The front door creaked open with a familiar sigh, as if even the house exhaled when Elija returned.
Inside, the air was warm. It smelled like cinnamon, or maybe vanilla — or maybe just that elusive, cozy magic only grandmothers could summon. That strange scent of memory and safety, woven into the very wood of the walls.
She stepped inside slowly, not quite ready to let the day follow her in.
From the kitchen came the gentle clink of pots. The hush of boiling water. The shuffle of slippers on tile.
"You're home, sweetheart?" called a voice — soft and weathered, like sun through an old curtain.
"Yeah..." Elija murmured, kicking off her shoes, hanging up her jacket. She stood there a second longer in the entryway, as if trying to press pause. As if trying to keep the day on the other side of the door.
In the kitchen, her grandmother was already pouring tea into her favorite mug — the chipped one with the faded moon.
She didn't ask any sharp questions. She never did.
Just offered presence. Stillness. That rare kind of quiet that doesn't ask you to be better, only to be.
"How was school?"
Elija looked down at her feet.
"It was… weird. Teachers are still lunatics. Maybe more than usual today."
Her grandmother chuckled. The sound was low and honeyed.
"That's called life, darling. The longer you live, the stranger people become. And sometimes… you realize you're one of them."
Elija snorted, and took the mug.
Steam curled like sighs above the tea.
"I'm tired," she whispered. "I just wanna go up. Be alone."
"Of course, sweet. Tired is human too," her grandmother said, with a nod of knowing that only people who've survived everything can give.
Upstairs, the light in her room was soft and sleepy. The curtains shifted gently like breath. She stood for a moment in the quiet — and then let herself fall into the rituals that made the world bearable.
She stepped into the shower. Let the water wash away everything she couldn't explain — the strange poetry of Ms. Anderson's eyes, Lorena's reckless laughter, the shadows at the park, the notebook that hummed.
She didn't cry. But the water felt like someone was doing it for her.
Later, hair wrapped in a towel, skin wrapped in an old hoodie and shorts, Elija crawled into bed.
She grabbed a book. Call Me by Your Name.
She tried to read.
But the words kept slipping between her fingers.
Her mind wandered — back to them.
Her parents.
It hit suddenly, like it always did. No warning. Just there.
That aching, gnawing emptiness.
That feeling that someone had taken the world and turned the volume down — permanently.
She remembered their laughter. Her father's hands when he played the piano. The way her mother sang while washing dishes, off-key but radiant.
The sound of a door opening that would never open again.
The last voicemail that she hadn't listened to in over a year.
She had almost followed them once.
Almost.
And sometimes, even now, it felt like she was still standing at the edge. Like part of her had stayed behind — frozen in that moment — and she was just a ghost living on borrowed time.
Elija curled under her blanket, burying her face into the pillow. The book slipped from her hand and hit the floor with a soft thud.
She let the silence hold her.
The house made its nighttime noises — old bones settling, pipes breathing.
Then—
A soft click.
She sat up.
Her backpack zipper had moved. Just slightly.
Too slightly.
Elija's breath caught in her throat.
She leaned over and slowly opened the bag.
The notebook was glowing faintly. A pulsing light, like a heartbeat.
She picked it up.
And across the page, in a looping, ink-black script she had not written, were the words:
"Your grief is not just yours anymore."
Elija dropped the book.
The light stopped.
Her heart did not.
The room grew quiet.
Too quiet.
The kind of stillness that pressed into the skin, into the bones — the kind that made you remember you were made of blood and breath and too many questions.
Elija's eyes fluttered shut.
The tea on her nightstand grew cold.
And then—
She was somewhere else.
---
It started with footsteps.
Not hers.
Soft and echoing. Childlike.
Elija opened her eyes and found herself standing barefoot on a road made of mirrors. The sky was the color of old bruises — violet and grey, streaked with gold like broken veins.
Everything shimmered. Like reality was made of glass and someone had breathed fog over it.
In the distance stood a house.
Her house.
But not really.
It was cracked and crooked, like someone had drawn it from memory and gotten the proportions wrong. The windows blinked. The door was slightly open — waiting.
She walked.
Her feet didn't make a sound.
Inside, the hallway stretched endlessly. The walls whispered as she passed. Family photos melted and reformed — her mother smiling, her father waving, then both fading to ash.
She heard piano music.
But not the melody.
Just one key, played over and over.
A note of longing. And dread.
She turned a corner.
And there she was.
A little girl.
Five years old.
It was her.
The younger version of herself sat in a dark room lit only by candlelight, cradling something in her hands.
A heart.
No, not a real one — paper, maybe. Torn from a notebook, folded and unfolded so many times it was breaking.
Elija took a step forward.
The girl didn't look up.
But she spoke.
"You left me here," the child whispered. "You said you'd come back."
Elija's throat tightened. "I… I didn't mean to."
"You promised." The girl slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were hollow. Deep. Endless.
Elija took a step back.
The girl stood.
"Mom and Dad are still waiting, you know. You keep waking up. But you're not awake."
Suddenly, the candles blew out.
Darkness swallowed everything.
And then—
She saw a door.
Not in the dream.
In her own room.
Her bedroom.
At the far end.
But that door wasn't supposed to be there.
The dream and reality blurred.
Elija gasped and sat up in bed, heart pounding, sweat running down her spine.
The room was lit only by the dim glow of street lamps behind her curtain.
She was alone.
Except—
The notebook lay open on her blanket again.
A new line had appeared in ink-black scrawl:
"She remembers the fire. Do you?"
Elija stared at the words, her chest tight, her pulse loud in her ears.
Something was waking up.
Not just memories.
Something else.
Something older.
Something buried.
And it wanted her attention.