Chapter 3: The Feather on the Sill

Chapter 3: The Feather on the Sill

Leo’s bedroom was no longer his own.

The four walls that had once been his sanctuary, a private world of charcoal sketches, half-read books, and teenage daydreams, had become a cage. The safety of his home, breached once by the silent figures on the lawn and again by the cold logic of the bent wire, was a memory. Now, every shadow was a lurking form, every creak of the old house’s floorboards a footstep in the hall.

He lay rigid in his bed, the covers pulled up to his chin like a child’s flimsy shield. Sleep was an impossible luxury. His parents had retreated into a state of quiet, anxious denial. They locked the doors with extra care, left the porch light on all night, and spoke in hushed tones when they thought he couldn't hear. But their fragile belief didn't make him feel safer. It made him feel more alone, the designated sentry for a threat they couldn't truly comprehend.

His gaze was fixed on the large window, now a black, reflective void. He had drawn the curtains tight, but it did little good. The darkness on the other side felt like a physical presence, pressing against the glass. He knew they were out there. The fleeting image of the figure in the trees that morning was burned into his mind—a patient, silent observer. They weren't just passing through. They were waiting.

Leo’s ears strained, sifting through the nocturnal symphony of the house. The low hum of the refrigerator downstairs. The groan of a pipe settling in the wall. The distant rustle of leaves in a rising breeze. He tried to catalog them, to hold onto the normal sounds, the sounds of his life before. But his fear was a constant, low-grade static that distorted everything.

Was that a floorboard, or the soft compression of a foot on the lawn? Was that the wind, or a held breath?

He squeezed his eyes shut, but that was worse. In the darkness of his own mind, the memory of their eyes played on a loop. Not angry, not hateful, just… empty. Voids of cold, ancient intelligence that had looked at him and seen him, truly seen him, in a way that felt like a brand on his soul. He had tried to draw them earlier, hoping that giving them form on paper might rob them of their power. But his hand had trembled too much, the charcoal stick snapping under the pressure. He couldn't capture that absolute blackness.

That’s when he heard it again.

At first, it was so faint he thought it was his own pulse thrumming in his ears. A dry, sibilant whisper. It was the same sound from the night of the ritual, like a thousand brittle leaves skittering across stone.

His blood ran cold. He froze, barely breathing.

It wasn't coming from the lawn this time. It wasn't distant. It was close. Incredibly close. It seemed to be coming from just outside his window, a taunting murmur riding on the night air. The sound scraped at the edges of his hearing, not forming words but weaving a tapestry of malice and dark invitation. It felt directed, personal. It was a sound that knew his name, even if it didn't speak it.

The desire to hide, to pull the covers over his head and disappear, was overwhelming. But a stronger, more terrifying urge rose to meet it: the need to know. The obstacle was the memory of their eyes. What if he looked, and one of them was there, face pressed to the glass, those two black holes staring back at him? The thought sent a wave of nausea through him.

The whispering continued, a constant, low torment. It was mocking him. Daring him.

He couldn't spend the rest of his life like this, a prisoner of a sound and a shadow. He had to look. He had to face it.

The decision felt less like courage and more like the final, desperate act of a cornered animal. Slowly, painstakingly, he pushed back the covers. The air in the room felt frigid. He slid out of bed, his limbs stiff and clumsy with fear. He didn't stand up. Instead, he dropped to his hands and knees, crawling across the wooden floor like an infant, keeping his profile below the level of the windowsill. The rough grain of the floorboards dug into his palms.

He reached the wall beneath the window. The whispering seemed to be right above his head now, a dry static that made the fine hairs on his neck stand on end. He stayed there for a long moment, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. He took a breath, held it, and performed the single bravest act of his life.

He pushed himself up, just enough to peer over the edge of the sill.

The action was met with an anticlimactic result. Nothing.

The moon had risen higher, casting the lawn in a landscape of silver and black. It was empty. The rose bushes were still. The hedge was a dark, solid line. The great wall of Ardenwood stood silent and impassive in the distance. There were no figures. No eyes. The whispering had stopped the instant his head cleared the sill.

A dizzying wave of relief and confusion washed over him. Had he imagined it? Was the fear finally making him hear things? He felt a sudden, sharp pang of doubt. Maybe his father was right. Maybe his mind was just… filling in the blanks.

He stayed there, scanning the empty scene, his breath starting to even out. The turning point was a quiet one—the shift from pure terror to unnerving uncertainty. He was about to pull back, to retreat to the questionable safety of his bed, when his eyes caught something.

A tiny detail. A flaw in the otherwise perfect emptiness.

On the outer sill of his window, the white-painted wood that faced the night, lay a single object. It was small and starkly black against the pale paint, an inkblot against the moonlit wood.

He squinted, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing. It was a feather.

But it wasn't like any feather he had ever seen from a crow or a magpie. It was profoundly, unnaturally black, a colour that seemed to drink the moonlight rather than reflect it. It was about four inches long, perfectly formed, with a stiff, sharp quill and vanes that looked less like soft down and more like spun, dark glass. It didn’t look like it had fallen from a bird. It looked like it had been placed.

A chilling token. A calling card.

Proof.

He stared at it, mesmerized. The whispers might have been in his head. The figures might have been tricks of the light. But the feather was real. It was a physical object from their world, left on the threshold of his. It was a quiet declaration.

We were here. We can get this close. We can touch your home whenever we want.

Leo scrambled back from the window as if the sill were red-hot, his heart pounding with a renewed and more intimate terror. The feather sat there in the moonlight, a silent, horrifying promise of things to come.