The feather was still there in the morning.
Ace had wanted to burn it, but Sarah stopped him.
"Burning it means it got to us," she said. "Let it rot."
So it stayed—nailed to the frame with its sliver of human bone. A warning. A threat. A memory.
They didn't touch it. But neither of them forgot it.
Sarah hadn't told Ace everything.
Not about the voice in the mirror.
Not about what it said when she touched the glass last night.
"He was just the first. You'll bury them all, eventually."
Ace brewed coffee in silence while Sarah stood in the hallway staring at her covered reflection.
She didn't dare look underneath it again.
But it whispered anyway.
And last night, just before she fell into a light, jagged sleep, the mirror whispered his name.
Not Hal.
Ace.
Now, Sarah kept the thought buried, like rot beneath floorboards. But it wouldn't stay quiet forever.
"Can I show you something?" Ace asked, breaking the silence.
She turned. "What is it?"
He motioned for her to follow him to the basement.
Her stomach twisted.
She hadn't gone down there since they moved in. It felt… wrong. Like the air was thicker.
Ace unlocked the door and flipped the switch.
Nothing.
Still no power.
He handed her a flashlight.
They descended the stairs together, their footsteps soft on old wood. The basement was unfinished—stone walls, dirt floor, scattered tools. It smelled like rain-soaked ash.
"I didn't want to tell you before," Ace said, "but I've been hearing things down here. Sounds that don't belong."
Sarah scanned the walls.
Something caught her attention.
Near the back corner, where the shadows were heaviest, the dirt had been disturbed. Like something had been dug up.
Or unburied.
Ace knelt by it, lifted an object wrapped in old cloth.
He unrolled it carefully.
Inside was a mirror.
But not just any mirror—an antique one, its glass warped, its frame carved with strange symbols that looked almost like words but weren't.
Sarah stepped back. Her flashlight flickered.
"Where did you get this?" she asked.
"I didn't," Ace said. "It was already here."
A cold breath of wind moved across her face, though there were no windows.
The mirror pulsed.
Sarah's reflection was missing.
Only Ace stood there.
Alone.