She came when the heat had overstayed its welcome.

For weeks, the air had been heavy with summer’s weight—thick and unmoving, like a breath held too long. Cracks spidered across the pavement. Garden beds curled into themselves. Windows stayed open all night in search of breeze, though none came. People stopped speaking of the weather; there was nothing new to say.

Then one evening, just as the sun folded itself into a tangerine-colored sky, she appeared on Sycamore Street.

She wore black, not the glossy kind of evening gowns or mourning veils, but the faded black of something long left hanging in a closet. Her dress clung to her in layers, thin as ash. Lace traced the lines of her collarbones. Her boots, scuffed and mud-worn, touched down in perfect rhythm on the brickwork. She didn’t speak. Didn’t look at anyone. She simply danced.

A slow, deliberate turning of the heel. A swaying lift of the arm. Her movements were not frantic, not joyful, but something quieter—measured, reverent. As if she remembered music no one else could hear.

And as she danced, the breeze began.

It wasn’t much at first—just a whisper that rustled the tops of hedges. But people noticed. A woman at her porch railing paused mid-sip of her lemonade, eyes narrowing at the sudden chill on her skin. A shopkeeper leaned halfway out his doorway, tie loosened, forehead glistening, then blinked as a gust stirred the dust around his stoop and carried away the heat clinging to his collar.

The girl turned beneath the flickering gaslights, her boots never quite making a sound. Her arms lifted, loose at the elbow, the way leaves rise before they fall. The hem of her dress fluttered like burnt paper.

No one dared interrupt her. No one called out. They simply watched—some from behind curtains, others from stoops or upper windows—as the girl moved past, and with her came the scent of wet soil and chimney smoke. A dry leaf skittered across the street behind her, though the trees were still clinging stubbornly to their green.

Children, bolder than their parents, followed at a distance. Not close enough to touch, not close enough to risk the cold that seemed to pool where her feet had passed, but close enough to see that she never smiled. Her face held something older than sadness—something tired, maybe, or remembering.

One child whispered that she had seen the girl before. “Last year,” she said. “When the tomatoes stopped growing.” Another claimed his grandmother told stories of a figure just like her, seen only after long summers, when even the bees had grown too lazy to fly.

And still the girl danced.

She turned down Mulberry Lane, the shadows now trailing longer behind her. Curtains pulled shut. Porch lights flicked off. The breeze strengthened into wind, and somewhere distant, thunder spoke its first word.

By the time she reached the end of the street, the first drops of rain had begun to fall—cool and scattered like the opening notes of a song. She didn’t seem to notice. Her dress soaked through, but she danced on, turning once more in a graceful arc before vanishing behind the hedge-row that separated the neighborhood from the old orchard.

No one followed.

The next morning, the air was crisp. The sun was gentle. Children wore jackets. Lawns shimmered with the quiet gloss of rain. And on Sycamore Street, scattered like breadcrumbs, were the first red leaves of the year.

No one spoke of her. Not directly. But when the wind blew from the east, mothers would glance toward the orchard. And sometimes, just before the light changed, drivers waiting at the corner would swear they saw a figure—dressed all in black—spinning slowly in the reflection of a puddle.