The house was never quiet at night.
Amara had grown up in it, memorized every creak of the floorboards, every groan of wood settling under the weight of time. But tonight, the sounds were different. Sharper. Intentional. Like the house was trying to speak.
She sat upright in bed, hugging her knees to her chest. The storm had passed, leaving only the dripping of rainwater sliding from the roof. Her lamp was still on, its faint glow stretching long shadows across the floor. She should have turned it off hours ago, but the thought of darkness pressing in made her throat tighten.
Her gaze kept slipping to the box of letters on the desk. Even closed, it seemed to hum faintly, as though the words inside had grown restless. She imagined her grandmother's voice threading through the night air, whispering secrets from the other side of time.
And beneath that thought… another.
A sound.
A soft scrape.
Her head snapped toward the wall by her window. The sound came again, low and dragging, as if nails had raked against the wood.
Her breath caught. "It's just the wind," she muttered, forcing the words into the air. "The storm loosened something outside."
But when she climbed slowly from bed and edged toward the window, she froze.
The glass was clean. No branches touched it. No loose shutters banged.
And yet there it was again. A scrape, longer this time.
She backed away, her heart thudding against her ribs. Every instinct screamed at her to leave the room, to run down the stairs and call her mother, call anyone. But she couldn't move. Her feet felt rooted to the floor, her eyes locked on the thin line of shadow beneath the window frame.
Something was there.
A memory surged her grandmother's words in the letter: Jonas promised me that if I would not walk with him in the light, then one day, I would meet him in the shadows.
Her skin prickled. Was this what she meant?
Amara forced herself to turn, grabbing the box of letters with shaking hands. She pulled the ribbon loose, desperate for answers, and fumbled for the next envelope.
This one was dated October 2010.
Her grandmother's script curled neatly across the page, but the ink looked darker, heavier, as though pressed harder into the paper.
My dearest Amara,
The walls whisper sometimes. Perhaps that sounds foolish, but I swear they carry voices that do not belong to me. At night, I hear Jonas as though he stands only an arm's length away, calling me by the name I tried to bury. I close my eyes and tell myself it is memory, nothing more. But memory cannot scratch wood. Memory cannot breathe so close to your skin.
Amara's hands trembled as she read. The scrape came again, almost on cue, and her knees weakened.
If you hear him, do not answer. He thrives on acknowledgment. To hear him is to invite him closer. To speak to him is to open the door he has waited at for so long.
Her breath hitched. She dropped the letter onto her lap, pressing a hand to her mouth. Don't answer. Don't acknowledge.
Another sound followed the faintest knock. Three steady taps against the wall.
Her heart stopped.
She clutched the edges of the letter so tightly her knuckles turned white. The paper crumpled under her grip, but she couldn't let it go. Her grandmother had heard the same thing. This wasn't her imagination. It wasn't the wind.
Jonas's shadow had always been here.
Amara staggered back toward the bed, her knees brushing the mattress. She forced her eyes away from the window, away from the dark seam at its edge. If she looked too long, she feared she'd see him.
Instead, she stared at the letter. Her grandmother's words blurred, but their meaning burned clear.
Don't answer.
She pressed the paper to her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. Her body shook with the effort to stay still, to stay silent. The room felt smaller and smaller, the air thick, pressing against her lungs until every breath scraped like glass.
And then silence.
The scraping stopped. The knocking ceased. The hum of the house settled back into ordinary night noises.
Amara's shoulders slumped, relief flooding her in a dizzying wave. Maybe it had worked. Maybe ignoring it had closed the door.
But as her heartbeat slowed, she swore she heard something else.
A whisper.
Her name.
So faint, she might have imagined it.
But when she opened her eyes, the photograph of Jonas and her grandmother had slipped from the desk to the floor, lying face up at her feet.
Jonas's dark gaze stared straight at her, the corners of his mouth curled into something that no longer looked like a smile.