The first thing I hear in Murrow Falls is my own voice.
Not now, not awake—then. Last night. The echo of it clings to my throat when I jerk upright in the narrow bed of the rented attic room, lungs scraping like I’ve swallowed smoke. The room is gray-blue with early foglight leaking through the thin curtains, dust floating in skewed beams. My tongue tastes of copper and cold air.
I touch my neck. Raw. Tender. Like something fought its way out.
“Shit,” I croak.
The old radiator ticks in sympathy. Somewhere below, the pipes exhale a long metallic sigh, the house settling on its old bones. The clock on the milk-crate nightstand reads 5:17 a.m. I’ve slept maybe three hours.
My chest stutters, a half-remembered melody fluttering against my ribs. It’s always like this—waking with someone else’s song lodged between my teeth and no memory of singing it. Just pain, the ghost of notes that feel familiar the way scars do.
Except this time, it’s worse. The sheets are twisted and damp with sweat. The window—the window I definitely locked—is cracked open an inch. The fog crowding the glass looks thick enough to touch.
My heart gives a slow, ugly thump.
For a moment I just sit there, listening. The town is quiet except for the distant rush of the falls, a low, constant roar, like blood in ears. I don’t hear footsteps. Breathing. Anything.
“Get it together, Harper,” I mutter.
The floor is cold when I swing my legs out of bed. The air has that wet chill that seeps through old wood and cheaper insulation, wrapping around my ankles as I cross to the window. My bare toes curl against a knot in the floorboard.
I pull the curtain back.
Fog peers in like a living thing, thick bands rolling past, dense enough that the streetlights below are just smeared halos. Murrow Falls is all cliffs and old brick and too many trees, and this morning it looks like the world ends five feet from my window.
I shove the frame up the rest of the way with more force than necessary and lean out, breath frosting in the cold.
That’s when I see them.
Prints. On the narrow strip of roof just below the window, dusted in fine grit and last night’s dew. Not boot tread, not sneakers. Toes. Arches. The faint shape of a heel.
Barefoot.
My stomach turns. The roof is slick, sloping down toward the alley three stories below. No one should be walking here at all, let alone barefoot. I follow the trail with my eyes—a half-dozen impressions, each one a little fainter, ending right beneath my window.
And starting…from nowhere. The fog hides the edge of the neighboring roof, but the prints don’t come from there. They just…begin. As if someone stepped out of nothing and walked straight toward my room.
The melody caged behind my ribs pulses once, hard, like it recognizes something.
I slam the window shut, hands shaking.
This is fine, I tell myself, because lying is a skill I practice a lot these days. New town, old legends. Creepy landlord, creepier fog. My brain, still glitching from the accident. None of it means the Nameless are real or that anything was actually standing out there while I sang some eldritch lullaby in my sleep.
