It is quiet again. Not the comfortable kind that fills a room when someone you trust is nearby. Not the good silence. This one is heavy, like a blanket soaked in ice water, pressing against my ribs until it's hard to breathe.
The floorboards groan beneath my feet as I leave the room. Davis isn't in the hallway, and Carina's door is shut. I don't bother to knock. I know she's awake. I can feel her watching the same way I feel the chill in the air before a storm breaks.
Downstairs, the kitchen light is dim. Davis left a candle burning — a stub that's melted into a puddle of wax around the base of a cracked ceramic plate. He's trying to pretend things are normal, even though we both know they're not.
I pour water into a chipped cup. It tastes like metal, but I drink anyway.
I'm trying to be still. I'm trying to act like I belong here, like I'm seven again and nothing behind me ever happened. But that's the problem with pretending: it makes the silence louder. It gives it a shape.
I step outside before the house eats me alive.
The morning is thin. Dew clings to the grass like blood to broken fingernails, and the trees around the house sway gently, as if whispering to each other in a language I was never taught. I take the long way around the garden, avoiding the well.
I know what waits there. Not in this loop, maybe. Not yet. But eventually.
The swing Michael built still hangs from the gnarled apple tree. It creaks when the wind pushes it. I sit down, letting my feet drag against the dirt until the swing stops moving. My arms curl tightly around my legs.
This is where he used to read to me.
I close my eyes. I can hear his voice even now. Not clearly. Not the words. Just the sound of it. Calm. Strong. Real.
Michael never lied to me.
Everyone else did.
I think about Carina, how she smiled as she handed me the poisoned tea. She kissed my forehead like a good sister. She whispered, "It won't hurt," before I fell asleep for the last time.
And then I woke up here. Before the poison. Before the betrayals. Before I became the kind of girl who dreams of revenge.
But it's still inside me. That fury. That knowing. I carry it like a second skin.
The garden is full of weeds. The lilacs have overgrown the fence and the rosemary bush is half-dead. Michael would've fixed that. He would've cleaned it up, talked to the plants like they were people. He said they grew better that way. I never asked how he knew.
Davis came outside a little while later. I didn't look at him.
"You missed breakfast," he said.
"I wasn't hungry."
He stood behind me for a minute, not talking. Then he asked, "You want to go into town today?"
I shook my head.
"It's market day," he added. "We could get you something."
I finally turned to look at him. His face was thinner than I remembered. Eyes hollowed out by fear or lack of sleep. Probably both. He used to be taller than me, but now I realize I might catch up to him someday.
If I live long enough.
"I don't want anything from that place."
He sighed. "Okay."
I don't know why he's trying. Maybe because he remembers how I died in the last life. Maybe because he doesn't. I haven't decided if I believe his fear is real or if he's just good at playing innocent. Carina was good at pretending, too.
After he left, I wandered toward the greenhouse. It's mostly broken glass and twisted beams now, but one panel still catches the sun. Inside, there's a violet growing through a crack in the tile.
I crouch down in front of it.
"You shouldn't be here," I whisper.
The flower doesn't answer.
I sit on the stone step and rest my chin on my knees. I can hear bees in the tall grass, soft and patient. The sound soothes something inside me I didn't know was raw.
This moment is quiet.
Not the bad kind.
The kind I can live in.
I don't go near the well. Not yet. That shadow doesn't need me to find it. It'll come on its own.
Later that night, I lie awake and listen to the walls creak.
Davis is in the hallway again. I hear his steps, slow and dragging. I hear the way he pauses outside my door. Waiting. Maybe deciding. Maybe wondering if I'm asleep.
I don't move.
He doesn't knock.
Eventually, he walks away.
Carina doesn't come out of her room at all. I wonder what she dreams about. I wonder if she remembers.
If she does, she hides it better than I ever could.
I curl up under the blanket and close my eyes.
Sleep comes in pieces. My dreams are fogged windows. Blurred shapes. Voices I can't name. Michael was calling my name, and the sound of the swing creaking. Carina's smile, too close.
I wake up with the taste of iron in my mouth.
I don't scream. I never scream anymore.
The next day, I drew a map.
It's not of the house. It's not of the town. It's one of the places I remember hiding when I was smaller — before everything fell apart. The root cellar. The broken wardrobe in the attic. The crawl space behind the laundry room.
I mark them with an X.
Each one could save me again.
Or trap me.
When Davis finds the map, he doesn't ask what it's for. He just looks at it, then looks at me.
"You planning to run?" he asks.
I shake my head. "Planning not to die."
He doesn't laugh. He just nods.
I think maybe he understands more than I gave him credit for. Maybe.
That night, I heard Carina humming. A lullaby. One I thought I'd forgotten.
I bury my face in the pillow.
And wait for morning.
A week passes.
The days blur. I spend more time in the garden. I clean the broken pots in the greenhouse. I whisper to the plants, the way Michael used to. Maybe they'll tell me something. Maybe they already have, and I just don't know how to listen yet.
Davis watches from a distance. He brings me tea, but I never drink it. Not anymore.
I dig my fingers into the earth. The dirt under my nails reminds me I'm real.
Carina joins me one afternoon. She doesn't say anything. Just sits beside me while I weed the corner by the roses.
We work in silence. The shape of it is different this time. Not soft. Not sharp. Just full.
Finally, she says, "I used to like this garden."
I don't answer.
She plucks a leaf from the rosemary and rubs it between her fingers. "Do you remember when Michael planted the sunflowers?"
"Yes."
"You cried when they died in the frost."
"I was five."
"You cried like your heart broke."
I glance at her. Her face is calm. Too calm.
"You don't get to talk about my heart," I say.
She doesn't respond. We sit until the light fades.
Then she says, "I'm sorry."
I don't believe her.
But I nod anyway.
Let her think she's winning. Let her get comfortable.
Ghosts walk easiest when they think they're alone.
That night, I dream of fire.
The house burns. The swing creaks in the wind. Michael is shouting my name but I can't reach him. I'm trapped in the well, looking up at the sky. The stars blink like dying eyes.
I wake up gasping.
The candle beside my bed has burned out.
The silence is back.
But now I know its shape.
It looks like me.
The day after the fire dream, I moved more slowly.
My body feels like it's still caught in the smoke, lungs clogged with ash that never burned. My fingers tremble as I wash my face, and the cold water feels too much like ice breaking over skin already cracked from something deeper than weather.
At breakfast, Davis doesn't ask me what's wrong. He sets down a plate of toast and apples and sits across from me, chewing quietly. The silence between us isn't quite safe, but it isn't dangerous either.
"You don't sleep well," he says after a while.
I glance at him over the rim of the chipped mug I hold. "Neither do you."
He gives a small, tired smile. "Guess that makes us the same."
I don't answer. Because we're not. He didn't die screaming. He didn't choke on poison poured by someone he loved.
Still, I don't hate him the way I thought I might. He's trying. That counts for something, doesn't it?
Later, I find myself back in the attic. The old wardrobe is still there — tall, skeletal, the wood warped with age and damp. I used to hide here. In the days when hide-and-seek was just a game, not training for survival.
I open the doors and step inside. The dust is thick, the air stale. I pull the doors shut and sit down, knees pulled to my chest.
It's dark. The kind of dark that listens.
I whisper to it.
Not words. Just breathing.
Maybe Michael did the same. Maybe he sat in this very spot, hiding from the same ghosts I'm hunting now.
I don't know how long I will stay there. Long enough that my legs go numb. Long enough that I forget why I came.
When I emerge, the house is quiet again.
Too quiet.
That evening, a storm rolls in.
The air goes strange — thick, charged. Like the world is holding its breath. Davis lights candles and sets out buckets in case the roof leaks again. Carina watches from the window, one finger tracing the glass.
I watch her reflection more than I watch the storm.
Thunder rattles the floorboards. Rain begins to fall, hard and fast, soaking the garden and turning the dirt paths into rivers.
Carina turns to me. "You should stay out of the attic when it storms."
"Why?"
She shrugs. "Lightning likes high places."
I narrow my eyes. "Is that a warning?"
Her mouth quirks in something almost like amusement. "It's a memory."
I don't ask whose.
At night, the rain becomes a lullaby. A fierce, endless drumming that drowns out even the creaks in the floor, but I don't sleep.
Instead, I open the window and sit on the ledge, letting the cold air bite at my cheeks. Water splashes the sill. Somewhere, an owl calls. Somewhere closer, wood splits — a sharp, cracking sound like something breaking under pressure.
I hold my breath and wait.
Nothing follows.
Still, I close the window. The storm ends just before dawn.
Three days pass.
The map I made becomes more detailed. I add symbols, codes that only I understand. I draw the well in thick black ink and cross it out again and again until the page tears.
Carina watches me one afternoon while I sharpen the kitchen knives. Her hands are wet with dishwater. Her eyes are unreadable.
"Planning a war?" she asks.
I look her dead in the eye. "Planning a defense."
"From what?"
"From you."
A beat of silence. Then she laughs. Softly. Not mocking. Not cruel.
That's worse.
That means she's hiding something.
I put the knives away. One by one. The way Michael taught me.
That night, I heard the door to the cellar creak open.
It's not loud. Not enough to wake anyone but me.
I slip from bed and creep down the stairs. My feet make no sound. My shadow clings to the walls like a second skin.
The cellar door is ajar.
I don't know what I expect to find — Davis sneaking food, Carina hiding something — but what I find is older than either of them.
A mark. Carved into the beam beside the door. Fresh.
A circle. A line through it. A shape I haven't seen in years, but recognize instantly.
The mark Michael used to draw when he was afraid. When he thought someone was watching.
I reach out and trace it with one fingertip.
Still damp with sap.
The next day, I told Davis.
I show him the mark.
His face goes pale. Not with confusion, but recognition.
"You know what it means," I say.
He nods. "Michael drew it once. When we were little. Said it was to keep the shadows away."
"Did it work?"
He doesn't answer.
But later that night, he tacks a piece of cloth over the cellar door.
I pretend not to notice.
I think Michael's still out there.
Somewhere. Maybe hurt. Maybe watching. Maybe leaving marks behind because he can't get closer.
Or maybe this is all just a memory playing tricks.
But I can't shake the feeling that I'm not the only one who came back with memories.
I catch Carina looking at me too long. I hear Davis whispering to someone when he thinks I'm asleep.
None of us is clean.
None of us is safe.
So I prepare.
I start leaving notes under loose floorboards. I sharpen sticks and hide them in the attic. I memorize the creaks of every step.
I sleep in bursts and wake with my hands clenched.
I listen to the wind for names.
A week later, Davis says he wants to take me into town.
I say no.
He says, "You need to get out."
I say, "I need to be here."
He nods. "Okay."
But something shifts in his eyes. Something like fear. Or guilt.
He leaves without me.
He comes back with a scarf. Pale blue. Like the sky the day Michael left for the last time.
He wraps it around my shoulders.
"For the cold," he says.
I don't thank him.
But I wear it.
Because I need to remember that even kindness can carry teeth.
That night, I found another mark.
On my door.
Fresh.
Scratched in with something sharp. Not Michael's.
Not Davis's.
A new shape. A jagged spiral.
It hums under my fingers.
Carina walks by behind me. Pauses.
"I didn't do that," she says.
"I know."
"Do you think he's back?"
"No."
She tilts her head. "Then who?"
I shake my head.
"I don't know yet," I whisper.
But I will.
I don't sleep.
I listen to the house breathe.
And wait.
For ghosts.
For truth.
For the shape of silence to finally speak.