The house was already looking at me when I pulled into the driveway.
It sat at the end of a cul-de-sac like a dare, three stories of dark wood and steep gables, its windows turned toward the trees instead of the street. Every other house in Black Hollow had lights on, porch pumpkins, kids’ bikes slung on lawns. My aunt Evelyn’s place was just…shadow and silence.
I killed the engine. The quiet pressed in, thick, like sound had weight here.
Dogs were barking somewhere deeper in town, wild and high and oddly…synchronized. I told myself it was just a coincidence that their howls rose right when I stepped out of the car.
“This is fine,” I muttered, grabbing the first box from the backseat. “It’s a house, not a horror movie. People inherit property all the time and don’t get murdered by—”
Headlights swept across the drive, cutting me off. A sheriff’s SUV rolled up behind my car, gravel popping under its tires.
The door opened and a tall man stepped out, all broad shoulders and navy uniform and the kind of controlled tension that made you straighten up without knowing why. His badge caught the last smear of sunset. His eyes, when they landed on me, were an unreadable gray-green. Like storm water.
“Hailey Pierce?” His voice was low, even. The kind of even that made you think of leashes.
“That depends,” I said, shifting the box higher. “Are you here to arrest me or welcome me to the neighborhood with a fruit basket?”
One corner of his mouth tugged, not quite a smile. “No basket.” He came closer, boots crunching. “Sheriff Owen Marsh. We spoke on the phone.”
Right. The call last week. The polite condolences, the offer to swing by when I got in. I hadn’t expected him to actually follow through.
Up close, he smelled faintly of pine and something warmer beneath it, like skin heated by a long run. It slid under my defenses before I could name it.
“Sorry,” I said. “Long drive. I’m a little fried.” I shifted the box again. My arms were already complaining. “You, uh, patrol the cul-de-sac personally, Sheriff?”
His gaze flicked past me to the house, and everything in him went subtly, absolutely still. The loose-casual posture I’d half believed in vanished.
“I patrol this property personally,” he said. “Especially after dark.”
An odd chill threaded my spine. “Is that supposed to make me feel safe or freaked out?”
“Both would be smart,” he replied. Then, like he’d heard himself, he exhaled. “Look. I just want to make sure you get settled. Place has…history.”
I followed his stare up to the third-floor windows. In the fading light they were flat black, reflecting only the bare branches of the woods behind the house. I felt the weight of them on my skin, like being measured.
“Is this where you tell me my aunt didn’t just leave me a house, she left me a murder scene?” I tried for lightness. My voice came out thinner than I liked.
His jaw flexed, then smoothed. “There were deaths here. A long time ago.”
“Plural. Cool.” I forced a laugh. “You really missed your calling in real estate.”
His gaze dropped back to me, narrowing slightly. “You read the disclosures from the estate lawyer?”
“The twenty-seven pages about lead paint and mold? Yes. The part where someone died here? Not so much.”
“Two people,” he said. The wind lifted, slipping cold fingers under my jacket. “Your aunt was…thorough about keeping those details away from you.”
There was something in the way he said it that sounded personal. Like he’d argued with her about it.
I hugged the box closer. “Well. I’m here now. Ghosts and all.” The joke landed sour in my mouth.
His eyes flashed, not with humor. With something sharper. “You see anything, hear anything—anyone—inside that house, you call me.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card, stepping close enough that I could see the faint pale scar along his throat, like an old, deep scratch. “Right away. No matter what time it is.”
I took the card, brushing his gloved fingers. A strange shiver ran up my arm, an electric prickle under my skin that left my heart thudding too hard.
“Even if it’s just bad plumbing?” I asked, trying to push past it.
“Especially if you think it’s ‘just’ something.” The intensity in his gaze didn’t soften. “Trust me on this one, Hailey.”
He said my name like he’d said it a hundred times before, in another room, another life. My breath hitched. For a second the world narrowed to his eyes and that inexplicable sense of recognition tugging low in my chest, like gravity had suddenly chosen a new center.
Then the dogs howled again, closer this time, and the spell snapped.
I stepped back. “Noted. I’ll put your number on speed dial, right after pizza and locksmiths.”
He didn’t smile, but his shoulders eased a fraction. “Locksmiths are useless on this place. Deadbolts, chains, windows—all of it. You lock everything, every night. Doors to the porch, doors to the yard, basement, attic. Don’t leave anything open. Don’t invite anyone in after dark.”
“You realize you’re doing the exact opposite of making me feel sane.”
He almost looked apologetic. Almost. “I’d rather you paranoid than dead.”
There it was again: that too-strong word, landing between us with a weight he didn’t bother to walk back. Like he’d thought it before. Like he’d already pictured me dead in this house.
I swallowed. “Sheriff—”
“Owen.” He said it quietly. “Call me Owen.”
“Owen.” My tongue stumbled over the name, not because it was difficult but because my body reacted like it remembered the taste of it. Ridiculous. “You’re really committed to the haunted-house bit. Is there anything else I should know? Blood in the walls? Poltergeist?”
His gaze returned to the third floor, harder now. “Just remember what I told you. Lock up. Call me if anything feels wrong. Don’t try to handle it alone.”
“Define ‘wrong.’”
He looked back down at me, eyes catching the last light, and for a heartbeat they seemed almost…too bright. “You’ll know.”
I almost argued. Instead, I heard myself say, “Okay.”
He nodded once, like that single syllable was a contract. “I’ll swing by later, make sure everything’s quiet.”
“Is it ever not?”
“In this town?” His gaze slid past me to the line of dark trees. “You’d be surprised.”
I watched him get back into the SUV, watched the way his shoulders rolled, coiled tension under control. He paused with his hand on the door, looking back at the house one last time, mouth a hard line.
Then he drove away, taillights bleeding red into the growing dark.
Inside, the house smelled like dust and lavender and something faintly metallic underneath, like rain on old iron. The air was colder than it should have been.
I set my box on the scarred hallway table and found the light switch. The foyer chandelier flicked on reluctantly, bulbs buzzing, throwing a soft yellow that only deepened the shadows in the corners.
“Home, sweet mostly not murder house,” I said aloud, because silence was starting to feel like a third presence.
The floorboards creaked under my boots as I wandered through the first floor—living room with sheet-draped furniture, kitchen with avocado-green cabinets and a back door that looked like it hadn’t opened in years. Each room felt like it was holding its breath.
I checked the locks like Owen had said. Front door: deadbolt, chain. Back door: rusted slide, stubborn but secure. Side door onto the wraparound porch: two locks, one sticking. I had to lean my shoulder into it until it clicked.
“See?” I muttered to no one. “Paranoid. Thorough. Not dead.”
I saved the stairs for last.
The second floor held bedrooms, one clearly my aunt’s—smelling faintly of her perfume, cedar and orange peel—and one that had already been prepared for me, boxes stacked at the foot of a neatly made bed. A note sat on the pillow, the envelope yellowed at the edges.
My name, in Aunt Evelyn’s handwriting.
My fingers shook a little as I opened it.
Hailey-girl,
If you’re reading this, it means I didn’t find a way to change what’s coming. I’m sorry. I tried.
There are things you don’t remember, and things everyone has worked very hard to make sure you never learn. You will not thank me for that, but I hope someday you’ll understand.
Until then: obey the rules. Lock every door. Stay out of the woods. Be careful who you trust, especially at night.
And if he comes—because he will come—do not listen when he calls you Luna.
Love,
E.
“Okay,” I whispered, heart banging against my ribs. “That’s…cryptic and super comforting, thanks.”
The word Luna clawed at something deep inside me, a place that wasn’t fully mine. A flicker of white fabric under a full moon, the sound of howling, a man’s voice whispering mine—but not my name.
I blinked, and the bedroom snapped back into focus. My skin was cool and damp, like I’d just walked in from the rain.
“Stress,” I told myself. “Grief. Creepy houses. Sheriff Doom-and-Gloom. Clearly I’m just primed for hallucinations.”
Still, when I turned off the light and headed for the third floor, my hand was tight on the rail.
The attic stairs creaked with each step. At the top, a single bare bulb lit a long hallway with two doors—one on the left, one at the far end. The air up here was colder, thin, as if the house’s lungs were empty.
I opened the left door. Storage, mostly. Boxes, trunks, a mannequin missing an arm. The other door was locked.
I tried the handle. It didn’t budge.
“Fine,” I said, backing away. “Stay mysterious.”
As I turned, the bulb flickered. Once. Twice. Then steadied.
I told myself not to be dramatic and went back downstairs.
By the time I dragged my last box into my room, full dark had fallen. Outside, the street was a black river between houses, most windows already dark. No one out walking dogs. No car doors slamming. Just the distant, restless sound of wind in the trees and, faintly, the occasional bark.
Owen’s card sat on my nightstand. The numbers blurred a little when I looked at them too long, like they were already memorized somewhere under my skin.
“Stop it,” I said to the empty room, dropping back onto the bed. The mattress springs protested. “He’s just a guy doing his job. You’re projecting because you don’t know anyone else here.”
The ceiling fan ticked. My eyelids grew heavy.
I didn’t mean to fall asleep. But the day caught up to me all at once, and the room slid sideways.
In the dream, the house wasn’t empty.
Music floated up from downstairs—low, old, the kind of song you slow dance to when you’re already too close. Candlelight flickered against the hallway walls. My bare feet were cold on the polished wood, my white dress whispering around my ankles.
Except I didn’t own a white dress.
“Come back to bed, Luna,” a man’s voice murmured from behind me, warm and rough with sleep and satisfaction.
My pulse jumped. I knew that voice.
I turned.
He stood in the doorway of the locked attic room, shirtless, dark hair curling damply at his neck like he’d come in from the rain. His eyes were silvered moonlight in a face I’d never seen and yet felt like I’d mapped with my hands a hundred times.
Everything in me lurched toward him with a violent surge of wanting that wasn’t mine and absolutely was.
“Who—” My voice failed. My throat closed.
He smiled slowly, like a predator baring teeth. “You’re not going to make me beg for my name, are you?” He stepped into the hall. Water dripped from his hair, sliding down his chest, but the floor stayed dry. “You used to moan it.”
I stumbled back, hand slapping against the wall. “I don’t know you.”
His smile didn’t falter, but something sharp glinted under it. “You know me better than anyone, little moon.” He reached out, fingers ghosting over my cheek. His touch was ice and fire, burning cold, sending sparks racing under my skin. “You came back to me, just like you promised.”
My heart hammered. My body remembered him. My mind rejected the entire premise.
“This is a dream,” I said. “You’re not real.”
He laughed, low and pleased. “Is that what he told you?” His eyes flicked downward, to the hollow of my throat where my pulse thundered. “Still so stubborn. Still lying to yourself.” His hand slid to the back of my neck, cool and possessive. I couldn’t move. “Say my name.”
The syllables rose from somewhere deep and old before I could stop them. “Adrian.”
The house shuddered around us, lights flaring, shadows drawing in. His smile turned triumphant, hungry.
“There she is,” he breathed. “My Luna.”
The word slammed into me like a blow. Memory knocked at my skull—wolves bowing, a ring of trees, a sky split by twin moons. My white dress soaked in blood, his hand around my throat, love and rage twisting his features into something monstrous.
I gasped. The hallway tilted.
Adrian’s eyes darkened, storm clouds swallowing the moon. “Don’t run,” he said, voice dropping. Threat and plea tangled together. “Not this time.”
I tore away from his grip. My back hit the banister. Below, the staircase seemed to drop into endless dark.
“I don’t—this isn’t—” My chest was tight, air razor-thin. “You’re dead.” The words ripped out of me on a sob I didn’t recognize.
For a second, pain flickered across his face, raw and unguarded. Then it hardened into something vicious. “Because you left me.”
“I never—”
The front door downstairs exploded inward with a crash that reverberated up the walls. A voice roared my name, furious and terrified at once.
“Hailey!”
Adrian’s head snapped toward the sound. A growl rumbled low in his chest, vibrating through the floorboards. “He’s still sniffing around you?” His attention swung back to me, gaze burning. “You belong to me. You always have.” His finger brushed my lower lip, a mockery of tenderness. “Remember that when he lies to you.”
“Who—”
I didn’t get to finish. The hallway lights blew out in a shower of sparks. Darkness swallowed Adrian’s face, leaving only the gleam of his eyes.
“I’ll come to you in the rain,” he whispered. “Like before. And you’ll come to me, Luna. You won’t be able to stop yourself.”
Something yanked me backward, away from him, down into black.
I woke up choking on a scream.
My room was dark, lit only by the streetlamp glow leaking around the edges of the curtains. My sheets were twisted around me, damp with sweat. The air tasted of ozone and…wet earth.
Outside, rain hammered against the windows.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I forced my gaze to the nightstand.
Owen’s card lay where I’d left it. A single drop of water sat on its surface, soaking slowly into the paper, as if someone had set it down with rain still dripping from their fingers.
The phone was right there. His number, right there.
I reached for it with a shaking hand—and hesitated, breath trapped in my lungs, the echo of Adrian’s voice curling around my throat.
If he comes—because he will come—do not listen when he calls you Luna.
The rain pounded harder, like fists on the glass.
I picked up the phone.
And for one heartbeat, I wasn’t sure which man I was about to call.
