Chapter 7.5 – Green Rain, Leah
It started with the light.
Not sunlight—nothing that warm. This was thinner, sharper. A fluorescent green that seeped through the edges of my cabin, pooling across the floorboards like watered-down paint. For a moment, I just sat there, chisel in hand, watching it settle over everything I’d been working on.
It changed the sculpture.
Not physically—but the color of it, the feeling. The shadows bent wrong. The grain of the wood looked almost alive, like it might keep growing if I looked away too long.
I stepped outside.
The forest had… shifted.
Not replaced. Not destroyed. Just pushed further than it should’ve been.
Moss swallowed the path in thick, velvety patches. Weeds forced their way between stones like they’d been waiting for permission. Saplings stood where there had been empty space yesterday—thin, pale things, stretching upward too fast, too eager.
And the rain—
It fell softly. Gently. Almost beautifully.
Green, faintly luminous, threading through the canopy in slow, steady lines. It reminded me of glaze running down a finished piece—controlled at first glance, but unpredictable if you looked too closely.
I tilted my head back and let a few drops land on my sleeve.
The air smelled sharp. Not unpleasant. Just… unfamiliar. Like something clean that hadn’t decided what it wanted to be yet.
Dangerous?
Maybe.
But it didn’t feel hostile.
My TV flickered behind me, green static swallowing whatever signal had been there before. Useless.
So I grabbed my jacket and stepped off the porch.
If something was happening, I didn’t want to watch it through a screen anyway.
Eric was probably already in town. Running tests. Asking questions. Trying to pin this down into something measurable.
I wasn’t.
I just walked.
The forest was quieter than usual—not empty, just… listening. Like everything had paused to see what would happen next.
It felt strange without him out here.
No footsteps cutting through the undergrowth. No restless energy pushing against the stillness, trying to fix something that didn’t want to be fixed.
Just the rain.
And the feeling that the forest didn’t need anyone to understand it.
The ranch looked smaller than usual.
Not physically—but the way the green light pressed in through the windows made everything feel… contained. Like the walls were holding something back.
I knocked.
There was a pause. Then the door creaked open just enough for Marnie to peek through.
“Oh… Leah,” she said, relief slipping into her voice. “Come in.”
Inside, the air felt heavy.
Jas was curled up on the couch, face buried in her sleeves, shoulders shaking. Shane sat nearby, slouched in his chair, staring at nothing in particular. Not drunk. Just… absent.
Marnie closed the door behind me with a soft click.
“We thought Eric might come by,” she said, almost apologetically. “He usually checks in.”
I shrugged lightly, slipping off my jacket.
“He’s probably already in town,” I said. “Running around, trying to make sense of it.”
I didn’t add anything else.
Marnie gave a small nod, like that lined up with what she expected.
“Well… I’m glad you came,” she said. “At least we know it’s not immediately dangerous, if you made it out here.”
“Doesn’t feel dangerous,” I replied. “Just… off.”
My eyes drifted toward Shane.
He let out a quiet scoff, still not looking at anyone.
“Hey, at least I don’t have to deal with Morris today,” he muttered. “That’s something.”
I leaned against the wall, folding my arms.
“You get time off, or did the world just finally give up trying to schedule you?” I asked.
He glanced at me then, just briefly.
“…Bit of both,” he said. “Things’ve been quieter lately.”
Quieter.
That was one way to put it.
He shifted in his seat.
“Honestly,” he added, scratching the back of his neck, “not dealing with… all that relationship stuff anymore? Kinda helps.”
Not quite looking at me. Not quite saying her name.
I let out a small breath through my nose.
“Yeah,” I said flatly. “I’m sure it does.”
The Flower Festival flashed through my mind—Emily’s face, the way she tried to hold it together.
I didn’t push it.
Didn’t need to.
Some people already knew what they’d done. They just chose not to sit with it.
My gaze flicked toward Marnie.
She looked exhausted.
Not just today—just… in general. Like she’d been holding too many things together for too long, and no one had noticed because she was good at it.
And Shane—
Still here. Still leaning on her like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I looked away.
“I-I’m scared,” Jas whimpered suddenly, her voice small and breaking. “What’s going to happen to Vincent? Or Miss Penny?”
That cut through everything.
Marnie crossed the room immediately, sitting beside her, pulling her close.
“Hey… hey, it’s alright,” she murmured, though her voice wavered. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
I crouched down in front of them, lowering myself to Jas’s level.
“Hey,” I said gently. “How about this—I’ll go check on them, alright?”
She looked up at me, eyes red.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I said, offering a small smile. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”
That seemed to steady her, just a little.
I stood, grabbing my jacket again.
“Leah,” Marnie called after me.
I paused at the door.
“I heard something about the air,” she said. “Ammonia, or… something like that. Just—be careful, alright?”
I nodded.
“I will.”
I stepped back outside into the green-tinted rain.
The climb up to the mountains felt different today.
Not quieter—just… wrong.
The rain didn’t fall so much as
settle, clinging to wood and stone like a glaze. The trees looked heavier for it, their branches sagging under a color they weren’t meant to carry. Even the path felt softer, like it might give way if I stood still too long.
Robin’s shop came into view through the haze.
Inside, the light was… broken.
Half the room flickered in uneven pulses, tools and lumber flashing in and out of existence. The other half sat in a dull, unmoving shadow. It looked less like a workshop and more like a stage someone forgot to finish lighting.
I stepped in.
“Robin?”
No answer.
The place felt abandoned—but not empty. Like people had just moved out of sight.
I headed downstairs.
They were all there.
Robin, Maru, and Sebastian—clustered together in a space that suddenly felt too small for all of them.
“Leah?” Robin said, startled.
“Yeah… it’s me.”
Relief hit her first.
Then anger.
“Leah, it’s not safe to go out like this,” she snapped. “Do you realize you’re putting yourself in serious danger?”
I hesitated.
Robin was always warm. Open. The kind of person who made space for others without thinking about it.
But fear carved that warmth into something sharp.
“I just wanted to check on you,” I said, glancing at Maru and Sebastian. They avoided my eyes, trading quiet looks between themselves. “See if you were okay.”
Robin let out a short, strained breath.
“We’re
fine,” she said quickly. “But are you? Because my husband ran off into that”—she gestured upward, toward the green-lit ceiling—“to collect samples, and he hasn’t come back.”
I groaned.
“…Yeah. That sounds like him.”
Her hands started shaking.
“That man is unbelievable,” she said, voice tightening. “Why does it always have to be
now? We don’t even know if this rain is dangerous!”
Maru stepped in first, gently taking one of her arms. Sebastian followed, quieter, grounding her from the other side.
I took a step back.
Not because I didn’t care—
But because this wasn’t something I could shape or smooth out.
“H-hey…” I said, a little more tentative now. “If you want, I can go look for him.”
Robin didn’t answer.
Didn’t even look at me.
Her focus had already snapped somewhere else—fear turning inward, spiraling.
That was enough.
I left before I could become part of it.
Her voice followed me up the stairs—sharper now, breaking—but I didn’t stay long enough to hear the words.
Outside, the mountain air felt thicker.
Not suffocating—just
crowded.
Moss had swallowed the edges of the path, creeping over stone like it had been waiting for permission. Weeds split through cracks that hadn’t been there yesterday. The whole place felt like it was expanding without direction.
I pulled out my scythe and cut through what blocked my way, more out of habit than urgency. The motion was familiar—clean, controlled. I gathered what I could without really thinking about it.
At least some things still made sense.
Linus stood near his tent, exactly where I expected him to be.
Unmoved.
“Hey, Linus,” I called.
“Ah… it’s you,” he said, calm as ever. “You don’t come by often.”
“Yeah. I’m usually working,” I said, turning once just to catch how the green light moved across the trees. It shifted like paint in water. “This weather’s strange, though. Mostly harmless… I think.”
A pause.
“You seen Eric?”
Linus shook his head.
“No. I haven’t.”
That made me stop.
“…Really?”
I frowned slightly, glancing toward the mine path.
“He usually checks on you first. Before anything else.”
“Yes,” Linus said simply. “But not today.”
That settled somewhere uncomfortable.
I looked out past the trees, trying to place where he
would be if not here.
“…Huh.”
Before I could think too hard about it, a voice cut through.
“He’s likely in town. Assessing the situation.”
I turned.
Demetrius stepped out from behind a tree, sealed inside a hazmat suit that made him look less like a person and more like part of the problem.
“Oh,” I muttered. “It’s you.”
“Leah,” he replied evenly. “I didn’t expect to see you out here. Were you looking for Robin?”
“…Yeah,” I said. “She’s worried sick. She told me to find you.”
He sighed.
Not apologetic.
Annoyed.
“I’m in the middle of collecting samples,” he said. “This is a rare environmental event. Possibly unprecedented. I need to document it while conditions are stable.”
I stared at him.
“…She thinks something happened to you.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, already half-turned away. “Just let her know that.”
Something in my chest tightened.
“No,” I said. “You can tell her that yourself.”
A beat.
“She’s scared,” I continued, sharper now. “Not curious. Not interested in your data. Scared.”
He didn’t respond.
Didn’t turn back.
Just adjusted something on his equipment.
That was it.
That was his answer.
My grip tightened around the handle of my scythe.
“You’re unbelievable,” I said under my breath.
Still nothing.
I let out a short, frustrated breath and turned away, cutting back through the overgrowth harder than I needed to this time.
The forest thinned ahead.
But the feeling didn’t.
Eric’s farm came into view slowly—emerging through the green haze like a painting left out in the rain.
At first, it looked… composed.
Not untouched—no, the rain had gotten here too—but there was structure beneath the overgrowth. Rows. Intention. Care that hadn’t been fully erased.
I stepped closer, boots brushing through damp weeds that had no business growing this fast.
Melons swelled on their vines, heavy and striped, not quite ready but close enough to promise sweetness. Blueberries clustered low, deepening in color. Tomatoes hung firm and green, while peppers caught the strange light and gleamed like lacquered glass.
“Prepared ahead of time…” I murmured.
Of course he was.
Corn stood taller than the rest, already pushing upward with quiet certainty.
“Fall harvest,” I added under my breath.
Even now, even with the sky turned wrong and the forest rewriting itself, he’d planned past it.
That was just like him.
Between the rows, I spotted scattered forage—spice berries tucked into the edges, wild grapes creeping along the margins, sweet peas stubbornly threading their way through cultivated soil.
It wasn’t chaotic.
It was… layered.
Like the land hadn’t decided whether to belong to him—or to itself.
My eyes drifted to the side of the field.
The orange sapling stood there.
Small. Still young. Not yet bearing fruit.
And struggling.
Weeds had overtaken the soil around it, thick and invasive, pressing in from every direction. Some had even curled inward, crowding the base of the trunk like they were trying to claim it.
I crouched slightly, studying it.
“…You didn’t get to this yet, did you?” I said quietly.
It wasn’t neglect.
It was timing.
There’s always that point in a piece—when you know exactly what needs to be done next, but you haven’t done it yet. Not because you don’t care.
But because something else pulled you away.
I straightened slowly, brushing my hands against my jacket.
The whole farm felt like that.
Mid-process.
Held between intention and interruption.
Alive—but waiting.
For him.
I walked up to the house.
For a second, I considered turning back.
This wasn’t my place. Not really.
But my hand lifted anyway, and I knocked.
The sound felt too loud against the quiet.
I waited.
Nothing.
Just the soft, steady tapping of green rain against wood and leaves.
I tried again. Lighter this time.
Still nothing.
I lingered there longer than I meant to.
Like if I stood still enough, the door might open anyway. Like I’d just missed him by a few seconds. Like he’d come jogging up the path, out of breath, already apologizing, already explaining.
That’s how it happens in stories.
But the door stayed closed.
The farm stayed still.
And the space where he should’ve been… didn’t change.
I exhaled slowly, something tight in my chest loosening just enough to hurt.
“…Right,” I muttered.
Of course.
I stepped back from the porch, my gaze drifting once more across the fields.
Everything here had his mark on it.
Every row. Every choice. Every small, deliberate act of care.
And yet—
He wasn’t.
I turned away before I could think too much about that.
“Damn it, Eric…” I said under my breath.
The words didn’t come out angry.
Just… late.
My eyes flicked once toward the road leading back to town.
Toward the Saloon.
Toward her.
“…Emily really did get to you first.”
The thought settled quietly.
Not bitter. Not surprised.
Just… something I should’ve understood sooner.
I adjusted my jacket and started back toward the forest, the green light swallowing the farm behind me piece by piece.
I was halfway back toward my cabin when I saw him.
A figure stood motionless between the trees, where the forest thinned just enough for the green light to settle without obstruction.
Not walking. Not waiting. Just… there.
“The Wizard?” I muttered.
He didn’t look like he belonged in the rain.
Everything else had changed—warped, overgrown, softened by the strange light.
He hadn’t.
Curiosity won. It always does.
“Hey,” I called, stepping closer. “What are you doing out here?”
“Hm.”
He turned slowly, like the motion had already happened somewhere else before reaching his body.
“You should not be wandering in this weather,” he said.
His voice wasn’t loud.
It didn’t need to be.
“Well, I am anyway,” I replied, crossing my arms slightly. “This is where I live.”
That seemed to interest him.
Not the words.
The
fact of it.
He studied me—not my face, but… something behind it. Like he was trying to place me in a pattern I hadn’t agreed to be part of.
Up close, he felt taller than he should’ve been.
Not physically.
Just… present.
“I see,” he said at last. “Then perhaps we are alike.”
“…That’s a stretch,” I muttered.
The thought had been sitting with me all day, tugging at the edges of things I didn’t fully understand.
So I asked it.
“I saw Eric head to your tower once. Early on. Did you invite him?”
The Wizard didn’t answer immediately.
He watched me in that same distant way, like he was deciding how much I was allowed to know.
“…Yes,” he said finally. “There were disturbances within the Community Center. An imbalance. I investigated and determined that Eric possessed the necessary disposition to intervene.”
I frowned.
“Intervene how?”
“To restore what was neglected,” he said. “To reestablish connection between land and spirit. To honor those who still remain unseen.”
A pause.
“The Junimos,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
That… clarified nothing.
“That’s a lot to drop on someone,” I said. “You don’t exactly ease people into things, do you?”
He inclined his head slightly.
“Some individuals are not meant to be eased,” he replied. “They are meant to respond.”
I let out a small breath through my nose.
“Yeah. That sounds like him.”
That part, at least, made sense.
Then his gaze shifted back to me.
Sharper now.
“You are different.”
I stiffened slightly. “How so?”
“You observe,” he said. “But you do not engage. You shape—but do not claim. You remain… adjacent.”
Something in that phrasing pressed uncomfortably close.
“I live how I want,” I said. “I make things. That’s enough for me.”
“For now,” he said.
That annoyed me more than it should have.
“You got a problem with that?”
“No.”
He said it plainly.
“No one is required to act before they are ready. But many mistake stillness for certainty.”
That lingered.
I didn’t like it.
“Most people in this valley feel the shift,” he continued. “They fear what approaches. The Governor. The rituals. The deep places beneath the earth.”
His eyes flicked toward the mountains.
“Even now, the mines stir.”
I crossed my arms tighter.
“And I’m supposed to care about that?”
“You will,” he said.
Not a threat. Not a warning. Just… a statement.
“How do you even know what I care about?” I asked.
“You have not attended gatherings,” he said. “You have not followed the disturbances. You have not asked what lies beneath your feet.”
His voice softened slightly.
“But you will.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t do politics. I don’t do… whatever this is,” I said, gesturing vaguely at him, the forest, the glowing sky. “I make art. That’s enough.”
He closed his eyes.
For a moment, the rain seemed to quiet around him.
“One does not choose what becomes theirs to defend,” he said. “Only whether they recognize it in time.”
That hit harder than I expected.
I didn’t respond.
Didn’t have anything to respond
with.
When I looked up again—
He was gone.
No footsteps. No movement.
Just empty space where he’d been standing.
I exhaled slowly, the forest pressing back in around me.
“…Right,” I muttered.
The path home suddenly felt longer than it had before.
I returned to my cabin soaked in green.
The rain had worked its way into everything—my jacket, my hair, the seams of my sleeves. Even after I washed it off, I could still feel it lingering, like a thin film I hadn’t quite scrubbed away.
I stood there for a moment after, listening.
The forest had gone still again.
Not empty.
Just… finished.
“God,” I muttered softly. “What a mess.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed, then let myself fall back, staring up at the ceiling where faint shadows from the trees shifted in slow, uneven patterns.
The Wizard’s words lingered longer than I wanted them to.
The way he spoke about the valley—like it was already arranged. Like everyone had a place, a direction, an outcome.
Robin. Marnie. Linus. Demetrius.
Pieces.
Moving.
To me, they weren’t anything like that.
They were loud. Complicated. Inconsistent.
Human.
I preferred it that way.
…
And then there was Eric.
That was where things stopped feeling simple.
I closed my eyes.
I could still see it clearly—the first time he showed up at my cabin.
Not by invitation.
By collapse.
He’d pushed himself too far again—angry, worn down, carrying something he didn’t know how to set down. I didn’t ask him to explain it. I didn’t need to.
I just let him sit.
Let him breathe.
Let the storm pass through him instead of fighting it.
For a little while… it worked.
He softened.
Not fixed.
But quieter.
Like something in him had finally stopped bracing.
And then—
I sent him away.
To Emily.
At the time, it felt right.
Obvious, even.
She was brighter. Warmer. Better at holding people together when they started to fall apart.
I told myself he needed that more than anything I could give.
…
I exhaled slowly.
“I should’ve…” I started, then stopped.
No.
That wasn’t true.
I
could have.
I just didn’t.
I turned my head slightly, watching the shadows shift across the ceiling.
I live alone out here.
I sculpt. I walk. I let days pass without needing to explain myself to anyone.
Sometimes I visit Marnie.
Sometimes I drink with Elliott.
And sometimes—
I let things almost become something more.
Elliott was easy, in his own way.
Soft words. Long conversations. The kind of romance that feels like it belongs in a book more than in real life.
We had… moments.
Out by the sea. In his cabin. Late enough that everything felt a little more meaningful than it probably was.
Comfort without weight.
Connection without direction.
I never had to choose anything.
And neither did he.
…
I told myself I liked it that way.
Safe.
Contained.
Temporary.
My fingers traced lightly against the blanket beside me.
Still—
There were moments, after I left, when the quiet felt different.
Not peaceful.
Just… unfinished.
…
Kel was different.
Or at least, I thought he was.
I didn’t notice when things started to shift. Not at first.
It wasn’t loud.
Just small absences. Half-answers. The way conversations stopped connecting where they used to.
And then—
A name.
Nancy.
It shouldn’t have meant anything.
But it did.
I asked him about it.
He brushed it off.
Too quickly.
“Just someone I met. It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
Don’t worry.
Like that solved anything.
Like I was supposed to just… step back from the question and pretend it hadn’t been asked.
I think that was the moment.
Not when things ended.
But when they stopped being real.
…
I shifted slightly on the bed, the quiet settling in again.
I’ve always been good at leaving things where they are.
Not pushing.
Not claiming.
Letting them exist as they are instead of asking what they could be.
It makes life simpler.
Cleaner.
Less likely to break.
…
But it also means—
Sometimes you look back and realize something passed you by.
Not because it disappeared.
But because you never reached for it in the first place.
…
Eric didn’t feel like Elliott.
He didn’t feel like Kel.
There was no performance to him. No distance. No quiet pulling away.
He was messy. Driven. Too intense for his own good.
But real.
Solid in a way that didn’t shift the moment you looked too closely.
Not excitement.
Not escape.
Something steadier.
Something that could’ve stayed.
…
I stared up at the ceiling again, the shadows blurring slightly.
He never came back.
Not after that night.
Not after I let him go.
I could picture exactly where he would be right now.
In town. In the middle of it.
Trying to hold everything together like he always does.
And her—
standing right there, not letting him carry it alone.
…
“Eric…” I whispered.
The name felt quieter than I expected.
“You could’ve come back.”
A pause.
Then, softer—
“I would’ve let you stay.”
The forest didn’t answer.
It never does.
Outside, the rain had stopped, but the green still lingered, clinging to the edges of things that weren’t meant to hold it.
The forest is beautiful when it’s quiet.
I’ve always believed that.
…
But tonight—
It felt like something was missing.
And for once, I knew exactly what it was.
