Mara did not remember walking back inside.
One moment she was standing in the street with Lila's jacket clutched in her fists, the next she was at the kitchen sink, staring at her reflection in the dark window. The house felt unfamiliar, like she had stepped into a copy of her life that had been assembled slightly wrong.
Her hands were shaking.
The jacket lay on the counter.
It was still wet.
But the dark substance that soaked it was already fading—evaporating without leaving a stain. The denim should have been ruined.
Instead, it looked almost untouched.
Except for the smell.
Mara lifted it slowly and pressed it to her face.
Lake water.
Stale. Metallic. Deep.
The flooded quarry.
Her stomach turned.
The quarry sat beyond the rail line, where the ground dipped into a bowl of black water that never froze in winter and never seemed to lower in summer. Parents warned their kids about it the way they warned about drugs or strangers.
Don't go near it. It's not safe.
No one ever explained why.
A floorboard creaked behind her.
Her father stood in the hallway, hair disheveled, eyes heavy with sleep.
"What are you doing up?" he muttered.
Mara swallowed.
"Lila's gone."
He frowned like the word meant something abstract.
"She sneaks out."
"She's not answering."
He rubbed his face. "It's almost one in the morning."
"She said she saw them."
That made him still.
Just for a second.
Then he exhaled sharply. "Enough with that nonsense."
"It's not nonsense," Mara snapped. Her voice cracked, betraying her. "I saw them."
Her father's jaw tightened. Not in fear.
In irritation.
"You're tired."
"I'm not."
"Go to bed. She'll walk in tomorrow acting like nothing happened."
Mara stared at him.
He wouldn't look at the jacket.
Not once.
That was when something cold slid into her chest.
He wasn't dismissing her because he thought she was wrong.
He was dismissing her because he didn't want to be right.
She didn't sleep.
She lay in Lila's bed instead.
The sheets still held the faint scent of her shampoo—jasmine and smoke from cheap bonfires. There were glow-in-the-dark stars stuck unevenly to the ceiling, leftovers from when they were kids and shared this room.
Back then, Lila had told her stories when the power went out.
Not about ghosts.
About escape.
"We'll leave this place," Lila used to whisper. "You and me. We'll get an apartment with peeling paint and a fire escape. We'll buy furniture from thrift stores and pretend we're poor artists."
"You can't draw," Mara would say.
"Details."
They would laugh quietly so their parents wouldn't hear.
Mara rolled onto her side and stared at the empty space beside her.
"I should've gone with you," she whispered into the dark.
Her phone buzzed.
1:46 a.m.
Unknown number.
Her pulse spiked.
She answered.
No static this time.
Just breathing.
Slow.
Multiple breaths.
Layered.
Like several people standing too close to the microphone.
"Lila?"
The breathing stopped.
Then something else.
Water.
A distant sloshing sound.
And underneath it—
A whisper.
Not words.
Just the shape of them.
Mara's eyes filled with tears she didn't remember summoning.
"Please," she said, voice breaking. "If this is a joke, it's not funny."
A sound came through the speaker then.
A small, choked laugh.
It was Lila's.
But stretched wrong.
Like someone imitating her from memory.
The call ended.
By morning, Lila still hadn't come home.
Her father called the police with forced calm, describing it as a typical teenage runaway situation.
Mara watched from the stairs.
The officers nodded sympathetically.
One of them glanced at Mara.
"Did she seem upset about anything?"
Mara hesitated.
"She said she saw something."
The officer smiled thinly. "Teenagers have active imaginations."
Mara almost screamed.
Instead, she said, "Check the quarry."
The officer's smile faltered.
"Why there?"
"She was wet."
Her father shot her a sharp look.
"She wasn't wet," he said quickly.
Mara's head turned slowly toward him.
"Yes," she said. "She was."
Silence stretched.
The officers exchanged a look.
"We'll do a search of the usual areas," one said carefully.
Not the quarry.
Never the quarry.
That night, the town felt different.
Word spread fast in Black Hollow.
By sunset, everyone knew Lila Elion was missing.
By ten, everyone had an explanation.
By eleven, everyone stopped talking about it.
At 12:02 a.m., Mara stood at her bedroom window.
She wasn't afraid now.
She was furious.
12:03.
They came.
This time there were more.
The line stretched farther than before, curving down the street like a pale river.
And this time—
She could see their faces.
Not clearly.
But enough.
Their features shifted constantly, like reflections in disturbed water.
Eyes too dark. Mouths slightly open.
And among them—
A familiar shape.
Third from the end.
Wearing denim.
Her gait was wrong. Too smooth. Too synchronized.
But Mara knew that jacket.
"Lila," she breathed.
The girl's head lifted.
Slowly.
The others stopped walking.
All at once.
Every single one turned toward Mara's house.
The movement was perfectly unified.
Mara's chest tightened.
Lila stepped out of line.
The other girls remained still, watching.
Lila walked toward the yard.
Barefoot.
Her feet left no prints.
Her face was almost right.
Almost.
Her eyes were too deep.
Like something was standing far behind them.
She stopped at the edge of the lawn.
"Mara," she said.
Her voice carried strangely, as if spoken underwater.
Mara's hand trembled against the glass.
"Come back inside," she whispered.
Lila tilted her head.
"They're waiting," she said softly.
"For what?"
"For you."
The girls behind her began to hum.
Low.
Not a melody.
A vibration.
The sound made the windowpane quiver.
Mara's vision blurred.
Memories rushed in uninvited—
Lila braiding her hair before school. Lila stealing fries off her plate. Lila promising they would leave together.
"I won't go without you," Lila had said once.
Now she extended her hand.
Her fingers were swollen slightly.
Waterlogged.
"Mara," she said again, and this time her voice fractured—two tones overlapping. "It doesn't hurt anymore."
The humming grew louder.
The streetlights began flickering in sequence.
One by one.
Toward the rail line.
As if guiding a path.
Mara pressed her forehead against the glass.
"I can't," she whispered.
Lila's expression changed.
Not anger.
Not sadness.
Hunger.
Behind her, the girls began moving again.
Forward.
Toward the house.
The front door rattled violently.
Mara stumbled back.
The humming filled the room now.
The walls seemed damp.
Water dripped from the ceiling though there was no source.
From downstairs, her father shouted something—but his voice sounded far away, distorted.
Lila placed her palm against the window.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the glass.
"Don't make us come inside," she whispered.
The hum shifted into something sharper.
Almost laughter.
Mara backed away until she hit the bedroom door.
Then—
All at once—
Silence.
The girls vanished.
The street returned to normal.
Dry.
Still.
The cracks in the window were gone.
No water.
No hum.
Only Mara's ragged breathing.
Her phone buzzed in her hand.
A new message.
From Lila.
A photo.
Dark water.
And beneath its surface—
Pale shapes standing upright.
Waiting.