Small Acts
The Gate Change

The Empty Chair

August 25, 2026 · Part 8 of 10 · 2 min

Callum hit the door with his shoulder before it fully latched, and it gave — the volunteer startling backward with a small gasp, a hand flying to her chest, but he was already past her, swallowed into the dark and the candlelight and the smell of melted wax and cut flowers.

Nobody turned. That was the mercy of it — a gymnasium of two hundred people with their eyes fixed forward, and one more latecomer slipping in at the back barely registered at all. Callum pressed himself against the rear wall, chest heaving, and made himself look.

Rows of folding chairs, a sea of small flames. Up front, a podium, the mayor mid-sentence in the low, careful cadence of a man who'd given this kind of speech before. Beside the podium, on an easel, the photo he'd already seen twice today, larger now and somehow worse for it. And in the very front row, one folding chair sat apart from the others, a single candle burning on its seat, his dress jacket folded with military precision across the back of it.

An empty chair. Held for him.

Two seats down from it, Noelle sat with her spine too straight, the posture of someone holding herself together by main force, one hand wrapped tight around their daughter's. Marlowe's dark hair had grown past her shoulders since the last photo he'd seen of her. She looked smaller than nine.

Callum started moving, slow, along the side wall, staying low, staying in the dark where the candlelight didn't reach, closing the distance one careful step at a time while every nerve in his body screamed at him to run down the center aisle instead.

He was fifteen feet away, still hidden, still working out how to do this without the whole room going into shock at once, when the mayor's voice cut through his planning entirely.

"And now," the mayor said, stepping back from the podium, "Marlowe would like to say a few words for her father."

Callum froze mid-step as, in the front row, his daughter let go of her mother's hand, stood on legs that were visibly shaking, and walked toward the microphone.

Continue the story Part 9: A Few Words →

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