Entry 19: January 10th
There's something different about me now.
It started subtly just a flicker in the mirror, a blink that didn't match. I thought I was just tired, strung out from too many sleepless nights and too many questions without answers.
But then it happened again. And again. And the more I tried to ignore it, the more obvious it became.
My reflection is off.
Half a second too slow. Or too fast. Like it's not reacting to me anymore.
Like it's remembering me instead.
Like it's choosing to copy me, rather than being me.
I sat for hours staring into that mirror today, daring myself to catch it slipping. I whispered things to it.
I tilted my head when it did. I closed one eye. But it never broke. It watched me like I was the intruder.
I finally turned away. But I left the light on in the bathroom. And I kept the door cracked, just enough to see if it moved on its own.
So far, it hasn't.
But I'm still watching.
Today I should've gone to class. I didn't. I tried, got dressed, packed my bag, walked to the front steps of campus… and turned around.
My fingers wouldn't stop trembling. And the moment I crossed that line between the sidewalk and the university gate, the pendant burned hot against my chest.
A warning.
Or a rejection.
I'm starting to believe I don't belong there anymore.
Not in the world I used to live in.
Something is calling me away from it.
I spent the day back at the public records library, pulling up everything I could on estates connected to Hollow Court.
Most are long gone. Burned, sold, renamed. But I found an incident report from 2003 filed by a city historian:
"Unexplained closure of private property: Thorne Hollow. Access denied. Records sealed by private legal authority. Site believed compromised."
Compromised.
Like a warzone.
Like a biohazard.
Like something escaped.
I copied the entire file. The language they use is cold and detached, but you can feel the fear under it. No one will say what happened at the estate. But it wasn't natural. It wasn't mundane.
I think something was awakened. Or sealed.
Maybe both.
I'm going back.
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Entry 20: January 11th
I didn't sleep again. I tried. Lay in bed for three hours. Watched the ceiling turn from shadow to blue-gray.
But every time I closed my eyes, I saw flashes. A hallway. A key turning in a lock. A door opening at the end of a corridor where no door should be.
And behind it, someone waiting. Not Ash. Not my mother.
Someone else.
He didn't speak, but I recognized him. Or some part of me did.
He looked at me like he had been waiting for years.
I woke with a name on my lips. Not whispered. Spoken aloud.
Valen
I don't remember dreaming his name, but I said it out loud. The sound lingered in the air like it didn't belong to me.
The pendant glowed again, briefly. A soft silver pulse. Like it was… answering.
I've started writing down everything I remember about the ledger pages. I wish I had scanned more.
I only have a handful, but his name is always there in the margins, next to my mother's. And beside it, always a phrase.
"Oathbound. Unnamed. Revoked."
I looked up blood oaths in Hollow Court law. It's a mess. The records contradict each other constantly.
Some say blood oaths are sacred, unbreakable, eternal. Others call them dangerous.
Forbidden. Especially if made outside the bloodline.
Especially if made in love.
And that's what it feels like this was. Not some transaction. Not a deal. But something older. Deeper.
I think my mother loved him. Valen.
And the House punished them both for it.
Ash still hasn't returned. But I found a feather outside my window this morning.
Black, sleek, resting on the sill with a single drop of red near the tip.
Like ink.
Or blood.
Or a warning.
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Entry 21: January 12th
I went back to Thorne Hollow today.
I know I shouldn't have. Every instinct screamed against it. But instincts can be drowned when the pull of knowing becomes stronger than the fear of what you'll find.
The forest path was different this time. Not just overgrown, it had… shifted.
The trees leaned in, branches tangled above to block out the sky. It felt like walking into the mouth of something. Alive. Watching.
But I kept going.
The gate was closed this time. But when I touched it, it creaked open like it remembered me. Like it had been waiting.
Inside, the snow had melted more than it should have. The air was warmer, like spring had crept into this one place and decided to stay.
The door to the house opened before I knocked.
I stepped inside.
Everything was… cleaner. Dust gone. Candles lit. The chandelier over the main hall glowed like it had been polished.
And someone had set a table for two.
Not in the dining room, but in the old garden conservatory. I could see it through the glass hallway.
Two plates. Two glasses. A vase of withered roses between them.
One seat was empty.
The other had something in it.
Not someone.
A coat.
Familiar.
Ash's.
I didn't touch it. I couldn't.
But I knew what it meant.
He had been here.
And maybe… not alone.
I heard music coming from upstairs. A piano. The same note over and over again. Like someone pressing it with one finger.
A signal.
A summoning.
I started to follow it.
But something whispered from behind me.
My name.
Soft. Deep. Like breath in my ear.
"Eira."
I turned.
No one.
But the pendant glowed again.
And the mirror beside the hall cracked...
just slightly.
A single line through the center.
Like something inside had stirred.
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Entry 22: January 12th
I didn't sleep when I got home. I couldn't. Every light in my apartment is on. I keep checking corners, mirrors, my phone.
Every time I close my eyes, I hear it again, that piano note. That voice.
I don't know if I brought something back with me.
Or if something followed.
I wrote Ash's name on a slip of paper and burned it in the kitchen sink. It's an old charm I found in one of the Hollow journals
"To summon what walks in shadow, offer its name to the flame."
I hesitated for a moment, Ash isn't his real name. It's just what I call him. But it's all I have… and maybe, just maybe, it's enough.
I thought it was stupid.
Until the lights flickered.
And the flame turned blue.
And he appeared.
Not in full.
But in the glass of my window.
His reflection only.
Eyes full of sorrow.
He didn't speak. Just placed his hand flat against the invisible barrier between us.
I did the same.
And in the frost that formed beneath our touch, a symbol appeared.
The crescent.
The rose.
And then… a new word.
"Unseal."
He disappeared before I could ask anything. But I understood.
The House isn't just remembering me.
It's waking him too.
Valen.
Wherever he is...
whoever he has become...
he's not gone.....
He's waiting.
Just like Ash said.
And I think… He's starting to remember me.
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Entry 23: January 13th
I don't know who I am anymore.
I'm scared to admit that. Even here, even to these pages that have become more real to me than my own voice lately.
But I need to write it down.
Something in me is shifting. Reaching backward through blood and memory. I've started seeing things that didn't happen to me... but I remember them.
A woman standing barefoot in a stone circle under a red moon. A man kneeling, offering her a ring of thorns. A kiss that wasn't sweet, but sharp. A promise spoken in a language I don't know, but somehow understand.
It was them.
My mother.
Valen.
And maybe… me?
I'm afraid I'm not just inheriting this story.
I'm repeating it.
The House keeps time in circles, not lines. What was broken returns. What was buried rises. What was severed seeks to mend.
Ash said love is the thing the House fears most.
Because it can't control it.
And that's why they silenced my mother. Why they buried Valen.
But they didn't erase them.
They couldn't.
Because I exist.
Because blood remembers.
Because silence doesn't last forever.
And neither do seals.