THE LETTER WITH NO RETURN

The rain hadn’t stopped in three days. It hadn’t slowed. It didn’t waver. It fell like judgment. The sky above East Hollow had turned a shade darker than black, not the color of night, but the color of rot—something decayed beyond recognition. Black clouds hung heavy, thick and slow, bleeding shadows over crumbling rooftops and the twisted iron skeletons of forgotten streetlamps. Fog licked the pavement like breath from a dying beast.

At the top of Hollow Hill, where the road fractured into gravel and memory, the Pendleton Estate loomed like a wound stitched into the side of the earth—ancient, bleeding history through every crack in its stone skin. Ivy curled like veins up its façade. Gargoyles watched from the roof, not ornamental. Not anymore.

The cab stopped without a word. The driver didn’t look at her, didn’t wait for payment. As though he’d been told, long before today, never to return once the door closed behind her.

Adira Vale stepped out, black heels slicing through rain-slicked stone. Her trench coat clung to her, soaked through despite the umbrella she didn’t bother to open. Her fingers trembled—not from cold, but from the envelope in her hand. Off-white. Thick paper. Unsealed. No return address. No name.

Just hers.

Adira Vale

Written in her mother’s handwriting.

Her dead mother.

The estate gates had opened for her before she arrived. No keys. No creaking iron. Just… open. The house waited. It breathed. The silence was louder than the rain.

Inside, the scent hit her. Violets. And rot. Like perfume buried in a coffin, blooming through the fabric of time. The air was still, unmoving, thick with memories that didn’t belong to her. Shadows moved before she did. And the portraits—lining the high hallway—watched her. Their eyes followed. Not metaphorically.

Not anymore.

The lEtter had arrived two nights ago, dropped at her doorstep like a curse dressed as correspondence. Her grandmother, Claudia Pendleton, had died last week. No will. No lawyer. No announcement. Just the letter.

She hadn’t even known her grandmother was alive.

And now the manor was hers.

Adira stepped into the parlor. Velvet curtains swayed though the windows were sealed shut. A clock ticked in the corner—an old grandfather with no hands. The letter in her hand felt heavier.

She opened it, the seal snapping like bone.

“You are the last. Do not trust him. He knows your name now. He knows you’ve come. Do not read the other letters.”

Other letters?

The handwriting was unmistakable. It belonged to her mother, Elena Vale—dead thirteen years. Cremated. No grave.

A breath grazed the shell of her ear.

She froze.

It was not hers.

She turned sharply.

He was already there.

A figure stood at the base of the grand staircase. Not a ghost. Not a man. Something in between. Half-swallowed by shadow, half-dressed like grief incarnate. Black coat. Black gloves. White shirt that looked blood-stained in the low light. And eyes like obsidian—no light, no depth. Just void.

Tall. Composed. A predator drawn in charcoal and elegance.

“You shouldn’t be here alone,” he said, voice like silk dragged across broken glass.

Adira didn’t speak. She didn’t scream. Something deeper than fear took root inside her. Something like knowing. Like recognition.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I go by many names,” he said. “Tonight, it’s Elias.”

She stepped back, the floor groaning beneath her weight.

“Do you live here?” she asked.

He tilted his head. Slowly. Almost curious.

“No. I haunt it.”

He moved toward her. No sound. No breath. Just movement. Closer than before.

She held up the letter. “Did you send this?”

“No,” Elias said. “But I’ve read it.”

“You expect me to believe a ghost reads mail?”

He smiled then. Not kindly.

“Ghosts don’t haunt houses, Adira. They haunt people.”

She gripped the edge of the nearest table, nails digging into old wood.

“What do you want?”

“Want?” he echoed. “Want is for the living.”

His hand reached toward her, gloved fingers brushing her coat. She jerked away, but not fast enough. He had touched her. It wasn’t a hallucination.

“You’re not safe,” Elias said, voice lower now. “Not from me. And especially not from him.”

“Who?”

“The one who writes letters in dead women’s hands.”

Before she could speak again, thunder cracked across the sky like a scream. A portrait fell from the wall—glass shattering, canvas tearing. Her grandmother’s face split down the middle. And Elias—

Gone.

No footsteps. No doors. No shadow left behind.

She was alone again.

But not truly.

Because in that moment, something crawled beneath her skin. Not fear. Not shock.

Recognition.

She had felt this before.

When her mother vanished. When the police stopped looking. When the dreams started—her mother screaming, holding a letter, and someone watching from behind a mirror. The dreams weren’t dreams anymore.

She knew it.

There were other letters.

And one of them still had her mother’s blood on it.

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