We are deep in the story here. Want to start from the beginning?

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“I don’t know about all of this,” Sandy said to Tobias.

Dusk had started, and all the furry creatures in Sandy’s house were starting to find warm spots to curl into for the night.

“I know, I know,” she continued, shaking her head and putting her hands up. “I know they bought it. You made a very dramatic, compelling argument, Tobias.”

Tobias smiled. “You didn’t know I could be that theatrical,” he chuckled.

“Yes, well, you’re entitled to your secrets,” she smiled back. “But I am not convinced.”

“Convinced of what? That we should be going?”

“I feel like there is something more going on. It’s not a simple matter of killing the monster.”

“The monster took a toddler, Sandy,” Tobias said. “Even if that toddler doesn’t take revenge on the whole village, you know Keira is on her way there. If that monster consumes her, after that speech she made last week… we are all doomed either way.”

“I understand, but what I am concerned about is that I think there is more to this story. I’ve been reading from the records room. There have been reports about strange activity near the source of the waterfall. Blue lights. Loud noises. Sounds of horns. Horns, Tobias. If there is a horn, then someone is blowing it. I believe there are people up there.”

“And what, they have that monster as a pet? They keep it in a cage, and every two years, they let it out? For what purpose, Sandy?”

“Tobias, just listen. If there really are people up there, then that would explain why no one comes down. Maybe they stay up there because they can. They join a community… or maybe they swear to secrecy?”

Tobias got up from the table. He wiped down his tunic, which was getting full of hair from the Flippy who kept pawing him. The Flippy had decided that Tobias’s lap was the perfect warm spot to curl into, but Tobias wasn’t particularly partial to creatures. He endured them for Sandy’s sake—she was a dear friend—but he still had his limits.

He walked over to where the fire was, and looked to Sandy as he picked up a kettle. She nodded.

“Sandy, if anyone else was chatting to me, I would have left by now,” he said, sinking the kettle deeply into a bucket of water so that it filled up. “But instead, I’m putting the kettle on.”

She chuckled. “We have been friends for a long time,” she said to him.

He turned and smiled at her. She looked at him, and for a moment it seemed like he wanted to say something, but then he shook his head and carried on placing the kettle on the fire carefully.

“Sandy,” he said. “The truth is, I think it is time. You know, I’ve always thought this creature only comes down every blue lunar moon—every two and a half years—but it doesn’t, you know. It’s here, with us right now.”

Sandy watched as Tobias took two mugs down and put tea bags into them. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, it’s in this room with us right now,” he said.

She watched in silence as he poured out the hot water, then stirred it. The water slowly turned brown, stained by the tea.

“We are like this,” he said, gesturing to the mugs. “This tea bag is like the creature. It visits the water. It swirls it around. The bag technically has very little water in it when I take it out—it only holds a few drops. But yet, the water stays brown long after the bag has left. That is what we are like. We are plagued by the monster even when it physically isn’t here.”

Tobias sat back down at the table and took Sandy’s hands. “How long have we been friends?” he asked.

“Too long,” she chuckled.

“Exactly. In what other village could a friendship like this stay just a friendship? My wife has been gone many years, as has your husband, and yet, here you and I are, as friends.”

Tobias released Sandy’s hands and leaned back. She took her tea. “Are you implying we could have been more?”

“It is easier for us to stay in grief than to hope for something new,” he said softly. “We need to get rid of this monster, one way or another. We cannot live in constant fear of investing in things, in case they leave.”

Sandy smiled and leaned back herself. “So you’re saying, once the monster is dead, I should expect a date?”

Tobias smiled. “You should expect a lot more,” he said. “But not once the monster is dead. Once we kill it.”

Sandy put her cup down. “You’re not suggesting that you are going with them?”

“This is practically my village, Sandy. Also, I’m the one that talked everybody into it.”

“Yes, but you are close to retirement, Tobias. Surely this is for the youth to do?”

Tobias shook his head. “The youth know nothing of longevity. They think what they know today has always been. It doesn’t occur to them that before they were born, everyone had lives. If they go up there on their own, they might fall prey to whatever caused everyone before to disappear. No. We need to go up. It needs to be a mix. I also need to see with my own two eyes, Sandy. I need to see what it is that took my son, and maybe find out why. Maybe finally get closure.”

“So this is about Gideon,” Sandy said. “You convinced the council that it wasn’t, but I see it in you, Tobias. You are going up there to avenge your son!”

“And would you judge me for that?” he asked sternly.

“I would not judge, but I would like the truth,” she snapped back. “Tobias, I am telling you, there is more to this than you know. There is something up there that is beyond what you can imagine. I don’t think it is only the monster beyond that waterfall. It’s more like secrets.”

“What secrets?”

“I… I don’t know. But today, you only told half the truth at the meeting. You said people go up there and never come down. But we have had people in this village, Tobias. People who say they come from other towns, but there is something strange about them. And then, for reasons unknown, they disappear in the night. I read in the hall that the first two times the monster came, it killed groups of people. Then one year, there were reports of lights and noises, like I said. But Tobias, then it came down and only took a man named Dale. Dale Simmons. Singular. And I looked up Dale—he only arrived in town about eighteen years prior, from nowhere. I think Dale came from up there, Tobias.”

“I think you’re reaching, Sandy.”

“I’m not, Tobias! And you know it. You know there is more up there than just a big, dark thing sleeping in a cave!”

Tobias looked at Sandy. She was right—there was more up there. He didn’t know what. He didn’t know if it was a group of people or a group of monsters. He shook his head.

“It still doesn’t matter, Sandy,” he said.

He took the last slurp of his tea and set his cup down. He looked at her, then looked away as he slapped his thighs and stood up. “I’m still leaving in the morning. With the rest of the village. I guess we’ll find out then.”

He brushed off the hair that had collected on him again, then walked toward the door and reached for the handle.

“Tobias…” Sandy said, half rising from her seat.

He turned to look at her. He smiled and stroked her back. Slipping one hand around her waist, he used his other hand to pull her close, kissing her gently on the cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into him. He let go and met her gaze.

“I’ll see you next week for our date. Or sooner,” he said with a soft chuckle as he opened the door. “We can give that guard some real rumors then.”

Sandy stood and watched the door close. She sat back down.

Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, but she was a hardened woman. She knew in her heart that she had loved Tobias for over half her life, but she had also been living on her own that entire time. As much as she loved him, she wasn’t going to fall into a romanticized ideal of what they could be together. She had to look at the facts.

She looked around her room and started mentally calculating how much of her house she could fit on a wagon. She knew the villagers would not come back off that mountain. And she wasn’t going to be around when that… that thing came back down again.

Tobias was right about her living in limbo since her husband passed. But he had passed when they were young. For twenty years, she had sat here, collecting furry creatures because she knew the monster wouldn’t take those away from her.

It was time for her to take a chance on her life again—and roll the dice in a new town.