Grandad's rule

My grandad had one rule about the woods behind his farm, and he made me repeat it every summer.

"If you hear someone call your name from the trees, you don't answer. Not the first time, not the second. Only answer if they call it three times. Whatever's in there can only say it twice."

I thought it was a story to keep kids from wandering off. I still did as he said. You did, with Grandad.

He died last spring. This summer I went back to clear out the farmhouse.

On the second evening, someone called my name from the woods. A man's voice, far off. I stood very still on the back step.

A while later, closer, it called again.

Then nothing. I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding. Twice. Just like he said.

And then, right at the edge of the trees, in my grandad's voice, gentle and tired and so familiar it made my chest hurt:

"Come on, love. That's three."

I know it's not him. I know it's not him. He's in the churchyard in the village and I watched them lower the coffin.

But I've been standing at the open back door for an hour now, and it hasn't moved, and it keeps saying my name, and it sounds exactly like him.