Chapter 1 #2
Julian had been perfect on paper—successful lawyer, came from a good family, treated me well in public.
Behind closed doors, he’d been slowly shrinking my world, commenting on my art (“It’s a nice hobby, but you can’t expect to make a living from it”), my friends (“Kya’s kind of trashy, don’t you think?
”), my dreams (“Romance novel covers? Really, Elle? You’re better than that. ”).
I’d been disappearing piece by piece, and I hadn’t even noticed until I walked in on him with Melissa and felt, beneath the hurt and rage, relief. Like I’d been holding my breath for two years and could finally exhale.
The locket grew warm against my skin, pulling me out of my spiral. I touched it absently, and for a second, I could swear I smelled roses. Not the dying ones in the garden, but fresh ones, impossibly fragrant, like summer concentrated into a single breath.
“I’m losing it,” I said to the empty room. “Three weeks of grief and I’m having olfactory hallucinations.”
But the smell lingered, and when I looked back at the garden, the elm tree’s leaves were moving despite there being no wind. They fluttered in patterns that almost looked deliberate, like sign language made of chlorophyll and shadow.
I stood up so fast I nearly dropped my Dr Pepper. “Nope. Not today, tree. I’ve got enough problems without adding ‘possibly sentient plant life’ to the list.”
The leaves stopped moving.
I stared at the tree. The tree, presumably, stared back.
“I’m talking to a tree,” I said slowly. “I’m standing in my dead grandmother’s library, drinking warm Dr Pepper, and talking to a tree.”
The house creaked around me, settling in the heat, but it sounded almost like laughter.
Fond laughter, the kind Grandma Jo used to make when I’d say something that reminded her of my mother.
My mother, who’d died when I was two. My mother, who Grandma Jo said had been special, though she’d never elaborated on what kind of special she meant.
My phone rang, startling me out of my staring contest with the elm. Dad. I let it go to voicemail. He’d been calling daily since the funeral, making sure I was “handling things,” which was his way of asking if I’d finally snapped without actually having to deal with the heavy lifting if I said yes.
Dad meant well, but he’d checked out emotionally when Mom died. He went through the motions—parent-teacher conferences, birthday presents, college tuition—but there was always this distance, like he was afraid to get too close. Like he was afraid I’d disappear too.
Maybe that’s why I’d stayed with Julian so long. I was used to loving people who kept me at arm’s length.
The sun was starting to set, painting the library in shades of gold and amber.
The dolls watched from their shelf, glassy eyes reflecting the light in ways that definitely weren’t natural.
One of them, a Victorian china doll in a blue dress, seemed to have turned its head slightly since this morning.
“If you’re haunted, at least have the decency to be helpful,” I told it. “Maybe do some unpacking while I sleep. Organize the kitchen. Something productive.”
The doll, unsurprisingly, didn’t respond.
I finished my Dr Pepper and headed back to the kitchen for another. That’s when I noticed the back door was open. Not wide open, just cracked, like someone had forgotten to latch it properly. Except I distinctly remembered checking all the locks after Leo left.
The rational part of my brain said old house, settling wood, probably just popped open. The part of my brain that had watched too many horror movies said to grab a knife and call 911.
I grabbed a second Dr Pepper instead and approached the door cautiously. The elm tree stood in silhouette, its branches reaching toward the house like it wanted to come in.
I pushed the door open wider and stepped onto the back porch.
The air was thick with humidity and the smell of growing things.
Not dead things—the garden looked different somehow.
Greener. The roses that had been brown and withered this afternoon showed hints of new growth.
The vegetable garden looked less like a botanical battlefield and more like it was just enthusiastically overgrown.
“What the hell?”
I walked down the porch steps, drawn by something I couldn’t name. The grass was cool under my bare feet, and definitely green. Not brown like it had been hours ago. Green and soft and very much alive.
The elm tree loomed ahead, and as I got closer, I could see something carved into its trunk.
Letters, old and worn but still visible.
They weren’t in English—weren’t in any language I recognized.
They seemed to shift when I wasn’t looking directly at them, rearranging themselves into almost-familiar patterns before scrambling back to nonsense.
I reached out to touch them, and the locket at my throat turned ice cold.
“Don’t,” a voice said, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
But there was no one there. Just me and the tree and the garden that was definitely not the same garden it had been this afternoon.
“I need more Dr Pepper,” I said to no one. “Or less. Or therapy. Definitely therapy.”
I backed away from the tree, and the carved letters seemed to fade, becoming just random marks in the bark. The locket warmed again, settling back to normal body temperature. The garden looked overgrown but mundane.
“Stress,” I told myself firmly. “It’s just stress and grief and too much caffeine on an empty stomach.”
I headed back to the house, but at the threshold, I turned back. The elm tree stood sentinel in the dying light, and for just a second, I could have sworn I saw a figure standing beneath it. Tall, made of shadows and starlight, there and gone before I could properly focus.
“Nope,” I said, and went inside, closing and locking the door firmly behind me.
But even inside, even surrounded by boxes and dolls and an unhealthy amount of lamps, I could feel it. Something had changed. Something had begun. The house that had been holding its breath was starting to exhale, and I had the unsettling feeling that it was waiting for me to breathe with it.
I ordered pizza, unpacked exactly one box (books, because priorities), and studiously ignored the way shadows seemed to gather in corners where shadows shouldn’t be.
By the time I went to bed, in Grandma Jo’s room because mine was still full of boxes, I’d almost convinced myself I’d imagined everything.
Almost.
The locket sat warm against my skin as I lay in the dark, and somewhere in the walls, the house sighed. It sounded like contentment. It sounded like finality.
It sounded like soon.