They said Wendell Garrow drowned out by Quill Meadow, but that’s not true. I saw him yesterday, walking along the ditch with his red scarf still tied neatly as always. His boots left prints like commas in the mud. You don’t get that kind of order from the dead.

The sheriff came around this morning, hat in hand, asking if I’d been down near the water the night Wendell went missing. I told him no. Said I’d been home with a bottle and my thoughts, staring at the cracked ceiling. He nodded as if he believed me. People usually do.

Quill Meadow isn’t much to look at. It's just reeds and silence. But Wendell’s house is on the far side, and that’s where the lantern glow came from. 

I told them I didn’t follow it. Told them I didn’t step in the cold mud or call his name. Told them I didn’t see the scarf floating like a red fish belly-up. But the thing about lies is, they start hearing you back. Every night since, I hear Wendell on the wind, asking me why I left him there.

And that’s the part nobody believes: I didn’t. He was already gone by then.