A few days had passed since the walk through the marsh. The healing woman had returned home carrying a quiet she hadn’t known she was missing. In the days that followed, she found herself pausing at windows more often, lingering on the sound of wind in the trees, and waking early, not out of worry, but out of curiosity for what the day might offer.

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She thought often of the wooden plank path and the meadow beyond it. She remembered the dragonflies, the turtles, and the stillness that had wrapped itself gently around her shoulders like a shawl. The ache inside her was still there, but something had shifted. The sharpness of it had dulled, rounded slightly by breath and birdsong. A memory stirred from even further back—of a lake not far from the marsh, one she hadn’t visited in years. It had once been a place of joy, of wandering and wonder. But after everything she’d endured, she hadn’t been ready to return. Not until now.

So on the fourth morning, when the sky was clear and the air mild, she stepped into her boots and returned to the trail. The marsh welcomed her with the soft rustle of reeds and the shimmer of morning light on water. She walked the wooden planks again, slower this time, not to find something new, but to honor what she had found before. The cattails stood tall, frogs stirred at the water’s edge, and dragonflies traced bright paths through the air. She paused in the meadow, ran her fingers along the tops of the grasses, and offered a silent thank-you to the ground beneath her feet.

But this time, she didn’t stop.

She passed through the trees and followed the older trail that veered beyond the familiar path. The forest deepened briefly, then opened into light. The scent of freshwater rose in the air before the lake even came into view. It was the same trail she remembered from years ago, and yet it felt entirely new.

The lake stretched before her—wide, quiet, and luminous in the morning sun. A low stone wall bordered the footpath to her left, its surface worn smooth by the passage of time. Wildflowers framed its edges in clusters of yellow, blue, and orange. Bees moved between them. Petals curled with grace. The healing woman stood for a long moment, simply taking it in.

The lake was full of ducks, just as it had always been. Mallards drifted in small groups, their green heads gleaming above the water’s soft ripples. A few ducklings trailed clumsily behind their mothers, weaving between lily pads. Nearby, a fallen tree jutted into the lake, half-submerged, its bark stripped smooth. Birds perched on its limbs. The stillness of it all made her feel like she had stepped into a forgotten memory that had been waiting patiently for her return.

She lifted her camera, the one she’d nearly forgotten she loved. The lens found the ducks, the flowers, the weathered stones, the curve of a willow dipping toward the water. She didn’t take photographs to prove she had been here. She took them to remember how it felt to see clearly again.

She followed the path along the shoreline, where flat stones formed a narrow trail and vines reached from the wall. In one quiet pocket of sun, a handful of snakes lay curled at the edge of the water. They didn’t move, nor did she. They belonged to this place, warm and watchful, undisturbed. She snapped a photo gently, careful not to break the peace.

Further along, she crossed a stone bridge, low and wide, its center slightly arched. She paused there, leaning on the edge. Beneath her, fish moved through sunlit shallows. The fallen limbs of another storm-toppled tree lay just beneath the surface, now part of the lake’s rhythm. The ducks swam around it without hesitation.

The healing woman sat at the bridge’s edge, setting the camera in her lap. Around her, the lake carried on. Birds called from the trees. Wind moved through the grass. She listened, not with urgency, but with ease. For the first time in a long while, she didn’t feel she was carrying a story too heavy to hold. She felt herself settling, slowly and honestly, into the kind of quiet that heals from the inside out.

When she finally rose and followed the path back, the light had begun to change. The wildflowers leaned gently in the afternoon warmth. She passed the stone wall again, stopped to photograph a cluster of bluebells catching the breeze, then turned toward the trees.

Before she left, she looked back once more at the lake—not with longing, but with appreciation. It had waited for her. Not with urgency, not with demand, but with the quiet understanding that healing has its own timeline.

And this time, the calm didn’t just follow her home.

It walked beside her.

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