The bargain

The Fog Lingers – Dungeness, Just Before Dawn

Misha’s body lay in the salt circle.

The wind stirred, but it brought no sound. The world was locked in the pause between night and morning. A liminal hour. No birds. No surf. Just the long hush of breath held in a dream.

Elena stood over him, arms limp at her sides. She felt hollow. Not empty, but scraped clean. As though the woman’s presence had hollowed out something inside her—gently, without pain.

The fog shifted.

A shape moved at the edge of it. Not quite a woman, not quite a shadow. Her form flowed like smoke and silk, a memory too soft to touch. But her voice was clear.

“You let him go,” said the Woman. “Few do.”

“I didn’t come to rescue him,” Elena said. “I came to end the story.”

The Woman laughed—low, warm, wrong.

“All stories end. But not all endings are escapes.”

Elena stepped toward her, just outside the salt ring. “You said I’d paid. What did you mean?”

The fog moved closer, a lover’s breath against the ear.

“You gave me a memory,” the Woman said. “A sister you invented. A bond that never was. You imagined her so vividly that even I believed she’d lived. That’s a rare gift.”

Elena felt her throat tighten. The memory of Clara—her face, her laugh, her violin—was already slipping like sand through her fingers.

“She wasn’t real?” Elena whispered.

“She is now. She walks in the fog. She hums when she’s lonely.”

Elena swallowed. “And what did I get in return?”

A pause.

Then the Woman said, “The truth you asked for.”

A slip of paper fluttered down like a dead leaf, landing in the circle at Misha’s side.

Coordinates. A name.

The Woman’s voice softened, almost kind.

“I am not cruel, Elena. I simply remember everything. And I don’t like being forgotten.”

The fog drew back—not cleared, but retreated, as if indulging her. It left behind the taste of iron and salt.

And silence.

---

Later That Morning – Back at the Institute

Quinn read the field report twice.

He said nothing for a long time.

The Institute’s offices in London were quiet at this hour. The overhead lights flickered slightly—just enough to make you wonder if they’d always done that. Fog clung to the windows.

“So he aged,” Quinn said finally.

“In an instant,” Elena replied. “Like time had been waiting for permission.”

“And Clegg?”

“Gone. There’s no trace. He might’ve walked out into another version of himself. Or been taken.”

Quinn rubbed his jaw. “The brass won’t be happy.”

Elena handed him the slip of paper. “The Woman gave this. It’s a new site. Different location. Different rules.”

Quinn looked down at the scrawled coordinates. The name written below them was old. Pre-Celtic. Fae.

“Elena,” he said slowly, “this isn’t over.”

She nodded. “It never is.”

---

Epilogue – Dungeness, One Week Later

The fog never cleared.

The Met Office called it a coastal anomaly. The Institute called it a residual veil. Locals just stopped walking the beach after dark.

Two figures are sometimes seen walking through the mist: one tall and silent, in an old wool coat. The other barefoot, trailing fog wherever she steps.

Sometimes they sing.

The file was sealed that week, under FDG protocol.

Title: The Woman in the Fog
Threat Level: Persistent, Ambient
Status: Contained (temporarily)
Field Agent Notes: Prepare for recurrence. Fog always returns