Chapter 3: Whispers in the Walls

Night came early to Hollowmere.

Fog rolled in thick and pale, curling between buildings like the breath of something ancient and unseen. The lamps along the narrow streets flickered as if reluctant to push back the dark, and doors were bolted tightly long before midnight.

In the attic room above the apothecary, Amara lay wide awake, the covers pulled to her chest, heart still unsettled by her encounter with Lucien. She had tried to make sense of it—tried to tell herself he was just another stranger with odd manners and stranger words.

But the way he had said her name…

She turned toward the window.

The moon stared back at her—full, bright, and distant. Beyond the glass, the branches of the ash tree outside scraped softly against the panes. She heard it then: a whisper.

Amara sat up.

It was faint at first, like wind through the rafters. But then it came again—clearer. A voice.

“Come back…”

She rose, breath caught in her throat, and tiptoed to the wall beside her bed. The whisper seemed to be coming from the timber frame itself, like words soaked into the wood long ago and now rising up like vapor.

“Come back to us... before it’s too late…”

A shiver ran down her spine.

She pressed her ear to the wall.

The voice was gone—but in its place came a strange warmth in the wood. As if the wall itself had a heartbeat, slow and rhythmic. She stepped back, her own heart now racing.

Below her, the stairs creaked.

Amara grabbed her shawl and slipped quietly from her room, making her way down the narrow staircase. Aunt Hilda’s snoring could be heard behind her bedroom door, undisturbed.

But something in the shop below was not at rest.

The air in the apothecary was heavy, still. Shadows loomed large across the glass jars and shelves of dried herbs. The hearth embers glowed red, and for a moment, Amara thought she saw someone standing by the fireplace.

She blinked—and the figure vanished.

With trembling steps, she approached the workbench, where Hilda kept her herbal notes and tools. Resting beside the mortar and pestle was something that hadn't been there before: a yellowed page, torn from an ancient journal.

It was not Aunt Hilda’s handwriting.

The ink was faded, the language older than any Amara knew—but her eyes caught on a name scrawled at the top:

Eleanor Virell.

She didn’t know who Eleanor was. But the moment she said the name aloud, something shifted in the room. The hearth flame crackled sharply, and a gust of wind blew open the back door.

Amara turned slowly, heart hammering. The forest beyond the threshold looked impossibly dark—like a mouth opened wide in warning or invitation.

And standing just beyond the tree line…

Lucien.

Watching.

Waiting.

Not moving.

His presence felt like thunder before a storm.

Amara stepped back, but the page in her hand began to glow faintly. The same symbol from the tree—the one from her dreams—was drawn in its center.

The whispers in the walls returned, louder this time, calling her by name, pleading, begging:

“Break the curse… find the truth… remember us…”

She shut the door.

And locked it.