Chapter 5:

The Kimono Reawakens

It began with the sprinklers.

Not all of them—just the mayor’s.
At 12:13 a.m. sharp. Every night. A hiss, then a cough, then the sudden rhythmic chk-chk-chk of mechanical rain. His lawn lit up in droplets under the sodium streetlight, painting the grass silver and slick.

No one else’s sprinklers turned on. Not Myrtle’s. Not the Watsons’. Not the scorched patch in front of the abandoned townhome next door. Just his.

He stared at the soaked lawn from behind the kitchen blinds, barefoot, one trembling hand wrapped around a sweating glass of ginger ale. He told himself it was a glitch. Faulty programming. Coincidence.

But the next night, it happened again.

And the next.

And the next.

---

Then came the flags.

Little plastic ones—red, yellow, white—planted sporadically across his yard like someone was planning a tiny coup. The kind used by utility companies to mark gas lines or buried cables. He hadn’t scheduled any service.

One was stabbed right into the center of the lawn, directly above the place he’d buried the kimono.
Scrawled in blue ink on the tag:

What lies beneath grows bold.

He plucked the flag from the soil like it might bite him and stumbled back inside.

---

But the worst was the mail.

One morning, he opened his mailbox to find the usual pile of catalogs, water bills, and local campaign flyers. All accounted for—except the water bill. Gone.

In its place: a single pink sequin.

He stood frozen in the driveway, sun bearing down on his shoulders, sequin glinting in his palm like a warning. It felt too warm. Like it had been placed there just seconds before.

A neighbor walked past with her dog. Brindle nodded stiffly. She smiled, unaware that the mayor of their town had just begun to quietly lose his grip on reality.

---

Across the street, Myrtle wrote.

The typewriter she’d dusted off had a key that stuck on the letter “R.” Every time she typed a word with one, it made a soft hiccupping sound, like the machine was clearing its throat.

Her apartment smelled faintly of clove and lemon oil and something older, darker—possibly resentment.

She hadn’t written in years. Not properly. But this story… this one came crawling out of her like it had been waiting.

The protagonist: a petty man with secrets and a fading public smile.
The setting: a town where things didn’t stay buried.
The details: unsettlingly accurate.

She hadn’t meant to write about the mayor. Not at first. But the words showed up on the page like they’d been dictated through the blinds.

Myrtle paused, finger hovering over the spacebar. Capote lay curled at her feet, three-legged and twitchy, one eye blinking at half speed. He’d growled twice that morning. Once on the sofa. Once, at the kimono she hadn’t seen. Yet.

She lit a small lavender candle and resumed typing.

---

Around the neighborhood, the effects spread like static:

– A retired teacher claimed her garden gnome had moved overnight, now staring into her kitchen window.
– A man jogging past the park tripped over a tree root that hadn’t been there the day before.
– At precisely 12:13 a.m., two crows began circling the HOA sign in slow, deliberate loops. Clockwise. Always clockwise.

Next door lit up with cryptic updates:

“Anyone else missing their cable bill?”
“Found glitter in the hummingbird feeder. Can’t explain it.”
“Do NOT go near the mayor’s yard after midnight.”

---

Mayor Brindle sat in his guest room, lights on, knees pulled to his chest, a copy of Temple Blade and the Hollow Crown clutched like a holy book. His palms itched. His mouth tasted metallic, like he’d been chewing on tinfoil dreams.

He hadn’t slept. Not really.
He dreamed of sequins and spotlights and slow-motion applause that turned into dirt being shoveled over silk.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her.

Not Myrtle—LaFleur.

Her smile in his mind had changed. Sharpened. It wasn’t friendly anymore. It was authorial.
Like she was outlining his arc.

---

At 2:14 a.m., he cracked.

He walked to the park in house shoes and a flannel robe.
Dug up the kimono.

The soil felt wrong—damp even though it hadn’t rained. And warm. Not sun-warm, but body-warm. As if it had been waiting for him.

He unearthed the garment slowly, breath short, heart hammering in his throat.

It was still intact. Impossibly pristine. Not a spot of dirt. No frayed threads.
The sequins shimmered in the moonlight like they were alive.

He held it up, hands trembling.

It shifted.

Just slightly. But enough to make him drop it.

He stumbled back. Tripped on the shovel. Fell hard onto his side in the grass, wind knocked out of him.

From the edge of the trees, Capote appeared.

Silent. Watching. One leg cocked like he was deciding whether or not to bite.

Then Myrtle’s voice, floating from her porch like honey laced with arsenic:

“You might as well leave it in the ground, dear. The story’s better that way.”

The porch light clicked off.

And the moon blinked behind a cloud.