The Mustard Seed at the Water’s Edge

The afternoon sun hung low, casting long shadows across the cracked asphalt of the old mill road. I’d been back in town for three months, ever since my aunt passed and left me her decrepit house, and I’d promised myself I’d revisit the waterway that had been my childhood sanctuary. But life had a way of burying promises under piles of unpacked boxes and endless repairs. Today, though, I finally walked the half-mile to the mill pond, a place we used to call the ‘mirror’ because its surface was so still it reflected the sky like polished glass.

The mill itself had been abandoned for decades, its wheel frozen in a rusted halt. The town had tried to turn it into a museum, but funds ran out, leaving it to rot. I remembered the old stories the local kids told about a woman in white who wandered the mill’s upper floors, searching for her drowned child. I’d never believed them, not even as a ten-year-old. But as I stood on the bank, watching the water, I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.

I took out my phone to snap a few pictures of the mill and the pond. The first photo was of the mill’s broken windows, the second of the water lilies near the edge, the third a wide shot of the whole scene. I was about to head back when I noticed a small, bright yellow object in each photo, right near the center. It looked like a tiny mote of light, almost like a firefly, but it was perfectly round and had a strange, almost metallic glint.

I wiped the lens with my shirt, thinking it was a smudge or a flare. But the yellow thing persisted in every shot, even after I cleaned the glass. I moved a few steps to the left, took another photo, and there it was again, same size, same position, as if it were waiting for me to look at it. A light flare wouldn’t move with me. It would stay fixed relative to the camera, not the scene. I started to feel uneasy, a prickling at the back of my neck that I couldn’t explain.

I dismissed it as a trick of the sun, a reflection off some debris in the water. But as I lowered my phone, I caught a glimpse of a yellow flash in my peripheral vision, darting behind the mill’s corner. I spun around, but saw nothing. My heart thrummed. I told myself it was a bird, a butterfly, anything. Yet the way it moved was not like any bird I knew. It was too fast, too deliberate, almost as if it were observing me before slipping away.

I forced a laugh, turning back to the pond. The water was so still, a perfect mirror of the sky. I looked at my reflection, a middle-aged man with graying hair, the same face I’d seen in the mirror this morning. But then, for a split second, my reflection didn’t mimic my expression. It was smiling, a wide, unnerving grin that showed too many teeth, and its eyes were a vivid yellow, just like the thing in the photos.

I stumbled backward, tripping over a root, landing hard on the damp earth. When I looked up, my reflection was normal again, my own terrified face staring back. I scrambled to my feet, my hands shaking, and took one more photo of the pond, just to prove to myself that I was overreacting. When I checked the screen, the yellow thing appeared again, but this time it was larger, closer to the lens, and I could see a tiny black dot within it, like a pupil.

I didn’t run. I walked as fast as I could, my legs heavy with the wrongness of the place. I told myself it was a trick of the light, a rare insect, a prank by some kids. But the more I tried to rationalize, the more I felt the small yellow thing watching me from the trees, from the branches, from every dark corner of my vision. It was patient. It was intelligent. And it had seen me take its picture.

Back home, I locked every door and window. I drew the curtains, but I could still feel it out there. I pulled up the photos on my computer, zooming in on the yellow speck. In the first picture, it was blurry, indistinct. In the second, it had sharp defined edges. In the third, the last one I took, it was unmistakably a tiny, perfectly formed eye, staring directly at the camera, its black pupil dilated as if it had just spotted its prey. I closed the laptop, my breath coming in short bursts.

All evening, I heard nothing but the hum of the refrigerator and the ticking of the clock. But then, at midnight, a soft tapping came from the window behind the kitchen sink. I turned slowly, half expecting to see the yellow eye pressed against the glass, but there was nothing there. Just the reflection of the porch light on the pane. I told myself it was a moth, a twig, the wind. But I knew better. It had followed me home, and it was waiting.

I stayed awake all night, huddled on the couch, the photos loaded on my phone as if I could watch them for any change. And in the pale light of dawn, I saw it: in the first photo, the yellow thing had moved slightly to the left. In the second, it was bigger. In the third, it was gone. Not because I deleted it, but because it had left the frame, and I could only imagine it was now somewhere in my house, waiting for me to fall asleep.

I haven’t closed my eyes since. The house feels heavier, the air thicker. I hear whispers in the walls, but not in any language I know. I’ve taken more photos, desperate to find it, but they come out clear, and that’s worse. Because I know it’s out there, an intelligent observer that doesn’t want to be seen anymore, and it’s angry that I caught it. I don’t know what it wants, or what it’s become, but I know that this afternoon, when I walked to the creek, I brought something back with me. And now, as I sit typing this, I feel a pressure on the back of my neck, and I know without turning that when I look in the mirror, my reflection will be smiling again, with those yellow eyes, and it will have my face.