Elena didn't go straight home.
She walked the long way—past the shuttered bakery, the overgrown cemetery, the rusted swing set in the abandoned schoolyard—trying to outrun the lullaby still echoing in her skull. Her mother's voice, soft and warm, singing words Elena hadn't remembered in years:
"Hush now, little sparrow,
The hollow wind won't follow…"
But the wind was following. And it wasn't hollow anymore. It was full of teeth.
When she finally turned onto Sycamore Lane, the house looked wrong.
Not damaged. Not broken.
Reordered.
The front door stood slightly ajar—though she'd locked it herself before leaving. The curtains in the parlor, which had been drawn shut, now hung open, revealing the piano bathed in pale afternoon light. And on the porch step, placed with eerie precision, sat her dead phone.
Screen cracked. Battery long drained.
Yet as she approached, it lit up.
A single word scrolled across the black glass in jagged white text:
WELCOME
She kicked it off the step. It clattered into the bushes, screen shattering completely. No more tricks.
Inside, the air was colder than before. Not winter-cold—cellar-cold. The kind that seeps into your bones and whispers you're not alone.
She checked every room. Nothing missing. Nothing obviously disturbed. Yet everything felt… watched. The armchair angled toward the hallway. A book left open on the kitchen table—Maya's favorite poetry collection—to a page marked with a dried violet. The poem read:
"It wears my voice like borrowed skin,
And smiles with all my sins within."
Elena slammed the book shut.
That night, she tried to sleep in Maya's old bedroom, door locked, flashlight beside her like a weapon. But sleep wouldn't come. Instead, the house began to breathe.
At first, it was just the usual groans of old wood settling. Then—a whisper from the closet.
"…tired…"
Her own voice. Soft. Exhausted.
She held her breath.
From the hallway, another whisper—deeper, slower:
"…she always comes back…"
Maya's voice.
Then, from the ceiling vent:
"…too late…" (hers again)
And from under the bed:
"…should've called…" (Maya)
They weren't speaking to her.
They were speaking about her.
Like actors rehearsing a tragedy they already knew the ending to.
Elena pulled the pillow over her head, trembling. But the voices didn't stop. They layered, overlapped, harmonized in a grotesque duet of guilt and grief—all in the voices of the two people she loved most, twisted into something alien.
"She'll stay," Maya-voice sighed.
"She always stays," her own voice replied.
"Until there's nothing left to say."
Then—silence.
Blessed, suffocating silence.
Elena dared to peek out.
The room was still.
But on the mirror above the dresser, fogged with unseen breath, three words had been written in condensation:
WE REMEMBER YOU
She screamed then—not in fear, but in fury. She grabbed the lamp and hurled it at the mirror. Glass exploded. Shards skittered across the floor like fleeing insects.
Panting, she sank to her knees.
In the wreckage, one large shard remained upright in the frame. And in its reflection, for just a heartbeat, she saw not herself—but Maya, standing behind her, mouth open in a silent scream.
Then it was gone.
Outside, a car engine rumbled to life down the street. Headlights swept across the ceiling.
Ben.
He must have finished checking on Mrs. Gable.
Elena wiped her face, smoothed her hair, and went downstairs to meet him before he knocked. She needed him to see her as rational. As sane.
But when she opened the door, Ben wasn't alone.
Two uniformed deputies stood behind him, hands resting lightly on their belts.
And Ben's expression wasn't concern.
It was dread.
"Elena," he said quietly, "we need to talk about what happened at Mrs. Gable's."
She frowned. "I told you—I left before anything—"
"She's gone," he cut in. "Vanished. House empty. But her voice…" He swallowed hard. "It's on every answering machine in town. On radios. Even the police scanners. Just her saying, 'I'm fine, dear. Go home now.' Over and over."
He stepped closer, voice dropping. "And Elena… your prints were on the phone. And the teacup."
Her blood turned to ice. "That's impossible. I barely touched them!"
Ben's eyes flicked to the attic window above them. "I believe you. But the town doesn't. And if this keeps happening…" He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
They both knew what came next.
Restraints. Evaluation. A room with padded walls and no windows.
"No," she whispered. "You can't—"
"I'm trying to protect you," he said fiercely. "But you have to tell me the truth. Did you do something to that house? To Maya's things?"
She wanted to scream: It's not me—it's listening! It's learning!
But the words died in her throat.
Because as she looked past Ben's shoulder, she saw it.
Reflected in the deputy's sunglasses—just for an instant—the attic window wasn't empty.
A figure stood there.
Smiling.
With Elena's face.
End of Chapter 7