The Quiet Years
Time, people said, heals everything.
But time, the Danvers learned, doesn't heal — it buries.
And beneath what it buries, things still breathe.
Six months turned into a year. Then another. Then four.
The twins grew older. The town stopped whispering.
The Danver family became ordinary again.
At least, that's how it looked from the outside.
Elena slipped easily into her role as the good one again.
She was twenty now, calm and measured, a favorite among her teachers and neighbors. She painted, she read, she smiled in photographs. Her laughter returned — lighter, careful, never too loud.
Sometimes she stared a second too long before answering questions. Sometimes she flinched at the sound of her own name. But no one noticed except Mara.
Mara was different — sharper now. Restless.
Her once fiery defiance dulled into something quieter, more defensive, like a blade kept hidden but always ready.
She joked, she teased, she lived — but her eyes never fully softened again.
The two were inseparable still, but not in the same way.
Before, they shared everything — secrets, laughter, guilt.
Now, there was something unspoken between them, like a thread neither dared pull.
Their parents tried to believe.
The mother filled her days with small joys — baking, tending to her garden, pressing flowers between the pages of old books. She clung to routine like prayer.
The father worked longer hours, convincing himself that consistency meant safety. When he watched his daughters from the kitchen doorway, he sometimes smiled too hard — like a man daring the world not to break him again.
And for a while, it worked.
The house stopped feeling haunted. The voices in the woods quieted.
The hollow tree, though… never healed.
Its bark was brittle, its trunk split down the center like an open wound.
Every winter, the father said he'd cut it down.
Every spring, he couldn't bring himself to.
By the third year, the twins seemed almost normal.
They helped their mother with groceries, played cards with the neighbors, and spent long afternoons sketching by the window.
People forgot.
The girls, too, learned to laugh without flinching.
To look in mirrors without expecting something else to look back.
But every so often — in quiet moments — the cracks showed.
Elena's hands trembled when she held a pencil too long.
Mara sometimes woke to her sister whispering in her sleep, her voice soft and strange: "Don't let them find us."
When Mara asked who "they" were, Elena always frowned and said, "I don't remember."
One evening, Mara found her in the backyard, standing before the hollow tree.
The sky was bruised purple, and a faint wind stirred the grass.
"You shouldn't be here," Mara said, crossing her arms.
Elena didn't turn around. "It looks smaller," she said quietly. "Doesn't it?"
"It's dead," Mara replied. "Leave it alone."
Elena reached out and touched the bark. Her fingers came away streaked with black, like soot.
"Things like this," she whispered, "don't really die. They just wait."
That night, at dinner, the father mentioned maybe cutting the tree down after all. Elena didn't speak for the rest of the meal.
Later, Mara caught her sitting by the window, staring out into the yard. The hollow gleamed faintly in the moonlight, as though something inside was breathing.
When Mara asked what she was looking at, Elena said, "Nothing."
But her voice was too soft, too distant.
By the fourth year, everything had started to fade again — even the fear.
The twins laughed more. Their parents smiled more easily.
Life settled into a rhythm that almost felt safe.
But sometimes, when the house was quiet and the wind shifted just right, Mara thought she could hear faint voices from the woods.
Familiar. Echoing.
And once — only once — she heard her sister's name whispered back to her.
It was in that same year that Elena began talking about leaving.
At first, it was just in passing — a wish, a maybe, a dream.
But by winter, it was a plan.
The mother cried quietly when she heard. The father said it was good for her, that it meant growth.
Mara just nodded, pretending she understood.
But that night, when Elena whispered "I think it's time," Mara could only say, "It never ends well when we separate."
Elena smiled faintly in the dark. "It didn't end well when we didn't."
That night, the wind howled through the yard, rustling the branches of the hollow tree.
Its creak sounded almost like laughter.
And by morning, one of its roots had pushed further out of the ground — like a hand reaching upward.