Dingos Surrounded the Baby, but Something Older Watched From the Ridge

The Ridge Grows Green

That autumn, Windermere Ridge bloomed in a way Clara hadn’t seen in years. Grasses pushed through dry clay. Wildflowers opened fast and thick. Birds returned with different songs, despite unfamiliar rhythms. Elsie grew louder and bolder, climbing rocks and naming trees with her own invented words. Clara didn’t correct her.

The circle on the ridge faded under the new growth, but Clara never let it vanish entirely. She cleared it after every rain. She knew it mattered. Maybe not to science. Perhaps only to memory and to the balance of something she now lived within, even if she couldn’t name it.

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