Chapter 4: A Sister's Whisper

Chapter 4: A Sister's Whisper

Sleep was a shallow, treacherous country Leo could no longer enter. He lay on his back in his new, anonymous bedroom, staring at a ceiling the color of nothing. The house was a tomb of silence. Outside, not even the chirp of a cricket or the distant rumble of a car broke the profound stillness of the Old Ridge night. It was a dead quiet, an unnatural absence of sound that made the ringing in his own ears feel deafening.

He missed the familiar groans of their old house, the hum of the refrigerator, the rattle of the pipes. He missed the sounds of a place that was lived in, a place that held memories. This house held nothing. It was a blank page, and something deep inside him screamed that it was waiting for him to be erased so it could be written over.

He rolled onto his side, the sheets cool and crisp against his skin. His hand went to his chest, his fingers closing around the familiar shape of the golden heart. He squeezed it tight, trying to summon Hannah’s face—her real face, the one that laughed, not the one from the flashes of broken glass and twisted metal.

That’s when he heard it.

A sound so faint, he thought he’d imagined it. A soft, scraping noise from downstairs. The house settling, he told himself. New houses make noises. But this one hadn't made a single sound until now.

He held his breath, straining to listen. The silence pressed back in, thick and heavy. He was about to dismiss it when it came again, clearer this time. A word, thin and stretched, like a voice carried on a long-distance call with a bad connection.

“…Lee…”

Leo froze, every muscle in his body going rigid. No one had called him that in years. Not since they were kids. It was Hannah’s name for him.

His heart began to pound a frantic, heavy rhythm against his ribs. It was the wind. It was the pipes. It was grief playing tricks on a tired mind, just like his dad had said. It had to be.

He threw the covers back, his bare feet hitting the cold wooden floor. The house was dark, save for a single, anemic nightlight his father had plugged in at the bottom of the stairs, casting long, distorted shadows that writhed and danced as he moved. He crept out of his room, each creak of the floorboards sounding like a gunshot in the oppressive silence.

As he reached the top of the stairs, he heard it again, pulling him forward like a phantom thread.

“…so cold…”

The voice was stronger here, and it was undeniably female. It was undeniably Hannah. The sound wasn't coming from the living room or the kitchen; it was seeping up from the basement.

A cold dread warred with a wild, impossible hope in his chest. He descended the stairs one at a time, his hand trailing along the sterile, freshly painted wall. The nightlight gave the living room a sickly, jaundiced glow. He walked past the entryway to the basement and paused. The chill was immediate. It was the same profound, unnatural cold from the locked door, now spilling out into the hallway, a tangible presence in the dark.

He forced himself down the basement stairs, the cold intensifying with each step. By the time his feet touched the glossy concrete floor, his breath was misting in front of him. The basement was pitch black, but he knew exactly where the door was. The cold was a beacon, drawing him toward the far wall.

He approached it slowly, his hand outstretched until his fingertips brushed against the rough, splintered wood. It felt ancient, alive, and colder than any natural substance had a right to be. He pressed his ear against the keyhole, his heart hammering in his throat.

For a moment, there was only a faint, rushing sound, like wind through a tunnel. Then, the whisper came, clear and close, as if she were speaking directly into his ear.

“Lee… where are you? It’s so dark. Help me…”

A sob caught in Leo’s throat. It was her voice. Her terror. Her pain. It was a waking nightmare. He stumbled back, his hand flying to his mouth to stifle a cry, his back hitting the cold concrete wall. He scrambled up the stairs, his breath coming in ragged, panicked gasps, fleeing the impossible voice and the soul-deep cold.

He burst into the upstairs bathroom, flipping on the light and splashing his face with icy water from the tap, the shock of it a welcome distraction. He braced his hands on the sink, knuckles white, and forced himself to look up.

His own haunted face stared back from the mirror—dark circles, pale skin, wild eyes. And for a fraction of a second, standing right behind him, was Hannah.

She wasn't the vibrant, smiling girl from his memories. Her hair was damp and matted, her skin had a bluish tinge, and her eyes—her bright, beautiful eyes—were filled with a profound, pleading sorrow. The silver necklace with the golden heart was around her neck, gleaming under the harsh bathroom light.

He spun around with a strangled yell.

The bathroom was empty.

His legs gave out and he slid down the wall to the floor, pulling his knees to his chest. He was losing his mind. The town, the house, the grief—it was breaking him. He stayed there for what felt like an hour, shaking, until a fragile sense of control returned. It was a hallucination. A vivid, horrifying hallucination brought on by stress and trauma. That’s all it was.

He pushed himself to his feet and walked shakily back to his room. Needing to see the outside world, to see something real, he went to the window and looked down at the unnaturally perfect lawn, bathed in the pale light of a distant streetlamp.

A flicker of movement near the oak tree at the edge of the property caught his eye. A flash of canary yellow. The color of the windbreaker Hannah always wore when they went for walks in the fall. He squinted, his heart seizing again. A figure was standing there, partially obscured by the tree’s shadow, wearing a yellow jacket.

He blinked, and it was gone. The lawn was empty, serene, and perfect.

That was it. He couldn’t keep this inside. He didn't care if he sounded crazy. He ran from his room and burst into his father’s, not bothering to knock.

“Dad! Dad, wake up!”

Jim shot up in bed, his eyes wide with alarm. “Leo? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Hannah,” Leo blurted out, the words tumbling over each other. “I heard her. In the basement. She was talking to me, Dad, from behind that locked door. And I saw her. I saw her in the mirror, and just now, outside.”

His father stared at him, the initial alarm on his face slowly being replaced by a deep, weary pity. He scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. Leo noticed that the deep lines of exhaustion around his dad's eyes seemed fainter than they had just yesterday. He looked… rested.

“Son,” Jim said, his voice level and maddeningly calm. “It was a dream. A nightmare.”

“No! I was awake! I was in the basement, it was freezing cold and she was whispering—”

“Leo, stop.” Jim’s voice was firm now, not unkind, but with an edge of command Leo hadn’t heard before. “We’ve been through a horrific trauma. It’s one of the most stressful things a person can endure. It’s perfectly normal for your mind to… to create things. To see and hear things that aren’t there. It’s a trauma response.”

He was using the language of a therapist, the rational, placating tone of a stranger. The broken man who had wept in their old living room was gone. In his place was this calm, reasonable person who looked at Leo’s terror like it was a problem to be solved.

“This isn’t a trauma response, Dad! This is real!” Leo pleaded, his voice cracking. “Don’t you feel it? This house, this whole town, it’s wrong!”

“What’s wrong,” Jim said, swinging his legs out of bed and standing up, “is dwelling on it. This place is our chance to heal, to look forward. We can’t do that if you’re chasing ghosts in the basement. We have to let her go, Leo.”

The words were a physical blow. Let her go? Here? In a place that felt like it wanted to swallow her memory whole?

Leo stared at his father, at the unnerving clarity in his eyes, the placid set of his jaw. The deep, consuming grief that had connected them, that had been their only shared language for weeks, was gone from his father's face. Old Ridge was already working on him. It was already starting to erase the past.

“I’m not letting her go,” Leo whispered, a new and terrible understanding dawning on him.

His father just shook his head sadly. “Get some sleep, son. Things will look better in the morning.”

Leo backed out of the room, the door clicking softly shut between them. He was alone. Utterly and completely alone. He stood in the silent hallway, the path to his own room on one side, the dark maw of the stairs leading down to the basement on the other. Down to the cold, to the whispers, to whatever was pretending to be his sister.

He clutched the golden heart at his neck. It was the only thing in this whole damn house that felt real. And he knew, with a terrifying certainty, that he was the only one left to protect it.