Every year, just before the first big storm broke the summer’s back, Lina’s grandmother would pull the heavy clay pots inside and hang bundles of dried lemon leaves over every door. “They don’t like the bitter smoke,” she’d say. She never said who they were.
When Lina told her grandmother, the old woman just nodded. “They remember what the dry months erase,” she said. “They are not pests. They are the world’s memory, washed loose.” rainy season creatures
That night, the rain came like a curtain dropping. Lina lay awake, listening. And then she heard it: a soft tap-tap-tap on the windowpane, not from a branch. She pulled the blanket to her chin and turned. Every year, just before the first big storm
There, pressed against the glass, was a face no bigger than her thumb. It had no mouth, only two wide, wet eyes the color of moss. Its body was long and thin, like a comma made of rainwater, and it clung to the glass with tiny, translucent fingers. Behind it, dozens more were sliding down the roof tiles, curling around the gutters, dripping from the eaves. When Lina told her grandmother, the old woman just nodded
Lina was twelve now, old enough to notice that the rain didn’t just bring water. It brought noise —not thunder, but something smaller. A pattering that wasn’t rain. A wet, shuffling sound in the crawlspace under the house.