The days began to feel stolen, as though Elara lived not in sunlight but in the shadow of something that moved just outside her vision.
She went about her routines as best she could: arranging the shop's displays, brushing dust from the spines of books, nodding politely at the few customers who came in through the mist-thickened autumn air. But beneath every motion, she felt it. The watcher. The invisible presence whose image haunted the photograph but whose breath seemed to stir the air in her very shop.
At first, it was only a prickle—a faint awareness, like the moment before someone taps your shoulder. Then it became heavier, an almost audible weight that made her glance up from her work, heart tripping in her chest. The corners of the shop seemed darker. Reflections in the windows lengthened when she passed.
And once, as she leaned down to stack a row of books on the lowest shelf, she swore she saw a shape on the polished wood floor: a shadow that did not belong to her, standing behind her as though watching.
When she turned, of course, it was gone.
She said nothing of this to her customers. Instead, she smiled, feigned composure, and locked the door earlier each evening. But when the key turned in the lock, she always imagined the sound was a ward against something waiting patiently beyond the glass.
Across the seam, Kieran's days grew similarly frayed.
He found himself unable to sit through lectures. The drone of his professors, once engaging, now seemed hollow, irrelevant, fragile against the enormity of what waited each midnight. He spent more time in the archives than ever, not studying the history he was meant to catalogue but scouring the shelves for fragments that might explain the seam.
The search only deepened his unease.
Old folios spoke in riddles—mentions of "mirrored doors," of "breath between worlds," of "veils stitched with sight." Some passages he translated, others he guessed at, but all seemed to whisper of watchers. The words were never precise: guardians, echoes, shadows, keepers. Always watching. Never leaving.
He would have dismissed these as metaphor if not for the photograph. If not for the way he felt eyes on him whenever the seam sighed.
It grew worse at night.
The library building was old, and he had grown used to its creaks, its shifting timbers, its sighing pipes. But now, the sounds seemed purposeful. Footsteps when no one was there. A low scrape of wood, as though a chair had been dragged across the floor just outside his door. Once, a faint knock—three measured taps—on the wall behind his bed.
When he pressed his ear to the plaster, breath held, there was nothing. Only silence.
Yet he knew, as surely as he knew his own pulse, that he was not alone.
The photograph reflected their dread.
Each time it crossed, something changed. The blurred figure of Elara remained, but the shadow behind her grew sharper, more deliberate. It stood taller now, its head slightly bowed, but its presence unmistakable. When Elara held the photograph too long, she felt its gaze burn into her skin. When Kieran studied it by candlelight, he thought its posture shifted, as though it leaned closer to her blurred outline.
Neither of them admitted the full truth to the other. Their letters spoke in careful words, circling the fear but never naming it:
Elara. I think the shadow knows us now.
Kieran. I think it waits.
Their restraint made their longing worse. They yearned to confess the whole of their fear, but feared that speaking it aloud would give it power, would summon it fully into their worlds.
And still, every midnight, they returned to the drawer.
One night, near the end of October, Elara stayed longer in the shop after closing. The rain had lifted, but fog pressed thick against the windows, muting the streetlamps into pale moons. She tried to busy herself with ledgers, but the numbers blurred before her eyes. At last she surrendered to her nerves and walked the aisles, candle in hand, the flame bending as she moved.
The shop seemed different in the fog. The aisles longer, the shelves taller, the air heavier. She told herself this was imagination, exhaustion—but then, halfway down the row of history books, she stopped.
A figure stood at the far end.
It was tall, narrow-shouldered, more shadow than body. No features, no face, no movement. Just standing, watching.
Her heart lurched. The candle sputtered. She blinked hard, and when her eyes opened again, the figure was gone.
Her knees trembled so violently she had to grip the shelf. Slowly, she backed toward the counter, the flame of her candle shivering with each breath.
By the time midnight came, she was pale and shaking. She almost did not open the drawer. Almost.
But the seam's sigh compelled her.
Inside lay no note from Kieran, no coin, no token. Only the photograph. And this time, the shadow behind her blurred figure was no longer blurred. It was distinct. Upright. Hands clasped before it as though in patience.
And though its face was featureless, she swore its head tilted toward her with recognition.
Kieran's nights unraveled further. He dreamed too vividly now. In one dream, he stood in the archive corridors, their shelves infinite, their doors endless. At the farthest door, ajar, stood the shadow. He could not see its face, but he felt its eyes. When he reached for the handle, the figure raised its hand slowly, palm outward, as if warning him back.
He woke with a shout, sweat chilling his skin, the sound of the seam's sigh still echoing in his ears.
The next day, he told himself it was fatigue, his mind overrun by late nights and old folios. Yet when he sat before the drawer at midnight, candle lit, his hands shook.
The photograph slid into his grasp. The shadow now stood so clearly behind Elara's blurred figure it might have been flesh. Its hands no longer clasped—it had one arm lifted, hand reaching as though to rest on her shoulder.
Kieran recoiled, nearly dropping it.
He forced himself to write:
Elara. The shadow is clearer now. It stands behind you as though it belongs there. I don't know what it wants. I don't know if it means harm. But I cannot escape the sense that it watches not only you, but us. Both of us. As if it knows the seam better than we do. Be careful. Please.
His hand hesitated over the page. Then, almost against his will, he added:
I don't think it will remain in the photograph forever.
He folded the note, placed it back in the drawer with the photograph, and listened as the seam exhaled like a breath over his shoulder.
Elara read his words with dread coiling in her stomach. She wanted to scream at him, at the seam, at herself. Why had they not ended this when it was small, when it was only curiosity and wonder? Why had they let the photograph cross again and again, feeding it, giving it room to grow?
Yet she could not stop. The seam's pull was too strong.
That night, as she closed the drawer, she whispered into the candlelight:
"What are you?"
The shop creaked. The flame flickered.
And somewhere between her world and his, the silent watcher waited, patient as stone, knowing that the longer they lingered, the more inevitable its arrival would become.