Her Shadow Stayed

Every July, Lina returned to the marshland.

The cottage had outlived everyone she once loved. Its porch sagged like tired bones, the shutters hung crooked, and ivy climbed the stone chimney like green veins. The air smelled of salt and old herbs. When the wind blew, it made the floorboards groan almost like the house remembered her name.

She didn’t return out of nostalgia. Not really.

She came because she couldn’t stay away.

It started the moment she unlocked the door.

The kitchen smelled like rosemary, though the spice jars hadn’t been opened in years. Dust clung to everything, yet the rocking chair in the corner was perfectly clean, swaying slightly. She passed the mirror in the hallway her own reflection smiled half a second too late.

The marsh outside croaked and whispered all night. As if something had been waiting.

By the third night, Lina stopped pretending.

She was walking past the old bedroom her sister’s room when she saw it.

A shadow, standing in the corner.

It wasn’t shaped quite like her. A little shorter. Slightly thinner.

But somehow… familiar.

It tilted its head as she gasped.

Then it vanished.

But on the floor, something remained: a faded red ribbon.

Her childhood ribbon.

The one she buried with Mara.

Mara had always been the brave one.

They were twins, mirror images in every way except spirit. Mara dared. Lina watched. It was that difference that made all the difference.

It was summer. The marsh was unusually still. They were playing alone while Grandma napped in her chair. Mara, wild-eyed and fearless, had wandered deeper into the reeds.

“Come on!” she’d called.

But Lina froze. She was afraid. Of water. Of snakes. Of being wrong.

So Mara went without her.

The marsh never gave her back.

All they found was the red ribbon caught in the roots.

No one blamed Lina.

But she blamed herself.

And that blame settled in her shadow, grew with her, waited.

The next night, Lina lit a single candle and sat on the kitchen floor, the ribbon in her lap.

Her shadow flickered on the walls.

But this time, it stepped away.

It moved on its own slow, circling her. Watching her.

She clenched the ribbon.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

The air turned cold.

“You left me,” the shadow said.

It was her voice but younger. Lighter. Wounded.

“I didn’t leave you,” Lina whispered. “You left… you drowned”

“No,” it said. “You stayed behind. I stayed with the truth.”

Lina stared. “You’re not Mara.”

“No,” it replied. “I’m the part of you that died with her.”

The walls groaned. Water dripped from the ceiling beams. The candle’s flame bent sideways.

The cottage pulsed like a living thing.

“You’ve carried guilt so long,” the shadow said. “One of us has to let go.”

Tears welled in Lina’s eyes. “I don’t know how.”

“Then let me do it.”

The shadow stepped forward.

And Lina didn’t run.

She opened her arms.

And stepped into herself.

In the morning, the villagers noticed smoke rising from the chimney for the first time in decades.

The woman on the porch looked older now not in years, but in the way grief shapes the bones. She tied bundles of sage and hung them on the windows like her grandmother once did.

“She’s one of the marsh women now,” someone whispered at the bakery. “The house took her in.”

No one mentioned the second shadow on the porch.

The one that didn’t quite follow her movements.

The one that stayed behind the rocking chair.

Still.

And smiling.