Chapter 1: The Weight of Ghosts

Chapter 1: The Weight of Ghosts

The red clay of the reservation clung to Ethan’s expensive city loafers like a stubborn accusation. Thirteen years. Thirteen years since he’d fled this oppressive quiet, trading the scent of sage and dust for the sterile perfume of concrete and ambition. Now, the funeral of his grandmother, the family’s stoic anchor, had dragged him back.

The last of the mourners had drifted away, their low murmurs swallowed by the vast, indifferent sky. All that remained were the two of them, standing in the long shadows of the setting sun, a silence stretching between them as wide and deep as the years of their estrangement.

Tomas, my brother. The thought was a foreign object in Ethan’s mind. He looked nothing like the lanky teenager Ethan had left behind. Years of wrenching on engines had thickened his frame, grounding him in a way Ethan, with his runner’s build, had never been. His hands, stained with oil that no soap could fully scrub away, were resting at his sides, looking both powerful and tired.

“She’s at peace,” Tomas said, his voice a low rumble, breaking the stillness. It wasn't a platitude; it was a statement of fact, a truth he held as surely as he held the small leather pouch of tobacco and sage that Ethan knew was in his pocket.

“Is she?” Ethan’s reply was sharper than he intended, the cynical smirk he used as a shield in his corporate life slipping effortlessly onto his face. “Or is she just gone?”

Tomas’s gaze, steady and weary, met his. “They’re not the same thing, Ethan.”

And there it was. The old chasm, opening at their feet. It was never just about their grandmother. It was always, ultimately, about S. Their sister. The ghost that haunted the space between every word they’d ever spoken since that day.

“You’re leaving in the morning,” Tomas stated, not a question.

“First light,” Ethan confirmed, jamming his hands into the pockets of his tailored slacks. He wanted nothing more than to feel the asphalt of the interstate under his tires, to put this place, with its heavy memories and heavier silences, in his rearview mirror. He desired escape, a return to a world governed by data and logic, where ghosts couldn’t touch him.

“You can’t just come for the funeral and run again,” Tomas said, his jaw tightening. He was the obstacle, as solid and unmoving as the ancient hills behind him. “You didn’t even look at her things. At S’s things.”

The name landed like a punch to the gut. S. Not Sarah, not even Sis. Just the single, sharp initial, the way they’d always called her. The memory was immediate, visceral: a gap-toothed grin, skinned knees, and a voice full of stories about the things that lived in the rocks and the trees.

“There’s nothing to see,” Ethan said, his voice turning cold, a defense mechanism kicking in. “I know what happened to her.”

“No,” Tomas countered, taking a step closer. The air crackled. “You know what you told yourself happened. You left. You read your books, you looked at your charts, and you decided it was all simple. A drifter, a kidnapper. Something you could put in a neat little box.”

“It’s the only explanation that makes sense!” Ethan’s voice rose, the carefully constructed calm of his city life shattering. “A little girl doesn’t just vanish from a cave she’s played in a hundred times. Not without help. FBI profilers, statistics—it all points to a human predator.” He was acting now, taking refuge in the cold, hard facts he clung to. This was his territory.

“You’re still not listening,” Tomas breathed, a profound sadness in his eyes. “You never listened. S tried to tell us. She said the whispers were getting louder. She said they didn’t like us playing in their home anymore.”

“Oh, here we go,” Ethan scoffed, turning away to pace, the red dust puffing up around his pristine shoes. “The Little People. The Pukwudgies. Ancient spirits who steal children. You can’t be serious, T. We’re not kids anymore, telling ghost stories around a fire.”

“It’s not a story!” Tomas’s voice was suddenly thunderous, shocking Ethan with its raw power. “It’s our way. It’s what Grandma taught us. Respect the land, respect the spirits that were here before us. S forgot. She took that rock, that pretty, shiny stone from their deepest chamber. She disrespected them. And they took her as payment.”

Ethan froze, turning back to face his brother. He saw no hint of doubt in Tomas’s face, only the unshakeable certainty of faith. And in that certainty, Ethan saw a different kind of monster: superstition, ignorance, the very things he had built his life to oppose. His guilt, the deep, ugly thing he ran from every morning on the city pavement, began to churn. He and Tomas had been there that day. They had laughed at S when she said the cave felt wrong, when she’d clutched her stolen rock and talked about angry whispers. They’d called her a baby.

“That’s insane,” Ethan spat, the words tasting like acid. “It’s a fantasy. A convenient myth to explain away a tragedy you can’t handle.”

“And your version is better?” Tomas shot back, his voice dropping to a dangerous low. “A world where any random monster can snatch a child, and there’s nothing, no reason, no why to it? My belief gives her a place. She is with them. Your ‘logic’ leaves her in a ditch somewhere, food for coyotes. You dishonor her memory by refusing to see the truth, just because it doesn’t fit into your new, white-collar world.”

That was it. The turning point. The accusation wasn’t just about belief anymore; it was about honor. About love. Tomas was saying that Ethan’s entire life, his rejection of their past, was an insult to their sister’s memory. It hit the precise nerve that thirteen years of running had failed to deaden. The guilt became a roaring fire. He had to prove Tomas wrong. He had to prove that his choice, his life, his logic, was the right one. It was the only way to absolve the part of him that still heard his sister’s frightened whispers.

A reckless, desperate idea bloomed in his mind, born of grief and intellectual pride. An action to end the argument for good.

“Fine,” Ethan said, his voice eerily calm. The smirk was gone, replaced by a tight, feverish intensity. “You want to prove it? So do I.”

Tomas watched him, wary. “What are you talking about?”

“The cave,” Ethan said, the words feeling like stones in his mouth. “We’ll go back. Tomorrow morning. Before I leave.”

The surprise on Tomas’s face was stark. Fear flickered in his eyes, a deep, primal fear that Ethan hadn't seen since they were children.

“No,” Tomas said, shaking his head. “You don’t know what you’re asking. It’s not a game, Ethan.”

“It’s not a game to me either,” Ethan pressed, stepping into his brother’s space, their faces inches apart. The air smelled of motor oil and the coming night. “I’m going to walk into that cave, all the way to the back. I’m going to stand in the place she disappeared, and I’m going to show you that there is nothing there. No spirits, no whispers, just rock and dirt and silence. I am going to find proof of what really happened—a footprint, a piece of trash, anything a human would leave behind. And you are going to see that your stories are just that. Stories.”

He threw down the challenge like a gauntlet, his heart hammering against his ribs. It was a mad gamble, a return to the epicenter of his life’s defining trauma. But in that moment, he needed it more than he needed air. He needed to excavate the truth and put the ghosts to rest, one way or another.

Tomas stared at him for a long, heavy moment. The last light of the sun vanished behind the hills, plunging the world into a deep, purple twilight. Ethan could see the war in his brother’s eyes—the pull of faith against the fear for his last living sibling.

Finally, Tomas gave a slow, reluctant nod. His voice was barely a whisper, a surrender.

“We go at dawn,” he said. “And may the spirits have mercy on your disbelief.”