Naya stirred her tea absentmindedly, eyes fixed on the jar sitting quietly at the center of her coffee table. Sienna leaned against the window, arms folded tightly across her chest.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
"You've been staring at it for five minutes straight," Sienna said, raising an eyebrow. "Expecting it to whisper your name or something?"
Naya offered a humorless smile. "I don't know what I expect anymore."
Sienna walked back toward the table, her fingers brushing the rim of the jar. "I have an idea," she said cautiously.
Naya looked up.
"What if we test how far it can reach?" Sienna said. "You know… see if distance changes anything."
Naya tilted her head, intrigued but hesitant. "Go on."
Sienna took out a small strip of paper and a pen. "What if we wrote Tasha's name? She's not even in the city anymore,she moved after the wedding, remember? Small town, middle of nowhere. If the jar is still able to affect her... then we'll know it's not just proximity."
Naya frowned. "We don't have her wish."
"We don't need it. We're not making one. Just her name,let's see if the jar recognizes her energy."
Naya hesitated. Tasha had always been part of their sisterhood,the grounded, graceful one. After she married her longtime boyfriend, she'd moved to the serene countryside of Limuru, hoping for a slower, quieter life. She hadn't been part of the last few meetups but always stayed in touch, laughing over video calls and asking about the jar, amused but skeptical.
Still, her name once belonged among theirs.
Zara scribbled (Tasha Mumbi) neatly onto the paper, folded it once, then twice, and slid it under the jar.
A stillness fell over the room.
Then, suddenly whoosh a gust of wind hissed through the window, though it was firmly shut. The candle flickered violently, nearly going out.
Both girls froze.
"…Okay," Naya whispered. "It felt that."
Miles away, Tasha sat curled on her porch, enjoying the late afternoon breeze and a cup of herbal tea. Her house was surrounded by hills and silence, the kind of quiet you couldn't find in the city.
She scrolled through her phone lazily, until the screen glitched for a moment and went black. Frowning, she tapped it. Nothing.
Then it turned back on,her lock screen now blurred like fog had seeped beneath the glass.
She blinked. "Weird."
Inside, the living room light flickered once. Twice.
Then held steady.
She rolled her eyes. "Must be the wiring."
But that night, as she lay in bed beside her husband, it began.
At first, it was subtle. Dreams that didn't feel like dreams. Whispers in the back of her mind,like someone speaking just out of earshot. She woke up at 3:33 AM gasping, drenched in sweat.
Then came the mirror.
While brushing her teeth the next morning, she glanced up and saw her reflection smiling,before she did.
Tasha dropped her toothbrush with a scream.
By the third night, she couldn't ignore it anymore. Doors creaked open when they were locked. Her tea soured in minutes. Her husband remained blissfully unaware, snoring peacefully as if none of it touched him.
Tasha paced the living room, phone in hand, heart pounding.
She dialed Naya.
At that exact moment, Naya, Sienna, Alani, and Sasha were seated at Naya's place, going over notes and theories scribbled from the last few days.
The phone rang. Sasha picked it up, surprised.
"Tasha?"
"I don't know what the hell you did," Tasha said without greeting, voice shaky. "But something's wrong."
The girls straightened immediately.
"What's happening?" Naya asked.
Tasha took a breath. "I'm seeing things. Feeling things. The mirror,my reflection,it moved before me. There's this… pressure in my chest. And something's whispering my name in the dark."
Sienna and Naya looked down guiltily.
"We added your name to the jar," she said softly.
"What?" Tasha's voice cracked.
"We were trying to test if the jar could reach people even without them being near. We didn't write a wish,just your name."
"You what?" Tasha snapped. "Why the hell would you do that?"
"We didn't think it would,Naya started.
"But it did," Tasha cut in. "And now something's here."
Sasha finally spoke up, her voice calm and low. "Tasha... whether they wrote your name or not, maybe this thing already had a thread on you. You've always been tied to us, remember? You laughed at the jar, but maybe it never forgot you."
Tasha was quiet on the line.
"That's not how this works," she finally whispered. "I didn't touch it. I never believed in it."
"But we did," Alani said. "And maybe that was enough."
The silence on the phone was thick. Then Tasha's voice came through again,but softer. Confused.
"…I saw something else last night."
"What did you see?" Sienna asked.
"There was a... woman. Or maybe not a woman. She stood in the corner of my room and just... stared. When I turned on the light, she was gone."
"And?" Naya prompted, her breath tight.
Tasha exhaled.
"She looked like me."
Later that night, Tasha walked cautiously into her bathroom. The lights flickered again, but she didn't flinch.
Instead, she walked up to the mirror and placed her palm against it.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then her reflection blinked,
but she hadn't.