The box sat on her lap like a live animal.
Iris hadn't moved in hours, the photograph still rested in her hand, its edges warm from her fingers.
"You were my final match."
The words looped in her mind, slow and poisonous.
She didn't know the girl in the photo.
She's a pale brunette with a crooked smile, and with freckles like ash scattered across her cheeks.
But something in the eyes felt familiar, something like a reflection she couldn't place.
Iris set the photo on the desk and closed the box, not to lock it away, but to preserve the weight of it. It wasn't just a relic.
It was a warning.
She stood, pushed away from the desk, and moved through the house like someone afraid to wake it.
The hallway creaked beneath her feet, the paintings along the walls warping in the low light, faces blurred as smiles faded.
In the hallway closet, behind an old fur coat and a tower of warped umbrellas, Iris found the walking stick.
Not her mother's nor her grandmother's.
Knotted wood, carved with runes, it still smelled like cedar and rosewater.
Her mother used to tell stories about how her grandmother walked into the forest once a year, to "listen to the ground." Iris had assumed it was a metaphor.
But the house had already proven that metaphors had teeth.
She took the stick.
And then she went outside.
The woods wrapped around the house like a secret, with thick pine and cedar, branches swaying in the wind like whispers.
There was a path barely visible. Overgrown, but purposeful.
Iris followed it, she didn't know why though.
Just that the box had shifted something in her, turned the soil over.
She needed answers, and they weren't inside.
The further she walked, the quieter the forest became, as if it were waiting.
Then she saw it.
A match, embedded into the bark of a tree.
Clean and fresh.
Not burnt, the tag fluttered in the breeze.
L. Morrell — Oct 20, 2025
Today's date.
Iris froze for some seconds before reaching for the tag, and a strange heat coursed through her palm before she could even touch it.
She snatched her hand back.
"Don't," came a voice from behind her.
Iris spun, heart hammering.
A tall woman standing on the path behind her seemed to be in her early fifties dressed in black, with streaks of silver in her braid and a strange stillness in her posture.
Her hands were bare, no gloves on, no weapon but she radiated danger.
"Who are you?" Iris asked, the walking stick firm in her grip.
The woman stepped closer, into a shaft of amber light, her eyes caught the sun like flint.
"Lucinda Morrell," she said, "The woman whose match you nearly burned."
They sat on the old log bench beside the tree, neither of them speaking at first.
"I thought my mother sent the matches to people," Iris said finally and "Saved them."
"She did," Lucinda replied, "But only when the match burned."
"Then why is yours in the tree?"
Lucinda gave a tight smile. "Sometimes, people refuse their rescue."
Iris blinked.
"You refused her help?"
Lucinda nodded, "It wasn't the first time she offered, but it was also the last."
"I don't understand, why would anyone….."
"Because some of us know the cost," Lucinda interrupted.
"Every match she burned had a price, a soul traded and a thread cut short elsewhere to maintain the balance."
Iris felt the box in her mind opening again as the weight of it settled deeper.
"Why today?"
Lucinda looked up at the sky, "Because today, I changed my mind."
Silence stretched between them.
"I don't know how to burn it," Iris admitted.
Lucinda turned to her, "That's because you haven't chosen what to lose yet."
They walked back toward the house together, two shadows stretched by the lowering sun, Lucinda's stride being easy, unhurried.
"You look like her, you know," she said after a while.
"My mother?"
Lucinda nodded, "In the mouth the way you hold silence like a blade."
"She taught me that."
"She taught you many things," Lucinda said "But not all of them were gifts."
They reached the garden gate, Lucinda paused, her hand on the rusted latch.
"She never burned your match."
"No."
"She thought she might one day, but she couldn't do it."
"Why not?"
Lucinda tilted her head.
"Because she didn't know what the cost would be, and she wasn't willing to risk you."
Iris stood still, the air thickening around her.
"My mother… saved strangers," she said. "But not herself."
Lucinda opened the gate.
"Maybe, or maybe she always knew the match she'd burn would be yours.
And she wanted to delay that fire as long as she could."
And then she was gone.
That night, Iris lit a fire in the hearth.
Not a match from the box.
Just wood. Kindling. Flame.
But it made the house feel warmer. Less like a mausoleum.
She poured herself a drink from the old decanter on the sideboard, it was her mother's favorite brandy which she could only sip in silence.
Devon's match still sat on the table, so did her own, untouched.
Tomorrow was the 21st.
Six days until October 27th.
She pulled a notebook from the shelf and opened it.
Inside, in careful handwriting, her mother had cataloged each match she'd ever sent.
Notes on the recipient for the "event", the choiced exchange.
And something else, a column labeled: Witness
Iris skimmed at dozens of entries listed with the name "L. Morrell."
Lucinda hadn't just been a recipient, she'd helped her mother.
At midnight, Iris stepped outside one last time.
The moon hung low, veiled by smoke colored clouds, the woods whispered, but didn't beckon.
She didn't sleep.
The match with her name burned in her dreams was lit without her hand, devouring time.
When she woke, there were footprints on the kitchen floor.
Wet and fresh, but still no sign of Devon.
Only a new match, left beside the sink.
L. Morrell — (burned)
And beneath it, scribbled in ink she didn't recognize:
"Your turn."