Zoe wouldn't dare go far. Not when Eveline'd gripped at the edges of her senses and began to squeeze for her straying too close to unmapped boundaries before.
But she took the boat out, sometimes, by the old house. Paused where roots of trees formed rotting gates, held still, and narrowed her eyes into the horizon, on a dark shape in the fog. Thought about the day the girl came. About the storm.
About the ship.
And the humidity cooled.
She, a wild new survivor, had seen every monster in this swamp. Lived with 'em. Every.
Except their sleeping mother.
July 1st. "Horizon".