The Fishing Trip
The sun was too hot for spring, pressing down like a punishment as the truck clattered over gravel and potholes. Jace laughed at nothing—something on the radio, maybe, or just the sound of his own chaos. His knuckles were bruised, his tattoos sun-bleached. He spit a sunflower seed out the window and said, “Fishing’ll make it right again, babe. Always does.”
Calla didn’t answer. Her stomach felt wrong. The kind of wrong that starts in the spirit and filters down into the bones. She used to know peace. Now it came in flashes, mostly when Jace was asleep and she could remember who she was. Before.
They pulled off near an overgrown bend of the river. Jace grabbed the gear, she opened the door—and the dog bolted.
“MaYah!” she shouted. “No! Baby, come back—”
But the big golden shepherd was already gone, crashing through cattails and into the brush. Calla stood frozen, gut twisted. That dog was all she had left from the time before. The time when she still dreamed of sacred things.
“Don’t worry, she’ll be back,” Jace muttered, but he didn’t mean it.
They fished for twenty minutes in silence. The air was dead. Nothing bit. Even the river seemed indifferent.
As they packed up, a figure appeared on the roadside—barefoot, wrapped in scarves despite the heat, eyes unreadable. A woman. A presence.
“Don’t get a flat tire,” she rasped, not even looking at them. Then she turned and vanished into the pines like mist.
Jace scoffed. “Freak show.”
Two minutes later, the front right tire burst like a shot. They pulled over. The back tire followed.
Calla didn’t speak. She watched the sky shift, felt a knowing rise in her chest like bile. This isn’t just bad luck. I’m not protected anymore.
By sunset, she was walking. Left Jace by the roadside, screaming at her disappearing silhouette. Left the truck, the busted tires, the dead fish bucket. Left the weight of spiritual compromise behind.
The road home was long. Quiet. Something inside her began to return.
Two weeks later, just before sunrise, she opened the cabin door to fetch water—and there was MaYah, skinny and wild-eyed but alive. Tail thumping weakly. Her own kind of resurrection.
Calla fell to her knees and wept.