormant, but always ravenous, waking in its own time to steal away moments of contentment.

“Magical beliefs and superstitious behaviors allow people to reduce the tension created by uncertainty and help fill the void of the unknown.”

“The devil loves unspoken secrets. Especially those that fester in a man’s soul,”