The morning light slipped quietly through the linen curtains, painting the wooden floor in soft golden streaks. Ian stirred beneath the covers, nestled between Aria's tiny, outstretched arm and Theo's soft snore pressed against his shoulder. It took him a moment to remember where he was—not the cold expanse of his family estate, but the warm, breathing heart of the Calix home.
He rose carefully, not wanting to wake the children, and stepped into the small kitchen where the scent of rising dough and earth filled the air. Mira stood at the counter, her hands dusted with flour, kneading bread with a rhythm that seemed older than time.
"You're up early," she said gently, without turning.
"I... couldn't sleep much longer," Ian replied, his voice still gravelled from dreams.
Mira tore a piece of dough from the edge, shaped it quickly into a bun, and handed it to him with a soft smile. No questions, just kindness. He took it and stepped outside.
The garden was still wet with dew. Chickens rustled in the coop, the trees whispered with wind. Somewhere behind the barn, Noah called out to the horses. Ian sat beneath the apricot tree, the same one where the children had fallen asleep days ago, and opened the notebook he had carried all this way.
A faint crease in the paper led him back to a page he hadn't dared revisit. The letter.
If you're reading this, it means I'm gone.
Don't look for me. I don't know who I am anymore, and I'm tired of pretending I'm fine.
Maybe I never was. Maybe you never noticed.
The words hit him like a slap. His chest tightened, and the world around him blurred. He wondered if anyone even found it. Had Elina read it? Or did she tuck it away, silent, like everything else she refused to face? He could still picture her walking past him, never acknowledging his presence—like he was a ghost in his own home. The mansion was cold. The halls were empty. No one even noticed when he stopped asking for help.
His father's legacy—his inheritance—was a monument to everything he would never be. He had learned to scream silently, to press his face into a pillow when the weight of the world became too much, and no one came.
The pages of the letter had never been folded or torn, but it might as well have been a thousand miles away—untouched, unread, ignored. He didn't know if Elina ever saw it, if she ever cared enough to ask why. It was just another silent corner of his life. A last attempt to be seen.
A gust of wind moved through the branches above, scattering petals like ash. Ian shut the notebook and sat back against the trunk, watching Aria chase butterflies beyond the fence. The wind carried the scent of the garden and the distant sound of Noah's voice calling to the horses. His thoughts, though, lingered.
The pain of the mansion, the echoes of fire—the memories of a life that had always been someone else's, far away, too distant to touch—seemed to rise again, out of nowhere.
By the time the sun began to dip behind the hills, the shout echoed across the village, pulling him back to reality. Smoke curled above one of the distant barns—old William's place.
By the time they arrived, flames had already chewed through the roof. Villagers worked fast, passing buckets, shouting directions. Ian stood frozen, watching the fire hiss and spit, his breath caught in his throat.
It felt too familiar.
He heard a faint ringing, like the echo of a memory, a distant scream—like the sound of fire consuming something important, something that could never be replaced. He was no longer in Willowmere. He was back in the marble halls of his father's mansion, staring at the emptiness of a boyhood room as voices screamed elsewhere—about business, about inheritance, never about him.
His knees gave slightly. Noah caught him, his hand firm but comforting on his shoulder.
"Ian," he said, voice low and steady. "You're okay. It's not your fire."
But Ian couldn't look away. He could feel the heat from the flames in his chest. The embers burned like memories long buried.
"When everything burned down back home," Ian whispered, barely breathing, "no one even asked if I was okay. I kept screaming inside, and no one heard me. I kept begging for someone to notice… and nothing changed."
Noah said nothing. He simply placed a steady hand on Ian's shoulder, holding him there in the warmth of the flames that weren't his.
Later, after the fire was put out and the smoke cleared, the villagers gathered in the town square. They brought food, tools, blankets. Not to mourn, but to rebuild. Ian stood on the edges, unsure, until Mira came to him silently and pressed a hammer into his hand.
Theo tugged his shirt and held out a daisy he'd found by the path. Ian crouched and took it with trembling fingers. The simple gesture made something in his chest unclench, just a little.
No one said he didn't belong.
That night, under the stars, they ate simple stew and fresh bread, baked in the ashes of loss. Children laughed, elders told stories, and lanterns glowed like fireflies.
Ian sat with them. He didn't speak much. He didn't need to.
And when he finally returned to the Calix house, he went to bed alone for the first time in days. But he left the window open, just a crack, to let the breeze and laughter find him.
He picked up his notebook and wrote slowly:
I still don't know where I belong. But maybe... I've found a place to start looking.
And in the stillness of this garden, the stranger wasn't so strange after all. The flames, the past—they were still there, lingering in the distance, but they no longer held him captive. Not tonight. Tonight, the weight of the world felt a little lighter.