Where Broken Seeds Grow

«I see them, Danny,» he said, his voice eerily calm. «The angels. They’re watching you. They know what you’re planning.»

The paramedics guided Sam toward the front door. At the threshold, he turned back to look at Daniel one last time.

«You’ll still be here when I get back, right?» he asked, voice small and frightened. «You won’t leave while I’m gone?»

Daniel couldn’t say a word. He looked away, down at the floor where Sam’s holy water had soaked into the carpet, leaving a dark stain that would never quite come out.

When he looked up again, Sam was gone, and Dolores had retreated to her bedroom, leaving Daniel alone in the suddenly quiet house.

Daniel stood in the bathroom, the smell of drained hope and lingering blood in the air. He stared at the cracked mirror, his face split down the middle – bruised, battered, exhausted. Brother. Betrayer. He wasn’t sure which reflection would remain. The camera, a tangible presence in his backpack. His ticket out. His salvation. His betrayal.

Outside, the ambulance pulled away, its lights flashing silently against the darkened windows of the only home he’d ever known.

The Ghosts We Follow

Doors close with the finality

Of seasons changing,

And we walk toward tomorrow

With yesterday’s keys in our pocket.

Sam’s face loomed large in the mirror, but it wasn’t Sam’s eyes looking back – they were Daniel’s, peering out from his brother’s face. The bathroom was both familiar and wrong – the walls seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting with wet, labored sounds. Daniel watched his reflection’s hands tremble, clutching a Bible as its torn pages scattered across the floor like dead leaves.

«We’re the same,» the reflection whispered, pressing bloated palms against the glass until it began to splinter. «We share the same cursed blood.»

Daniel tried to back away, but the bathroom had shrunk, the walls pressing in. Holy water seeped under the door, rising quickly around his ankles.

The water rose faster now, up to his knees, his waist. Daniel hammered at the door, but each strike produced only the soft thud of flesh against wood. His fists had become Sam’s – large, pale, with bitten nails and scabbed knuckles. The water reached his chest, his neck. He gasped, swallowing water.

«Mom!» he tried to scream, but his voice emerged as Sam’s ragged bellow. «Mom, help!» Daniel screamed. «Mom… I’m sor – »

* * *

Daniel jolted awake. His T-shirt was soaked with sweat, sheets twisted around his legs like restraints. He blinked in the pre-dawn light, filtered through the blinds, casting prison-bar shadows across his bed. His heart pounded against his ribs like something trying to escape.

The house was unnaturally silent, like a held breath. For twenty-four years, it had never been this quiet – even at night, there were always sounds: his mother’s television, Sam’s pacing, the creak of old pipes running through the walls like arteries. Now, the silence pressed against his eardrums.

Daniel swung his legs over the edge of the bed, toes curling against the cold hardwood floor. He placed his hands flat on his chest, feeling his heartbeat gradually slow. His own body, still his own. His own mind. But for how long?

Outside his window, the sky was the muted gray of dishwater. But just above the cracked pane, a sliver of gold pierced the dust – sunrise threading through grime, catching on floating motes. Daniel watched the light stretch across the peeling wallpaper, transforming the ordinary into something almost holy. For a heartbeat, the world felt weightless, the promise of morning glinting through the ruin. He let himself believe, if only for a moment, that there was something waiting for him beyond these walls – a promise he couldn’t yet name.

Everything felt suspended, waiting. His grandmother’s Leica camera sat on his desk, nestled in its worn leather case. The last valuable thing they owned – his ticket out. He ran his fingers over its metal body, cool and solid, the only real thing in this house of shadows and echoes.

The floorboards creaked beneath his feet as he made his way to the bathroom. He avoided the mirror as he splashed cold water on his face – afraid Sam’s eyes might still be waiting in his own. Water dripped from his chin as he finally forced himself to look up. His own face – gaunt, dark circles under his eyes, but undeniably his – stared back. Relief washed over him.

Daniel emerged from the bathroom, pulled on jeans and a clean T-shirt, tucking the camera carefully into his backpack before stepping into the hallway. He found Dolores standing in the kitchen, a slight figure in a faded bathrobe, her hair uncombed. She looked smaller somehow, diminished by Sam’s absence. She poured coffee into a mug. This one was plain white, anonymous. She pushed it across the counter toward him.

«Did you sleep?» she asked, not meeting his eyes.

«Some.» Daniel wrapped his hands around the mug.

«I called the facility this morning. They say he’s stabilized.» She spoke clinically, as if discussing a stranger. «They want to keep him for observation. Seventy-two hours, at least.»

Daniel nodded and sipped the bitter coffee. The kitchen clock ticked loudly in the silence between them. Finally, Dolores looked up at him, her eyes suddenly sharp.

«You’re really doing this?»

No point lying. «Yes.»

«Because of what happened?»

«Because of everything.»

Her face crumpled, then hardened to stone. «So that’s it, huh? You just – what? Running away from your family? Now, when things are hardest?»

«Mom – »

«No.» She slammed her palm against the counter, coffee sloshing in her cup. «You think you’re better than us? Because someone sent you a letter? You think there’s some magical world out there waiting for you?» The words poured out of her, gaining momentum. «You’ll see. The world doesn’t care about people like us. We’re invisible to them. At least here, you’re somebody. At least here – »

«I’m what?» Daniel interrupted, the words escaping before he could stop them. «The one who cleans up vomit? The one who pays bills you forget? The one who calls 911 when Sam tries to kick my head in?»

Dolores flinched as if slapped. «He’s sick,» she whispered. «He can’t help it.»

«Neither can I. I’ve waited, Mom. I’ve waited so long for things to get better, and they never do.» Daniel set down his mug with careful precision.

Her posture softened. She crossed to him and laid a hand on his arm – rare touch. «Danny, please. We can figure this out. We always have.»

For a heartbeat, Daniel wavered. The dream flashed behind his eyes: Sam’s face in the mirror. Rising water. Then he gently removed her hand.

«I have to go.»

Her face transformed in an instant, tenderness hardening to stone. «Fine. Go. But if you’re taking anything from this house, you leave that damn camera. We’ll sell it. That’s the only decent thing you can do now.»

She stepped closer, voice dropping to a trembling whisper. «If you leave now, after everything I did for you – what kind of son are you?» Her words hung in the air, sharp as broken glass. Daniel felt their weight settle on his shoulders, heavier than the backpack he carried.

«It was grandmother’s gift to me…»

«Your grandmother would be ashamed of you,» she hissed, the words precise and venomous. «Abandoning your family when they need you most.»

He didn’t answer. There was nothing to say to that – no defense that wouldn’t sound hollow, even to his own ears. Instead, he turned away, heading back to his room to finish packing.

Daniel moved through the house as if underwater. Each room was a museum of fractured moments – exhibits from a life he was about to leave behind.

In the living room, his father’s chair stood empty, the upholstery worn thin where his hands had rested. Daniel paused, running his fingers over the armrest. He had only the vaguest memories of his father – a tall figure, the smell of aftershave, shouting matches that sent him hiding under his bed. Did he feel this too? This terrible mixture of relief and grief? The man had been gone for seventeen years, but the chair remained, a throne for a ghost who had never really left.

On the windowsill, his mother’s garden of broken things caught the morning light – shards of ceramics, chipped figurines, the pieces of the vase she’d broken yesterday. Daniel touched one of the fragments. Would she add him to this collection once he was gone?

In the hallway, he paused at Sam’s door. It stood slightly ajar, unusual for a room Sam guarded so jealously. Daniel hesitated, then pushed it open. The smell hit him first – unwashed clothes, the sickly sweet odor of the energy drinks Sam consumed by the case. Religious icons covered the walls – saints and saviors watching from every angle. Bible verses taped beneath – Sam’s cramped handwriting, others printed from the internet. «GOD SEES ALL. THE LORD TESTS THE RIGHTEOUS. PURGE ME WITH HYSSOP, AND I SHALL BE CLEAN.»

On the floor lay Sam’s torn poetry notebook, pages scattered like fallen leaves as in a nightmare. Daniel knelt and picked up a page. His brother’s handwriting crawled across it – sometimes neat, sometimes frantic:

Brother who walks with closed eyesSees only the ground beneath his feetNot the sky, nor the blooming tree