The man's photograph burned into my brain long after Jeremy tucked it away.
A wife.
A mother.
A stranger.
A ghost.
I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched by someone who wasn't supposed to exist anymore.
Jeremy rubbed his temples. "She said the house felt… wrong. Said someone was inside. But I never saw anyone."
His voice wavered not with fear, but with exhaustion. A man fraying at the edges. A man trying so hard to appear unbreakable that I wanted to look away.
"What did you do?" I asked.
"I changed every lock. I installed cameras. I checked every room. Every closet. Every night."
His jaw clenched. "She still kept seeing him."
"And you?"
Jeremy didn't answer right away. Instead, he reached into a kitchen drawer, pulled out a single sheet of paper, and handed it to me.
A police report.
Evelyn Crawford — Domestic Disturbance.
Caller claims someone is inside the home. Officers found nothing.
My stomach dropped.
"How often did this happen?" I whispered.
He lifted his eyes to mine dark, tired,unbearably sad.
"Often enough that they stopped responding."
I exhaled slowly, the weight of it settling into my ribs.
This wasn't a house with secrets.
It was a house that had been begging to tell the truth.
Jeremy cleared his throat. "Come on. Let me show you where you'll be working."
He started down the hall.
I didn't move.
Something cold brushed the back of my neck like invisible fingers tracing my skin.
I whipped around.
Nobody.
Only that framed picture again, hanging crooked on the wall as if someone had bumped it.
But earlier… it hadn't been crooked. I was sure of it.
Jeremy paused at the hallway's end. "Evelyn?"
I shook it off and followed, refusing to seem paranoid on my first day. But the sensation lingered, crawling like ice water down my spine.
He led me to a tall door near the end of the second-floor landing.
"This was her office."
He opened it.
And the world dropped out from beneath me.
The room was a shrine of disorder—papers stacked in unstable towers, walls plastered with outlines, sticky notes, crossed-out paragraphs. A cork board held photographs, scribbles, diagrams.
But the worst part?
In the center of the desk, perfectly placed and waiting:
A leather-bound manuscript.
Open.
As if someone had just been reading it.
"Did you…" I swallowed hard. "Did you open this?"
Jeremy frowned. "No. I haven't set foot in here since the hospital."
The pages fluttered though the window was shut.
And then subtle, almost inaudible something scratched beneath the floorboards.
Not an animal.
Not the house settling.
A pattern.
A rhythm.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap-tap.
Morse code?
My heart pounded.
"Is there someone else in the house?" I asked, barely audible.
Jeremy looked genuinely startled. "Just us. Why?"
Because the scratching had returned.
Faster. More deliberate.
As if responding to my voice.
Tap.
Tap-tap.
Tap.
A message.
A warning.
A hello.
I forced myself toward the desk, my fingertips brushing the open manuscript.
Two words were written across the top of the exposed page in looping, feminine handwriting:
Do not trust him.
My blood ran cold.
"Jeremy…" My voice cracked. "Your wife wrote this?"
He stepped closer to see.
When he looked down, the page was blank.
Completely blank.
The handwriting gone.
His brow furrowed. "Evelyn… there's nothing there."
I staggered back from the desk.
Either the house was playing tricks on me
Or I was becoming exactly what they all said Evelyn Crawford had become:
Unstable.
Paranoid.
Unreliable.
Jeremy gently touched my arm. "You okay?" I nodded too quickly.
"Yeah. Just tired."
He didn't look convinced.
But he didn't push.
"Get some rest," he murmured. "You can start reading tomorrow."
He left the room, closing the door behind him.
Silence swallowed everything.
Until
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Right beneath my feet.
I backed away.
Then the manuscript flipped to the next page by itself, slow and deliberate.
My breath faltered.
A fresh sentence appeared in the same looping script I had seen before
forming right before my eyes.
I know you can hear me.
I froze.
The handwriting spread across the fresh page like ink seeping from an invisible pen, each letter forming with slow, terrifying intention.
I know you can hear me.
My mouth went dry.
This wasn't possible. None of this was possible.
I stumbled back until my spine hit the bookshelf. Something clattered behind me a stack of papers falling to the floor. The sound startled me so violently I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.
"Okay," I whispered to no one. "Okay… breathe."
The pages stilled.
For a long moment, the room fell into a suffocating silence. Heavy. Expectant. Like the house itself was holding its breath.
Then
A single word bled onto the page beneath the first message.
Help.
I shook my head. "No. No, this is this is some stress-induced hallucination. I'm overtired. Jet-lagged. Hungry."
The house didn't respond.
But the scratching beneath the floorboards did.
This time more frantic.
Tap-tap-tap-tap
Tap.
Tap-tap.
I clamped my hands over my ears. "Stop!"
The noise ceased instantly.
Too instantly.
As if whoever whatever was doing it heard me clearly.
My pulse thundered in my throat. I forced myself to kneel beside the desk, sliding the manuscript toward me with trembling fingers. The leather felt warm.
Warm, as though someone had been holding it moments ago.
I swallowed hard. "What do you want?"
The ink didn't move. The page remained exactly as it was.
Then, very slowly, the light in the room dimmed as if something brushed past the window, blocking out the sun.
But the curtains didn't move.
I exhaled through shaking lips. "I'm imagining this. I'm imagining all of this."
A soft creak came from behind me.
The office door.
Opening.
I spun around.
The door was ajar just slightly. Not fully. Not wide enough for someone to enter.
Wide enough for someone to watch.
"Jeremy?" My voice cracked.
No answer.
The floorboard just outside the door groaned.
Then a shadow shifted across the thin line of light beneath the door.
Someone was standing there.
Watching.
Listening.
My legs wouldn't cooperate, but instinct forced me upright. I stepped toward the door slowly, each movement deliberate.
My fingertips reached for the handle.
Then
The door slammed shut with a violent bang, rattling the entire hallway and sending a spray of loose papers off the cork board.
I jolted backward with a strangled gasp.
The manuscript snapped closed.
The lights flickered.
And then
Silence.
A deep, unnatural, smothering silence.
I stared at the door, heart hammering, willing myself to speak.
"Who are you?"
My whisper shook.
Nothing.
But across the room, near the window, the faint shimmer of something like a figure half-formed from light and shadow wavered for the briefest moment.
A silhouette.
Female.
Hair long and unkempt.
Face blurred.
And then gone.
A breath escaped me in a shuddering rush. I grabbed my bag, bolting for the door. My hand closed around the handle
And before I could twist it open, a soft, icy whisper slid against my ear from behind me.
"Don't leave me alone with him."
I screamed.
And when I spun back around, the room was empty.
Completely empty.
As if nothing had happened at all.