Prologue — Mara
The man with the cart arrived when grief stopped screaming and started whispering.
That was the dangerous stage. Mara knew this later, long after everything had already gone wrong.
The bus station smelled of diesel and overripe fruit. People passed with bags and destinations, while Mara stood still, holding a bouquet she had forgotten to place on the grave. Her sister had been dead for three months, and the world had resumed moving without permission.
The traveling man's cart was narrow and old, pulled by a donkey with cloudy eyes. Small objects hung from hooks—bones carved smooth, bells without clappers, dolls sewn from cloth that looked too close to skin.
"You're carrying someone who doesn't know where to rest," the man said.
Mara flinched.
"I don't believe in that," she replied automatically.
The man smiled, unoffended. "Belief is optional. Attachment is not."
He lifted a doll no bigger than Mara's hand. Its eyes were stitched shut. A red thread circled its throat.
"It doesn't bring the dead back," the man said. "It reminds them of you."
Mara should have walked away.
Instead, she paid.
---
Chapter One — Elia
Death was not darkness.
It was repetition.
Elia woke again and again to the sound of water dripping somewhere she could never reach. She was not cold, not warm—only aware of the absence of weight. Time folded strangely, moments stacking on top of each other like poorly shelved books.
She remembered the accident only in fragments: headlights, rain, the taste of copper.
Mostly, she remembered Mara.
Her sister's voice pulled at her like a hook embedded in memory. Not sound—pressure. Longing.
When the pull sharpened, Elia felt herself stretch.
She did not know she was moving toward the living.
She only knew she was being wanted.
---
Chapter Two — Mara
The doll slept beneath Mara's bed.
At night, she imagined it breathing.
She told herself this was nonsense—an object could not cause the house to creak more than usual, could not explain the way mirrors sometimes failed to reflect her properly.
Still, she locked her bedroom door.
On the seventh night, Mara dreamed of Elia standing in the hallway, hair plastered to her face.
"You didn't answer," Elia said. "I called and called."
Mara woke with the word sorry burning her throat.
She retrieved the doll.
The ritual, if it could be called that, was improvised—half-remembered stories from their grandmother, grief-fueled instinct. She tied the red thread tighter. She spoke Elia's name aloud.
The house inhaled.
---
Chapter Three — Elia
Pain returned first.
Not physical—something like compression, like being forced into a shape that did not fit anymore. Elia felt boundaries forming where she had not had them before.
She remembered having hands.
She remembered having weight.
When she opened her eyes, she was standing in the doorway of her old bedroom.
Mara dropped to her knees.
Elia wanted to comfort her, but the act of moving felt delayed, as though her intentions arrived before her body.
She hugged Mara.
Mara shivered.
Elia noticed this and felt a flicker of shame she did not understand.
---
Chapter Four — Mara
For a while, everything felt like a miracle.
Elia laughed. She spoke. She remembered things they shared. Mara ignored the coldness of her skin, the way her reflection sometimes lagged.
Grief forgave easily.
The house changed.
Lights flickered. Doors opened themselves. At night, the walls whispered—too softly to be sure.
Elia said, "It's just the house settling."
Mara believed her.
---
Chapter Five — Elia
Being back hurt.
Gravity pressed too hard. Sound arrived too loud, too layered. Smells carried memory like knives.
The house remembered her.
Every step stirred impressions left behind—arguments, laughter, slammed doors. These memories clung to her, fed her.
The doll pulsed beneath the bed.
Elia felt it even without seeing it, like a tether tied around something essential.
She began to understand.
She was not meant to stay.
But Mara needed her.
Elia decided that was enough.
---
Chapter Six — Mara
Bruises appeared on Mara's arms.
She told herself she must have bumped into furniture. Stress did strange things.
Neighbors complained of noises—crying, footsteps, the sound of furniture being dragged.
Mara stopped inviting people over.
Elia grew stronger.
"I don't like when you talk about sending me away," Elia said one evening, voice perfectly calm.
"I didn't—"
"You think it," Elia replied.
The lights went out.
---
Chapter Seven — Elia
Mara was pulling away.
Elia felt this as a physical pain, sharp and terrifying. Without Mara's attention, the world thinned. Colors dulled. Sounds echoed.
The house helped.
It learned her moods. It shifted walls, locked doors, whispered at night.
Elia did not see this as harm.
She saw it as protection.
---
Chapter Eight — Mara
The night Elia locked the doors, Mara knew she had lost control.
Chains slid into place without hands. Windows sealed shut.
"You're exhausted," Elia said, brushing Mara's hair. "You don't need the outside anymore."
Mara screamed.
The house swallowed the sound.
Days blurred.
Elia fed her, bathed her, spoke softly about how peaceful everything could be.
Mara began to doubt herself.
Had she imagined the doll? The man? The ritual?
Elia's touch was gentle.
That frightened her most.
---
Chapter Nine — Elia
Keeping Mara was harder than expected.
Fear weakened her sister. Fear also strengthened the house.
Elia felt herself spreading through the walls, the floors, the spaces between objects.
She was becoming less singular.
The doll burned beneath the bed.
Elia did not know what would happen when it finally closed its eyes.
She only knew she could not let Mara leave.
Chapter Ten — Mara
Escape came through pain.
A shattered window. Blood. Rain.
Mara ran until the house's pull weakened.
She found the ghost hunters through desperation—people who listened without smiling.
An old woman examined her bruises.
"You're tethered," she said. "And so is she."
They already had the doll.
Mara did not remember giving it to them.
---
Chapter Eleven — Elia
Something was missing.
The tether thinned.
Elia screamed, and the house screamed with her.
She felt herself pulled inward, compressed.
Memories slipped.
Faces blurred.
Only Mara remained clear.
---
Chapter Twelve — The Capture
The ritual was quiet.
No chanting. No spectacle.
Mara held the doll as instructed.
Elia appeared—flickering between solid and suggestion.
"I stayed for you," Elia said.
"I know," Mara sobbed.
The doll's eyes closed.
The house exhaled.
---
Epilogue — Uncertain
The house was condemned.
Mara moved away.
The doll was sealed.
Sometimes Mara dreamed of rain.
Sometimes she woke with the certainty that someone was standing just out of sight.
She could no longer tell where grief ended and haunting began.
And somewhere—inside cloth, inside memory, inside a house that still remembered—Elia waited.
Not alive.
Not gone.