Chapter 2
Elle
I woke to the sound of thunder that wasn’t thunder.
The house shook—not violently, more like it was shivering. Picture frames rattled on the walls, and somewhere in the kitchen, something fell and shattered. The sound was sharp, followed by a silence so complete I could hear my own heartbeat.
The not-thunder came again, rolling through the walls like the house was a drum and something massive had just struck it.
This time, the lights flickered once, twice, then died completely, plunging the room into darkness broken only by the clock’s dim red glow.
But when I looked out the window, the night was clear.
Stars scattered across the sky like spilled salt, no clouds in sight.
“Old house,” I whispered to myself. “Old pipes. Old… something.”
But I was already getting up, bare feet finding the cold wooden floor, because that wasn’t the sound of settling wood or temperamental plumbing. That was something else. Something that made the locket around my neck turn cold enough to burn.
I pulled on the ratty oversized t-shirt I’d thrown over a chair—one of Julian’s old shirts I’d kept out of spite more than sentiment—and padded toward the door.
The hallway beyond was dark, but not normal dark.
This was the kind of dark that had weight, that pressed against your skin like velvet made of shadow.
The emergency flashlight I’d left on the dresser clicked on with reassuring brightness, cutting through the unnatural darkness.
The beam showed nothing unusual—just the familiar hallway with its faded wallpaper and creaky floorboards.
But the shadows seemed to recoil from the light, pulling back into corners with something that looked almost like disappointment.
Another crash from downstairs, this one definitely from the kitchen.
“If this is a burglar, you picked the wrong house,” I called out, trying to sound braver than I felt. “I have nothing worth stealing unless you’re really into vintage lamps and creepy dolls.”
No response. Just a sound like wind chimes, if wind chimes were made of glass and pain.
I made my way downstairs, each step creaking in a different key, creating a discordant melody that made my teeth ache.
The air got thicker as I descended, like walking through invisible soup.
It tasted purple—not smelled, tasted—and that’s when I knew I was either still dreaming or something was very, very wrong.
The kitchen was a disaster. Every cabinet door hung open, contents scattered across the counters and floor.
The ancient refrigerator hummed in three-part harmony with itself, and the sink was running, water overflowing onto the floor in patterns that defied physics—spiraling up before falling down, creating impossible geometries in the air.
But that wasn’t the weirdest part.
The weirdest part was the beetle.
It sat on the kitchen table, was about the size of my thumb, and was definitely looking at me. Not in the way insects sometimes seem to look at you, but actually looking. With intent. With intelligence. With what I could only describe as impatience.
Its shell gleamed iridescent in the flashlight beam, colors rippling across its surface in impossible ways—purple so vivid it seemed to make a sound, bronze that gave me vertigo just looking at it. When it moved, it left tiny trails of light that faded slowly, like bioluminescent breadcrumbs.
“Finally,” it said, and I dropped the flashlight.
The kitchen plunged into darkness, but not completely. The beetle glowed softly, casting shadows that moved independently of the light it produced.
“Did you just—” I started.
“Talk? Yes. Pick up the light, would you? This is difficult enough without you having hysterics in the dark.”
I fumbled for the flashlight, fingers shaking. “Beetles don’t talk.”
“This one does.” It cleaned its antennae with its front legs, a gesture that somehow managed to convey annoyance. “I’m Peeble, by the way. And before you ask—no, I’m not a hallucination. No, you’re not dreaming. And no, this isn’t a brain tumor, though that was a creative theory.”
“Peeble?” I stared at the beetle. “And what the hell kind of name is Peeble? What does that even stand for? ‘Probably evil beetle?’”
“It’s a perfectly respectable name, thank you very much. And I hear everything you say near the tree. Have for years. Your grandmother and I had lovely conversations. She was much quicker on the uptake.”
“Jo knew about you?”
“Knew about me? Child, she fed me sugar water every Tuesday and told me about her week. Lovely woman. Terrible at keeping plants alive, ironically, but lovely nonetheless.”
I sank into a kitchen chair, the wood creaking ominously. “I need a Dr Pepper.”
“Bottom shelf of the fridge, behind the pickles. Jo kept them there specifically for you.”
I looked at the beetle—Peeble—then at the overflowing sink with its impossible water patterns, then back at the beetle. “How do you know that?”
“I told you, I hear everything near the tree. Also, I have compound eyes. Do you have any idea how much compound eyes can see? It’s frankly overwhelming.”
I got up and checked the fridge. Sure enough, behind an ancient jar of pickles that probably qualified as a bioweapon, sat a six-pack of Dr Pepper in glass bottles—the fancy kind Jo always splurged on for my visits.
“She knew I’d come here,” I said, pulling one out. The cap popped off with a satisfying hiss. “She knew I’d inherit the house.”
“She knew a lot of things,” Peeble said, and for the first time, the sarcasm faded from its—their?—voice. “More than she ever told you. More than she could tell you, bound as she was.”
“Bound by what?”
Before Peeble could answer, the not-thunder came again, so strong this time that the Dr Pepper in my hand rippled in patterns that reminded me of the water in the sink. The house didn’t just shake—it groaned, like something enormous was pressing against it from all sides.
“Oh, bollocks,” Peeble muttered. “It’s starting already. I told her three weeks wasn’t enough time. I told her you’d need preparation. But did she listen? ‘The garden knows its own timing, Peeble.’ Well, the garden’s timing is shit, Jo!”
“What’s starting?” I stood up, Dr Pepper forgotten. “What’s happening to the house?”
“Not the house, dear. The boundary. It’s… thinning.” Peeble’s antenna twitched. “Usually takes months, sometimes years, for it to get weak enough for a crossing. But something’s changed. Something’s pulling from the other side.”
“The other side of what?”
Lightning flashed outside—real lightning this time—illuminating the kitchen in stark white.
In that split second of brightness, I saw it.
The kitchen wasn’t just the kitchen. Overlaid on top of it, like a double exposure, was another room.
Same layout, but different. Older. Grander.
Walls covered in living vines, floor made of something that might have been marble or might have been compressed starlight.
Then darkness again, and just my grandmother’s ordinary kitchen.
“The other side of here,” Peeble said softly. “The place your grandmother fled. The place your mother died trying to protect you from. The place that’s been calling to your bloodline for three generations.”
The locket at my throat wasn’t just cold now—it was burning, sending tendrils of ice and fire across my skin. When I looked down, it was glowing, soft golden light pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
“I need to leave,” I said. “I need to get in my car and drive back to Little Rock and forget any of this happened.”
“Too late for that.” Peeble scuttled to the edge of the table, closer to me. “The moment you put on that locket, you accepted the inheritance. Not the house—anyone could inherit the house. The real inheritance. The one in your blood.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your grandmother was not from Arkansas, Elle. She wasn’t even from Earth, not originally. She was nobility from a place where roses have eyes and trees speak in languages older than human speech. She fell in love with someone she shouldn’t have, stole something precious, and ran here to hide.”
“That’s insane.”
“Is it? You’ve been feeling it since you arrived. The garden growing back overnight. The tree watching you. The house breathing.” Peeble’s compound eyes reflected my face in a thousand tiny mirrors. “Your blood knows the truth even if your mind rejects it.”
Another flash of lightning, and this time the overlay lasted longer.
I could see through the walls to a garden that wasn’t Jo’s garden.
Plants that glowed with their own light, flowers the size of dinner plates with petals that moved like they were underwater.
And in the center, the elm tree shed its ordinary appearance like a mask, revealing what it had always been—something massive and beautiful and terrible, with bark like silver and leaves that burned without being consumed.
“The crossing is soon. Hours, maybe less. When it happens, you’ll have a choice—let them drag you through on their terms, or step through on your own and discover what your grandmother spent sixty years protecting you from. But staying here safe and oblivious? That ship has sailed.”
“What did she steal?” I asked, though I was afraid of the answer.
“A chance,” Peeble said. “A possibility. A way to save both worlds from someone who would see them burn rather than lose control.” They paused, and when they spoke again, their voice was older, sadder.
“She stole you, Elle. Or rather, the potential of you. The possibility that one day, someone of both bloodlines could return and finish what she started.”
The house shook again, and this time, cracks appeared in the air itself.
Not in the walls—in the actual air, like reality was a windshield and something had just thrown a stone at it.
Through the cracks, I could see swirling colors that hurt to perceive, could hear music that was almost voices, could smell flowers that didn’t exist.