The first time I saw Rivenmoor, it looked like someone had dragged a highlighter of fog across the world and forgotten to lift their hand.
White rolled over the two-lane highway in thick, slow waves, swallowing the pines and the ditch and the horizon. The GPS on my dash glitched between HERE and LOST, recalculating every thirty seconds like it was having a nervous breakdown. I cracked my window anyway. Damp air slid in, cool and metallic, tinged with something old—river water and rust and wet stone.
"Welcome to Rivenmoor," I muttered to myself. "Where visibility is optional."
My phone vibrated in the cup holder. I fumbled for it without taking my eyes off the vague suggestion of asphalt ahead. Unknown local number.
"Hailey Ross," I answered, voice automatically professional.
"You close?" The woman on the other end sounded like she'd smoked every day since birth and judged anyone who hadn't. Sharp, edged, local.
"Uh—" I glanced at the dash. "About ten minutes out. I think. If I don't drive straight into the river first."
She snorted. "If you hit water, you went past the town. And broke the first rule." Papers rustled. "Margery Cole. Dispatch supervisor. I like my medics alive and on time. You hit the Old Bridge yet?"
The fog thinned just enough to reveal a darker shape ahead. Stone, arched, hunched over a smear of black water. Iron rails, eaten by rust, ran along either side like cauterized veins. A weather-beaten sign leaned on one crooked post: OLD RIVEN BRIDGE. WEIGHT LIMIT: 3 TONS. DO NOT STOP.
I swallowed. "I'm looking at it."
"Then listen close, city girl." Her voice went flat, ritualistic. "Never cross the Old Bridge after sunset."
I laughed, because if I didn't, I'd have to acknowledge the way my skin tightened. "Is that a weight limit thing or a troll thing?"
"It's a you-stay-breathing thing," she snapped. "Never cross after sunset, and never answer a knock at your window at night. You hear me? I don't care if it's God, the Pope, or Santa Claus. You keep that glass between you and whatever's outside."
The fog breathed around the car, whisper-soft, licking at the cracked rubber of my wipers. My hand, traitor that it was, rose to touch the inside of the driver's side window, fingertips pressing to the cool glass.
The chill shot straight to my spine.
"Copy," I said, shaking it off. "Don't cross the bridge after dark, don't open my window to strangers. Got it."
Margery exhaled, a rasp that sounded like relief and annoyance tangled together. "Orientation's at the station. Your partner's already here." A pause. "He doesn't like to wait."
"Then it's good I'm almost there." I forced brightness into my tone. "Looking forward to meeting everyone."
Her response was a low, disbelieving hum. "We'll see if you're still saying that in a week."
The call cut off.
I nudged the accelerator, rolling onto the bridge. The tires changed tone, humming differently over ancient stone. The river below was a black wound, the fog roiling up from it thicker, colder. Goosebumps rose along my arms beneath my hoodie.
For a heartbeat—just one—I had the wild, disorienting sensation that I'd done this before.
Not in the way everyone has "I've driven over a bridge before" memories. No. This was sharper. A visceral registration in my body, like a muscle remembering a motion my brain had scrubbed out. The acrid tang of iron on my tongue. The weird, rubbery feel of blood cooling on my skin. A voice—male, raw—shouting my name from somewhere behind me.
