The house was too quiet.
I told myself I'd grown used to city noise---wheels on cobblestones, voices in the street, doors shutting long after midnight. Here, every sound stood out. The tick of the mantel clock. The faint sigh of the walls settling. My own breath.
I tried to rest, but sleep would not stay. The fog pressed against the glass, pale and heavy, as though the night itself wanted in.
Something creaked.
I froze, straining to listen. The sound came again---faint, deliberate. Like a weight shifting on the stair outside my door.
The air had a smell now. Damp earth. Cold stone. My skin prickled though I hadn't moved.
I told myself it was nothing. The house was old, the wood warped. But when I opened my eyes, a shadow crossed the window.
Not a branch. Not a bird. Tall. Human.
I held still, my heartbeat a drum in my ears. The shadow slid past and vanished into the fog, leaving the glass blank again.
I forced myself to move, though every step across the floor felt louder than it should. My hand shook on the window latch, but it was still locked.
I pressed my palm to the cold pane. Nothing but whiteness outside.
I whispered to myself, There's nothing there. Nothing there.
But when I lay back in bed, the silence pressed heavier, and then I heard it---a faint scrape against the wall just beyond my window. A slow, dragging sound, like nails across stone.
And then nothing.
The stillness after was worse.