The night didn't end.
It stretched—long and heavy—like the darkness itself was thinking.
Even after the priest left, the house didn't settle.
It didn't calm.
It didn't return to silence.
It… waited.
Annabelle barely spoke. She glided through rooms as if she'd lived in them longer than I had. Her fingertips brushed walls, corners, the edges of shelves—slow, gentle, searching.
Sometimes she stopped suddenly.
Sometimes she stared at a place for too long.
Sometimes her lips moved, forming words she never voiced.
I called her name once.
The house answered before she did.
Later, I found her in the old study—dust floating in the air, thick like fog. She stood in front of a tall cabinet I hadn't opened since we moved in.
Her hand hovered over the glass.
"I… remember this," she whispered.
My stomach tightened. "Annabelle, you've never been in here."
"Yes," she murmured. "I have. Just… not as me."
She opened the cabinet.
Slowly.
Reverently.
Inside were old photographs, brittle letters, and objects that belonged to people long gone. Everything smelled of age and memory—as if time itself had been kept in the cabinet, waiting to be touched again.
Annabelle pulled out a photograph.
A young girl.
Smiling.
Standing in a room identical to ours.
The date on the back? Too old. Much too old.
"How is that possible?" My voice cracked.
Annabelle didn't look at me. Her eyes were far away, like she was standing in two timelines at once.
"She knew this house," she said softly. "She remembered it. And she left pieces of herself behind."
I felt the shift then.
A soft rustle.
A breath that wasn't ours.
Whispers unraveling from the corners of the room, curling around our ankles, rising like fog.
I reached for Annabelle's hand.
Cold.
Trembling.
Still holding the photo.
"Do you know her?" I asked.
She shook her head slowly.
"I don't… but she knows me."
The walls pulsed.
Not with sound with memory.
A faint glow bled from the corners of the room where no lights existed. The house wasn't just showing us things.
It was remembering through us.
And then—
A laugh.
Soft.
Hollow.
Close.
Not cruel.
Not kind.
Just… aware.
Annabelle's head snapped toward the doorway.
"Mom," she whispered, "they're waiting for us."
My breath caught.
The house wasn't breathing with us anymore.
It was breathing around us.
Pulling us in.
Folding us into its past.
Its story.
Its hunger.
I turned toward the hallway.
The shadows moved.
And then—
someone moved within them.
Not a ghost.
Not a person.
A memory.
Alive.
Watching.
Waiting.