The Great Novel

THE SUN ROSE SLOWLY over the misty hills, casting long shadows across the dew-covered grass. It was a morning like any other, yet everything was about to change.

Elizabeth stepped out onto the porch, her bare feet touching the cool wooden planks. She shivered slightly, though not from the cold. There was something in the air today, a tension she couldn't quite place. The newspaper lay at her feet, its headlines screaming about distant conflicts and economic turmoil, but her eyes were drawn to the small, handwritten note tucked beneath the rubber band.

"Meet me at the old mill at noon. Come alone. -J"

Her breath caught in her throat. James had been missing for three weeks, presumed dead after that terrible accident at the laboratory. She'd identified the body herself—or what was left of it. The note trembled in her hands as she read it again, searching for some sign that it might be a forgery, a cruel joke.

The clock in the hallway chimed eight times. Four hours until noon. Four hours to decide whether to keep her promise from all those years ago, the one they'd made as children playing in these very fields. "No matter what happens," he'd said, his young face uncharacteristically serious, "if I ever leave you a note like this, you have to come."

She'd laughed then, thinking it was just another of his games. But the years had passed, and James had gone into that secretive government work, and she'd understood that some promises were more than childish whims.

The coffee in her mug had gone cold. Elizabeth set it down carefully on the railing and went inside to dress. Her movements were automatic—jeans, boots, a light jacket. Practical clothes. As she laced up her boots, she noticed a smudge of something dark on the left sole. She rubbed at it with her thumb, then froze. It wasn't mud. It was dried blood.

Her mind raced. Had she stepped in something last night? She couldn't remember leaving the house. The last thing she recalled was watching the news and falling asleep on the couch. But here was evidence that she'd been somewhere, done something...

The clock chimed the half-hour. Time was slipping away. Elizabeth grabbed her keys and headed for the door, then stopped. If this was real, if James was alive, then someone had gone to great lengths to make the world think otherwise. And if she was being watched...

She left the keys on the table and went out the back way, through the overgrown garden and into the woods beyond. The path to the old mill was one she could walk blindfolded, had walked blindfolded once on a dare. The trees closed in around her, their leaves whispering secrets she couldn't quite hear.

As she walked, Elizabeth realized she was counting her steps like she used to as a child. Three hundred and twenty-seven steps from her back porch to the mill's broken door. She'd done it so many times the number was etched in her bones. Today, though, something felt different. The air was too still, the birds too quiet.

At step two hundred and ninety-four, she saw the first footprint. Fresh, deep, made by a heavy boot. Not James's—he'd always been slight, wearing those ridiculous canvas shoes even in winter. This print was large, the tread military-grade. Elizabeth slowed her pace, her senses straining.

The mill came into view through the trees, its weathered boards silver with age. The wheel was long gone, the machinery scavenged for scrap, but the structure remained, a skeleton of its former self. Elizabeth stopped at the edge of the clearing, watching, waiting.

A shadow moved inside. Too big to be James. Her heart pounded as she crouched behind a fallen log, suddenly questioning everything. Was this a trap? Had the note been a ruse to draw her out? She thought about turning back, but then a familiar voice called softly from the mill's dark interior.

"Lizzie? Are you there?"