Chapter 1

Four years. That's how long Dad had been gone. David, my father, vanished on Widow's Peak, a nasty stretch of the Appalachian Trail nobody local went near if they had any sense. He loved the outdoors, knew survival stuff most people only read about. Mom, well, Linda, who raised me, always said he was too confident for his own good.

We lived in a small town, tucked away in West Virginia's mountains. Not much happened here, so Dad's disappearance was big news for a while. Then, like most things, it faded.

Until last week.

Park rangers found a ripped backpack. Inside, a water-damaged journal. His. The last pages were just scribbles, nothing made sense. So, they made it official: David was dead.

Linda and I had a small memorial. No body, just the backpack and journal. We buried them in a quiet spot in our backyard, under the old oak tree. It felt strange, burying things instead of a person. Linda cried a lot. I mostly felt numb.

Three nights after we put that stuff in the ground, the back door creaked open.

It was late, almost midnight.

A figure stood there, silhouetted against the weak porch light.

"Maya?" a voice rasped.

My heart jumped.

The figure stepped into the kitchen.

It was him. Dad.

But not.

He was caked in dirt, clothes torn to shreds. A smile was plastered on his face, wide and fixed, like a mask. His eyes were... empty.

And he was cold. So cold. The air around him dropped degrees.

"I got lost," he said, that smile never wavering. "Took a while, but I found my way back."

Linda came downstairs, drawn by the voices. She stopped dead on the bottom step, her hand flying to her mouth. Her face went white.

"David?" she whispered.

"Linda," he said, his voice flat. He didn't move towards her. He just stood there, radiating cold, that awful smile fixed in place.

I stared at him. This man who looked like my father, but felt like a stranger from a nightmare.

"Dad?" I managed. My voice shook.

He turned his head slowly, mechanically, towards me. "Maya. You've grown."

His eyes, they weren't right. They were like looking into a deep, dark well.

Linda let out a small, choked sound.

He took a step, then another. His movements were stiff, unnatural.

"I'm tired," he said. "Very tired."

He looked around the kitchen, his gaze lingering on the humming refrigerator. "It's warm in here."

It wasn't. It was a cool spring night.

He walked towards the living room, leaving a faint, damp, earthy smell in his wake. I shivered, and it wasn't just from the sudden chill he brought with him.