When a forgotten message finds its way back, some part of you does, too.

  The letter had no stamp. Just my name, Avery Clarke, written in an unfamiliar hand. I found it in my mailbox after work, though I hadn’t checked it in days and wasn’t expecting anything. There was no return address, but the envelope smelled faintly of lavender and paper old enough to forget its color.

  I opened it without thinking. Inside: a single sentence.

  “We kept your place in the Windless World.”

  It made no sense. Except that it did—in the part of me I’d been ignoring for years.

  I blinked, and the train platform was gone.

  I was standing on a path of white gravel beneath a sky that shimmered like silk. No wind, no sound. Trees arched high above, their leaves silver on one side, blue on the other, glowing faintly. It wasn’t dark. But it wasn’t light either.

  Ahead: a small building, all glass and carved stone, nestled between moss-covered pillars. A conservatory. Its roof was open to the sky, though no weather passed through. Dozens of paper lanterns floated inside without strings or flame. Each one pulsed gently, like breath.

  And standing among them—tall, broad-shouldered, hair like dark wheat in autumn sun—was someone I knew I didn’t know.

  But he turned like he’d been expecting me.

  His eyes found mine across the room. Not startled, not surprised. Just... steady.

  He held a letter in his hand—creased, as if opened many times—and when he stepped forward, he tucked it gently into the front pocket of his coat.

  “I was wondering when you’d come back,” he said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been here.”

  He smiled. “You have. But not like this.”

  We sat on a bench beneath one of the larger lanterns. The air smelled like loam and ink, like the inside of a favorite book read too many times.

  He poured tea into two thin ceramic cups. The set looked old, chipped at the rim, and completely out of place in this otherworldly greenhouse. It grounded me.

  “My name is Callum,” he said, and I knew he wasn’t lying.

  “I’m... Avery,” I replied, though the name felt both mine and not mine in that moment.

  His smile deepened, but not in a way that revealed anything. “I remember.”

  We drank in quiet for a long while. I watched the lanterns above us shift. Some floated higher. Some dimmed. Some stayed close, gently circling the same spot.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “They’re memories,” he said, following my gaze. “Each one a letter that was written but never sent.”

  “To who?”

  “To anyone,” he said. “Sometimes they were meant for the self. Or the past. Or someone lost in between.”

  I looked at the one above us. “And this one?”

  “That one was yours,” he said. “You wrote it the last time you were here.”

  I blinked. “But I don’t remember—”

  “You asked not to,” he said, his voice low. “You left something behind to be kept safe. Until you were ready.”

  The ache in my chest bloomed like something long dormant. I didn’t understand it—but I didn’t need to. It was the same ache that comes when a song you’d forgotten makes you cry on a crowded train.

  “I feel like I should apologize,” I whispered.

  “For what?”

  “For not remembering. For leaving without saying anything.”

  Callum didn’t look away. “You were grieving. You wanted to start over. So you traded the pieces that didn’t fit into your new life for quiet.”

  I stared into the tea between my palms. “Was it enough?”

  He hesitated. “It was honest. That’s what matters.”

  I looked up.

  “Did I forget you?”

  He didn’t answer with words. Just watched me with something so tender, it cracked the part of me that always braced against being seen.

  “I waited for a while,” he said finally. “Then I started reading the letters you left behind. Not just yours—everyone’s. I became the caretaker of the windless space.”

  “And you’re still here.”

  “Until the world moves again,” he said, “or someone needs a place to remember.”

  The tea had gone cold, but neither of us moved.

  “You knew me,” I said, quieter than before. “And I forgot you. That feels... unfair.”

  His hand brushed mine. Not possessive. Just real.

  “You’re here now,” he said. “That’s the only part that matters.”

  I looked down at our hands. His fingers were warm, and mine remembered the shape of them even if my mind didn’t.

  “I don’t want to forget again.”

  “You might,” he said. “The world you return to doesn’t make space for this kind of stillness.”

  I reached into my coat pocket. Somehow, the envelope was still there.

  Inside it now: the letter he’d tucked into his coat earlier.

  It was in my handwriting. A single line.

  “When I’m ready, let the wind carry me back.”

  I looked up.

  “Then I guess I’m ready,” I said.

  Callum stood, slowly, and helped me to my feet. His touch lingered for just a second longer than necessary.

  “There’s one more thing,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  He reached into the folds of his coat and pressed something into my palm. A folded paper lantern, small and perfectly formed.

  “When the time is right,” he said, “you’ll know how to light it.”

  The glass doors opened on their own.

  I stepped into the path of white gravel beneath the stilled sky. Behind me, the conservatory dimmed. The lanterns slowly folded inward.

  When I blinked again, I was on the train platform.

  Late afternoon sun filtered through the clouds.

  In my hand: the folded lantern.

  In my chest: a name, a voice, a promise I hadn’t known I’d made, quietly returned.