The Waterfall's Whisper
The moving truck idled in the driveway like a tired beast, its ramp lowered to the cracked asphalt, exhaling the last of the Thompsons' old life into their new one. David Thompson stood at the bottom of that ramp with a cardboard box balanced against his hip, reading the black marker scrawl on its side—KITCHEN, MISC.—and wondering, not for the first time that week, whether he'd made the right choice dragging his family three hundred miles from everything they'd known.
The house waited behind him, pale blue with white shutters, a wraparound porch that sagged slightly at one corner, and a yard that rolled backward into a wall of trees so dense and dark it looked less like a forest and more like the edge of the known world. Millbrook Falls. He'd found it on a map two months ago, in the small hours of the morning, after his third round of "we regret to inform you" emails had drained whatever confidence remained in his chest. A town small enough that a fresh start might actually mean something. Cheap enough that the last of their savings could still buy a roof and a little breathing room.
"You gonna stand there all day, or are you gonna help?" Sarah's voice carried from the porch,…
