He ignored her, gulped his coffee, and left the café after only a few minutes. Outside, the night was colder still. He walked the narrow road back to his house, shoulders stiff, replaying the encounter over and over in his mind. That shadow, so straight, so deliberate. That swell, rising with precision instead of chaos. And above all, that hum.
It hadn’t been a song like whales made, no rise and fall, no haunting notes that bent and stretched. It had been flat, unwavering, like something grinding deep in the earth. At the time he’d told himself it was breath, some massive animal pushing air through its body, but the more he thought on it, the less it fit. No creature moved with such regularity.