Chapter I:
The Invitation
The letter arrived without a stamp, slid beneath Mara's apartment door like a guilty secret. The paper was yellowed, brittle, and warm—as if it had been held too long in someone's mouth.
Come home, it said, in her mother's handwriting.
Her mother had been dead for twelve years.
Mara told herself it was a prank, a cruel coincidence. Still, by nightfall she was driving north, the road narrowing into something that felt less like a path and more like a vein. The house waited where it always had, crouched at the edge of the woods, its windows black and reflective, like eyes that had learned not to blink.
The front door opened when she touched it.
Inside, the air smelled of damp earth and old breath. The floorboards creaked her name.
Chapter II:
Rooms That Breathe
The house was wrong in small ways. The hallway was longer than memory allowed. Doors led to rooms that should not exist. Wallpaper pulsed faintly, like skin stretched over something alive.
Mara moved carefully, heart thudding. Her childhood bedroom waited at the end of the hall. Inside, the bed was neatly made. On the pillow lay her old music box—the one her mother had smashed during their last fight.
It began to play.
The tune was slow, warped, each note dragging like a hooked foot. In the mirror above the dresser, Mara saw herself standing behind herself, mouth open too wide, eyes filled with crawling black shapes.
She spun around.
Nothing.
But the mirror still smiled.
Chapter III:
Mother's Voice
The kitchen light flicked on by itself. A pot simmered on the stove, though the flame was cold. Mara smelled soup—chicken, carrots, something metallic underneath.
"Mara," her mother called softly.
The voice came from everywhere: the ceiling, the walls, inside her teeth. Mara backed away, hands shaking.
"You shouldn't have left," the voice said. "You promised you'd stay."
Mara remembered screaming, remembered blood on the linoleum, remembered her mother falling and not getting back up. The house had watched then too. The house had listened.
The cupboard doors burst open. Plates hurled themselves across the room, shattering against her shoulders and head. Something grabbed her ankle from beneath the floorboards—fingers like wet roots, tightening, pulling her down.
The house was hungry.
Chapter IV:
The Truth Beneath
Mara tore herself free and fled into the basement, the door slamming shut behind her. The stairs led downward far deeper than the house allowed, spiraling into a wet, organic dark.
At the bottom, she found them.
Bodies, fused into the walls. Faces half-remembered from childhood: neighbors, strangers, her father. Their mouths moved weakly, whispering fragments of apologies and prayers. Veins ran from their chests into the foundation, feeding the house.
In the center of the room stood her mother—or something wearing her shape. Her skin sagged like melting wax, eyes sunken and glowing faintly from within.
"The house keeps us," it said. "It remembers us. It remembers you most of all."
The walls began to close in, pulsing with each beat of Mara's heart.
Chapter V:
Home
Mara screamed until her throat tore. She clawed at the walls, but they were soft now, yielding, eager. Hands pressed against her from the other side, welcoming.
The house showed her memories she had buried: the first scream, the final push, the relief afterward. It soaked them up, savoring each one.
"You came back," her mother whispered lovingly. "Good children always do."
By morning, the house stood quiet again. The windows gleamed warmly in the sunlight. No sign of struggle remained.
Weeks later, another letter slid beneath a stranger's door, written in careful, familiar handwriting.
Come home.