For a second, Lira could not breathe. Her body did not know whether to step forward or step back. Her hand gripped the railing before she decided to do it.

The crow’s head tilted. The strip clicked against its beak. The letters were clear. R Y K E. No room to say she had read it wrong.

Her phone buzzed. She did not look. She stepped closer to the bird. It did not fly. It made a small sound deep in its throat like a hinge starting to move.

“Drop it,” Lira whispered, though she did not know what good that would do.

The crow loosened its beak. The metal fell. It hit the wood with a soft sound, like a spoon on a table. It slid to a stop by her shoe.

Lira did not pick it up. She stared at the letters. She wanted the word to change. It did not. The porch light hummed. The fog pressed in around the steps.

Her phone buzzed again. This time she pulled it out. There were three messages.

Ezra: Home?

Lira: On porch.

Ezra: Okay. Don’t touch anything weird.

She looked at the strip. “Too late,” she said softly.

She sent one more text.

Lira: Crow. It dropped a metal strip. It has Ryke’s name.

There was no answer for a long beat. Then:

Ezra: Don’t pick it up.

Another buzz. Ryke.

Ryke: u still up?

Lira typed fast.

Lira: Yes. Where are you?

The three dots pulsed. Stopped. Started again.

Ryke: walking. I needed air.
Ryke: You okay?

Lira looked at the strip again. She felt the weight of the name without even touching the metal. She typed.

Lira: A crow left your name at my house. On a metal piece. Ezra says don’t touch it.
Lira: Where are you?

Ryke took longer to answer this time.

Ryke: idk. fog. near the tracks maybe.
Ryke: i’m fine.
Ryke: don’t freak out.

“Too late,” Lira said again, but this time her voice broke a little.

She typed one more:

Lira: Stay where you are. I’m calling Ezra.

She called. The phone rang once. Ezra picked up.

“Don’t touch it,” he said, not hello. His breath sounded loud in her ear. “I’m serious.”

“I won’t,” Lira said. “Ryke says he’s near the tracks. He says he’s fine. He says don’t freak out.”

“That’s his favorite sentence,” Ezra said. “Okay. Listen. We meet before dawn. Gazebo again. Do not go out alone. Do not pick up the strip. Do not throw it in the trash. Do not try to be clever.”

“I won’t,” Lira said. She swallowed. “Ezra—”

“I know,” he said. “Me too.” He was quiet for a second. Then he said, “We’ll figure it out.”

They hung up.

Lira bent slowly, keeping her hands tucked into her sleeves, and slid the metal strip into a plastic sandwich bag from the basket by the door. She did it like she was handling something hot. She did not want to feel the metal on her skin. She did not want to find out if names could bite.

She carried the bag into the house and set it on the doormat just inside, away from the heat vent. She locked the door. She leaned her back against it for a second and stared at the bag. The letters looked darker through the plastic.

She turned off the porch light. The fog swallowed the railing and the steps. The crow stayed on the rail a moment longer, then lifted into the air without a sound. It vanished into the gray.

Lira stood in the small square of the entry until her legs hurt. She made herself move. She went to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and held it against her cheek. The cold helped.

She went to her room and sat on the edge of her bed. She did not lie down. She did not want to be in the position she had been in when the whisper came. She kept the lamp on. She placed the plastic bag with the strip on the desk, far from her phone and far from the window. She looked at it until looking hurt.

Her phone buzzed again.

Ryke: ok so bad news. my mom says cops are asking about me. she told them i’m asleep. i am not asleep.
Ryke: i’ll be at the gazebo before dawn. don’t tell me to go home. i’ll go after.

Lira typed:

Lira: Fine. Just come. Please.

Ryke: k.

A new message popped up from a number Lira had not saved for a long time. The school’s alert system. Reminder: Students are to avoid the old wing due to ongoing maintenance. Lira almost laughed. The word maintenance felt like a joke the building was telling.

Another message. Callen.

Callen: Do not answer.
Callen: If it calls your name again. Do not answer.

Lira stared at the screen. Her thumb hovered over the keyboard. She wrote:

Lira: What happens if you do?

Callen did not answer right away. She watched the dots. They did not appear. She put the phone face down. She picked it up again. It buzzed.

Callen: It gets your voice right.
Callen: Then it gets the rest of you right.

Lira did not reply. She sat there with the phone in her hand and thought about her voice. She thought about the way the whisper had said her name like it was trying out a new tool. She thought of the bell’s mouth in the tower. She decided she would not give it anything it wanted.

She opened her window a crack to see if the night sounded different. Fog pressed in. The air smelled like damp metal. Far away, a train horn blew, long and lonely. The sound came late to her street, as if the air had to remember how to carry it.

She closed the window again.

She texted Ezra one more time: Two hours?
Ezra: Yes. I’ll bring the folder.
Ezra: And coffee.
Ryke: bless u

 Callen: I’ll be there.

Lira put the phone on the desk, screen up. She set an alarm anyway. She looked at the plastic bag with the metal inside. The letters were still RYKE. They did not fade. They did not change. She wished for one second that she had not learned to read.

She pulled her blanket over her legs and kept her shoes on. She did not plan to sleep. Her eyes closed on their own. She jerked awake. She closed them again. Time felt thin. It slid instead of ticked.

When she finally stood, the digital clock said 4:11. She turned off the lamp. The room looked like itself again, dim and square and small. She picked up the plastic bag with care and put it in her coat pocket. She did not want to leave it in the house. She did not trust the house to be a house with it inside.

She wrote a second note for her mom: Meeting friends at the gazebo. Back after sunrise. Love you. She placed it under the first note. She put on her scarf. She opened the door and stepped into the cold.

Fog hugged the ground. The sky had not changed yet. The streetlights made yellow tunnels. Lira walked fast. She did not run. Running felt like agreeing with the wrong thing.

By the time she reached the path to the gazebo, the birds had started to talk to each other in the dark. One bird called. Another answered. The sounds were small and real. Lira liked them for that.

Ezra stood by the gazebo steps with two paper cups. He handed her one without speaking. The coffee was hot enough to burn. She let it. It made her hands stop shaking.

“Did you bring it?” he asked.

Lira tapped her coat pocket. “Yes,” she said. “In a bag.”

Ezra nodded once. He looked older than yesterday. He looked exactly like himself.

Ryke came out of the fog a minute later. He looked tired and tried not to. “New rule,” he said. “No more running into fog alone. It’s boring.”

“Agreed,” Ezra said.

Callen arrived last. He stepped into the gazebo and the frost on the railing reacted, just a little, like it remembered him. He kept his hood up.

Lira put the plastic bag on the bench. Ezra stared at the letters like they were a test he wanted to fail. Ryke did not make a joke this time. He just watched, jaw tight.

They stood together in the cold, in the thin light, with the strip between them.

No one said it out loud, but they all felt it: something in town had picked up a pen. And it had chosen a name. And the name was one of theirs.

Lira looked at her friends. She looked at the path toward the tower through the trees. The air in her chest felt steady for the first time since the night before. The rule in her head was simple now.

We don’t answer when it calls.
We answer each other.

She took a breath. “Okay,” she said. “We start with this.”

She touched the bag with one finger, very lightly, like she was pressing the first key of a song.

The fog shifted. Somewhere, far but also not far, something made a sound like a chain being moved one link.

Morning was not here yet. It would be soon.