Raine told herself not to read too much into it.
The note, the humming, the way Seraphina stood in the same patch of light where Celeste once lingered—these things could all be coincidence. A trick of memory. Grief liked to dress up strangers in familiar clothes.
Still, she kept the note.
Tucked it between pages of a forgotten novella. Somewhere only she would remember. Because even if it meant nothing… it felt like something.
Seraphina began visiting more often.
At first, it was casual—asking for recommendations, trading stories about old vinyl records and obscure bands. But there was always something in the way her gaze lingered. She'd study Raine the way one studies a painting: not just to see it, but to understand it.
One afternoon, Raine found her sitting in the poetry section, not reading, just tracing the spine of a book with absent fingers.
"You okay?" Raine asked from behind the counter.
Seraphina looked up slowly. "Have you ever felt like you were meant to remember something, but it just won't come?"
Raine hesitated. "Yes."
Seraphina nodded, like that answer mattered more than it should've. "It happens every time I'm in here. Like there's something important just out of reach."
Raine didn't know what to say. She walked over, knelt beside her, and gently placed a book in Seraphina's hands.
"Echoes," the title read. A small, rare poetry collection Raine kept off the main shelves.
"She loved this one," Raine said quietly.
"She?" Seraphina asked, already flipping through the first few pages.
Raine didn't answer.
Seraphina glanced at her, but didn't push.
Instead, she read a passage out loud:
"Some songs begin with silence,
And end where hands once touched.
The echo is not the music—
But the proof it once existed."
The words floated between them like dust motes in sunlight. Raine didn't breathe until Seraphina looked up again.
"Do you believe people can carry pieces of someone else with them?" Seraphina asked.
"I think we all do," Raine replied. "We just don't always know whose pieces we're carrying."
There was silence.
Then Seraphina closed the book and held it close, like she needed to keep it safe.
"I'll bring it back," she whispered.
"No rush," Raine said, and meant it.
As Seraphina left that evening, Raine noticed something odd.
She had left a ring on the table. A delicate silver band with a tiny etching—a single music note—on the inside.
Raine had seen that ring before.
Not on Seraphina.
On Celeste.
Once. Only once. A brief flash when she was tucking her hair behind her ear, just before walking away for what Raine never knew would be the last time.
Raine picked up the ring, heart thudding.
Same eyes. Same note. Same ache.
But Seraphina had no idea.
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