Al Knye knelt by his front step and picked up the worn journal. It did not belong to him. He flipped it open. Her name was written inside, again and again, in a stranger's slanted hand. Al's jaw tightened. He had built his whole life around keeping her safe, and now someone was writing her name like a target. He pocketed the book and walked into town. The dark cottage behind him sat quiet, its tall windows watching the road. Al kept his shoulders low, but at his height, low was still a threat. The tavern was loud and warm. Al stood at the bar and listened. A barmaid leaned close and said a thin man had been in last night, buying drinks, asking soft questions about a woman who lived alone past the willow. Al paid for nothing and left. He found the spot under the red willow where the leaves brushed the ground. Boot prints pressed into the soft dirt. The prints faced his cottage. Whoever this stranger was, he had stood here for hours, watching Al's home, watching her path. Al crouched and traced the print with one finger. His chest felt cold and clear. The stranger was not a rumor anymore. He was a man with boots and a hand that wrote her name. That meant he could be found. That meant he could be stopped. Al stood up. He tucked the journal deep in his coat. He did not go home. He turned toward the road the boot prints had come from and began to walk.

Al stopped at the edge of the road. The wind had shifted. Black clouds rolled fast over the trees, low and heavy. Rain was coming, and his cottage sat alone behind him with her inside it. The boot prints could wait. She could not. He turned back and ran. The first drops hit hard and cold. By the time the cottage came into view, the sky was open and roaring. Lightning lit the windows. The willow whipped sideways in the wind. Al's boots slid in the mud as he reached the front step. Then he stopped. A shape sat on the porch, soaked and still. A panther, black as the storm, with red along its paws and ears. It did not move when he came close. It watched the road. Guarding. He knew at once she had called it. She had her own quiet ways, ways she had never fully shown him. The panther blinked once and let him pass. Inside, she stood by the window in a red dress, dark hair wet at the ends. She had opened the door for the storm to listen. She turned when he came in. Her face did not change. "You came back." "I had to." Water ran off his coat onto the floor. "The storm." "The storm is not what you were chasing." Her voice was low and flat. "You think I don't see it. I do." She stepped closer. "Whatever it is, Al. Tell me. Or don't. But stop pretending the house is empty when you leave it." He said nothing. Outside, the panther kept watch. Al understood then that he had not been her only guard. And that frightened him more than the man in the boots.