The River Remembers

The river is full. And the rent is due.Rosalee Franklin is dying a little bit at the time. Her lungs are failing, her house is rotting, and the only thing keeping her company during the nights is the hiss of her oxygen tank and the muddy Bogue Chitto River churning past her back porch.Her estranged daughter, Hilda, has come home with a mission: to baptize Rosalee and save her soul before it’s too late. But the river has a different plan.When Rosalee enters the water, she doesn’t just find redemption. She finds a reckoning. She rises from the mud carrying a secret that has been drowning for years, a truth so dangerous that the town’s most pious men will do anything to keep it buried. Now, the elders are circling, claiming Rosalee is losing her mind. They think she is just a frail old woman with a loose tongue.They’re wrong. Rosalee isn’t losing her mind; she’s finding her testimony. And this Sunday, she’s bringing the river to church.A haunting Southern Gothic short story about ancestral trauma, small-town secrets, and the terrifying power of the truth.