Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
SANORA
The house was made of wood. Every single corner of it.
The floors creaked when I walked, and the scent—faintly smoky, like old firewood—filled the air.
Although it was a duplex, it only had two rooms, both sitting on the second floor.
Downstairs, there was just the living room and a very empty kitchen that looked like it hadn’t witnessed the act of cooking in years.
My stomach twisted in protest, and I groaned in regret.
I should’ve listened to my mother when she insisted on packing foodstuffs.
At the end of the day, she was always right.
The fridge was working, but glaringly empty.
There wasn’t a single utensil in sight. Not a pot, not a plate.
The shelves were just as bare. My only mission today was to fill them with stuffs that’d serve me for the next twenty-six days.
Grumbling, I dragged myself upstairs and took a quick shower in the bathroom—which, for some godforsaken reason, served both rooms. It was outside the rooms, standing in between them.
The water was cold, not freezing, thankfully, but cold enough to make my bones feel like they’d been dunked in ice.
There were a lot of things I would’ve changed about this place if I could.
But considering the town’s reputation, I had a strong feeling this was one of the better houses.
After throwing on a clean pair of jeans and a knit top, I skipped downstairs…only to shriek and run back up when I opened the door and a gust of cold air smacked me. I threw on the thickest jacket I had, wrapped my scarf around my neck three times like a paranoid burrito, and tried again.
This time, I stepped out successfully.
Using the photo of the map on my phone, I started walking. The streets were quiet, in a comfortable way. There was something oddly calming about the town’s silence, like it was a place that had seen centuries go by and now just watched the world without saying much. It was soothing.
A thick mist had settled across the streets, curling around the houses and hanging low. The sun hadn’t made much of an appearance, just a pale smear behind layers of grey clouds. In the distance, the hills loomed like sleeping giants, their peaks hidden behind veils of fog.
Some houses had boarded-up windows and vines creeping up their sides because they were empty and ruined.
Others looked like they were still lived in, though not many.
Some were made of steel frames and digital signs that flickered, others made of darkened brick and stone, with wooden beams like old ribs jutting out.
Ivy clung to some of the older homes, and little bicycles lined the front porches.
Chimneys released thin trails of smoke into the fog. I heard no cars, no chatter, only the caws of crows overhead and the occasional creak of old wood reacting to the cold.
As I walked, I couldn’t stop looking around. If the stories were true—and I knew they were true—then this place had once been the very heartbeat of magic. I was walking through a town that used to be the body of ancient power, where magic had once danced in the air.
Nimorran.
With joy bubbling in my chest like a soda can that had been shaken, I smiled at everyone who made eye contact with me. Some returned it with soft, polite nods. Most didn’t. But I didn’t care.
My teeth were nearly chattering from the chill, and yet hardly anyone was wearing a jacket. I even saw a child in a sleeveless sweater. Was I the only one freezing my fucking brain off?
I passed a closed shop with painted glass windows and shelves that displayed wooden toys and marionettes. A child ran past me barefoot, chasing a paper kite. There was something…haunting and lovely about it all. Like time had forgotten how to function here.
I skidded to a stop when I saw a bookshop.
Tucked between a tailor’s store and a bakery, it stood with a wooden, glass-paned door and a flickering “OPEN” sign hanging behind it. The wood looked old but the glass was clean. The sign above the door read: Long Life Archives.
A bookshop in Nimorran? My heart skipped as my feet moved without permission, steering me across the street and straight to the door.
The thought that this shop might contain stories that even the most well-stocked city bookstores hadn’t acquired made me feel like a pirate about to uncover buried treasure.
Suddenly, I forgot how hungry I was.
I pushed the door gently. A bell jingled overhead.
“Welcome,” a deep voice said.
I froze. That voice. No—no way.
I turned towards the counter.
My eyes went wide. “Oh my gosh…Weeny Man?”
He looked up from the book he was dusting. His beard was greyer now, his face rough with deeper lines. But his eyes…those sharp, storm-grey eyes were the same. My lungs forgot how to work, my fingers, suddenly freezing again, twitched at my side.
His bushy brows lifted. “Sanora,” he said, stunned.
I grinned. “It’s really you!”
He put down the book, slowly walking around the counter. “I haven’t heard that nickname in years.”
“I haven’t said it in years,” I murmured. The sound of my name in his voice cracked something open in me. I stepped inside, still dazed, shutting the door gently behind me as if afraid I might wake up.
Weeny Man had been the neighbourhood’s bogeyman for most kids. He lived in a house that smelled like old metal and smoke, and the rumours were that he was a retired magician or a mad scientist. But he wasn’t. He was just weird. And magical.
And incredibly smart.
He used to gather the kids around his porch during the evenings and tell the most fantastical stories, half-truth, half-myth. The first one he told that stuck with me was about the “Silver-Eyed Girl.”
“She was born under a bleeding moon,” he had said in a voice meant to frighten us, “and her soul was part fire, part water. They say when she cried, the earth cracked. And when she laughed, trees bloomed overnight. But the King feared her. So he banished her, and the forest swallowed her whole. They say her ghost still walks the hills at night…crying, laughing, and waiting.”
All the kids had screamed and ran away.
I’d gone back.
I had waited until the others were gone and knocked on his door with shaking fists, asking, “What happened to the girl next?”
That was how it started. Every afternoon, I’d visit him. I helped him tidy his tiny workshop in exchange for the stories no one else wanted to hear. He fed my obsession for forgotten things and strange myths. He let me read his books, he taught me everything I still did till date.
And then suddenly, my mother and I moved away. He gave me the medallion on my last visit for ‘protection’ and I never saw him again.
Until now.
My chest was so tight I could barely speak. “You...you’re here. You live here?”
He chuckled softly. “For a long time now. You’re the last person I expected to see in Nimorran.”
I stepped closer. “Oh my God.”
Weeny Man smiled, a real one that pushed into the deep lines of his cheeks and made him look like someone who had lived a hundred lives and still hadn’t run out of laughter. “Seeing that you walked in here, I assume you still have that curiosity in you.”
I let out a breathy laugh. The sound came out a little cracked because I still didn’t have a single fucking clue what to say to him.
“Come here and sit,” he said, gesturing to a little table by the window with two chairs that looked like they’d snap if you leaned too hard. I followed him, eyes drinking in the shop as I moved.
It smelled like nostalgia and the earthy musk of old paper.
The shelves were high and slightly crooked, stuffed with books that wore their age proudly.
Some were bound in cracked leather, others in fabrics that looked like they’d been sewn by ghost hands.
An ancient globe sat in the corner, slightly tilted, surrounded by dangling paper stars.
Tiny charms hung from a wire above the register—crescent moons, eyes, bones.
Books were piled in every corner, on top of old filing cabinets, inside broken crates with no labels.
It was chaos, organised only by some quiet madness.
“You must feel cold,” Weeny Man said, eyeing my scarf and layered oversized sweaters.
I unwound the scarf slowly and sank into the chair opposite him. “Don’t you? It’s weird that I don’t—I feel like I’m freezing, but everyone else is just…fine.”
He chuckled softly. “Coffee?”
“No thanks. I don’t drink coffee,” I replied, managing a polite smile. “Seriously though. Don’t you feel cold?”
“Locals don’t feel the cold you feel,” he said simply.
“What?”
He looked around. “The cold is Nimorran’s way of filtering out bad tourists. If, after a while, you don’t feel the cold anymore, it means the town welcomes you. But if, after a while, the cold gets worse—”
“—It kills you if you don’t leave,” I finished, something unsettling snaking down my spine.
He nodded once.
“I’ve never heard or read anything like that,” I said, frowning. “I mean, I knew Nimorran was cold. Every source mentions that. But killing cold? That’s kind of an important footnote to miss.”
“It only kills people with an intention to harm it,” he corrected. “The town is fragile, Sanora. It doesn’t want to get hurt.”
I stared at him. The idea of Nimorran being alive—or aware—should’ve sounded ridiculous. But it didn’t. Not here. Not to me.
Gods, I didn’t think it was possible to fall more in love with this place.
“What brings you here?” Weeny Man asked, his voice breaking into my thoughts.
“Oh.” I glanced outside the window, pointing. “I saw your shop and thought I’d check it out—”
“No,” he said gently. “To this town.”
I blinked, then gave a soft laugh and relaxed back into the chair. “Research.”
He held my gaze a moment too long, and then slowly smiled again, this time wider. “I see the stories had an impact on your life.”