Baskin

He took her hand.

“I’m the one who waits on the other side,” she said. “For some, I’m forgiveness. For some, a confession. For you?” She reached out, her small hand cold as creek water. “You just need to finish walking.”

The creek appeared through the trees, swollen and dark. And there was the Singing Bridge—an iron skeleton, its wooden planks rotted or missing, cables rusted into lace. It didn’t sing anymore. It groaned. Baskin

The girl tilted her head. “She’s waiting on the other side.”

That’s when he saw the girl.

She looked up. Her eyes were the color of the harbor before a storm. “I’m looking for the Singing Bridge,” she said. Her voice was too steady for a child alone in the rain.

Leo frowned. The Singing Bridge was a footbridge over the creek behind the mill. It had been condemned for fifteen years. Kids dared each other to cross it at midnight, but no one actually went there. Not since— He took her hand

“That’s not a place for a kid,” he said. “Where’s your mom?”