The holler ran the way it always did.
Hogs rooted through the yard. Chickens scratched in the dirt. Bacon snored under the porch rail with one eye cracked open in case trouble wandered by. Goblin cousins roasted stolen marshmallows by the firepit, weaving tales of valor and rumor while someone somewhere inevitably set something on fire they weren’t supposed to.
From outside, nothing had changed. But Ma noticed things most folks didn’t. It started small.
Pa had always been a ghost in the holler. That part wasn’t new. He drifted in and out like a shadow with boots, tending to things no one else thought to notice. A sagging fence here. A storm snapped tree down by the ridge. A stubborn donkey that refused to be herded back where it belonged. The only person who saw him with any regularity was Ma.
Except lately, even she didn’t. Not exactly.
He still came through the cabin from time to time, mud on his boots and bark dust on his sleeves from whatever he’d been fixing outside. He’d grab a drink from the counter, glance through the window toward the fields, grumble something about a fence line or a stubborn animal, and head right back out again. He could be gone for days, but it was rarely more than a few days where she didn’t see him at all.
“Morning,” he’d say, already halfway to the door as Ma stumbled out of bed toward the coffee press.
“Morning,” Ma would answer, watching him disappear down the porch steps.
Nothing rude about it. Nothing specific she could point to. Just…thinner somehow.
Ma told herself not to read into it. This was his way. Pa had his compartments. Always had. When his mind was fixed on something – storm damage, fences needing mending, animals wandering where they shouldn’t – everything else faded to the background until that compartment closed again.
She knew that about him.
Still. Little pattern changes started adding up.
One afternoon she caught him on the porch as he was heading down toward the lower pasture, a hammer slung through his belt and a coil of wire over his shoulder.
“Fence post finally give up the ghost?” she asked.
“Storm snapped it clean,” he muttered, already stepping off the porch. “And I still need to split wood.”
Ma leaned against the rail a moment, watching him head down the slope.
“I might swing by later and join you for a bit,” she called after him.
He didn’t stop walking, just glanced back over his shoulder. “Sure. Drop by.”
Just like that. Ma blinked once, slow. That sounded more like polite accommodation than Pa’s usual “I’d love that.”
She didn’t say anything.
Just watched him keep walking until the trees swallowed him up.
Maybe he’s just preoccupied.
Maybe.
So Ma did what Ma always did when something in the holler felt off. She steadied things.
Ran the war maps. Sorted the attack scrolls. Made sure the cousins had their targets and enough sense not to blow up the barn while Pa was out wrestling fences, hay bales, and chasing animals back where they belonged.
He still passed through sometimes. Still brushed past her shoulder on his way out the door with a brief acknowledgement. But the warmth that used to settle into the cabin when he lingered had thinned to embers.
Not gone completely. Just quiet.
Ma told herself it didn’t matter. The holler had plenty to keep her busy.
Besides, Pa always came back around eventually. When outside work eased up. That’s how it worked.
Except sometime during that week, while Ma was keeping the war barn running and the cousins from running flame flingers into Uncle Kinxy’s old still at the edge of the woods, something else had started brewing quietly under her skin. A fever she didn’t know was coming.
By the time it arrived, the holler would start to notice something was wrong.
But by then, Pa had already missed the first signs.
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