The Vanishing

The road stretched endlessly ahead, winding through towering trees that blurred into a haze of deep green as they passed. The sky had dimmed to the soft glow of early evening, and the air outside the car was thick with the scent of damp earth and pine.

A young boy sat in the passenger seat, leaning against the cool glass, his breath fogging up a small patch of it as he watched the landscape pass. The sun was dipping low, casting long shadows over the road, turning the sky into a canvas of orange and purple.

"I don't see why I had to come along with you," he muttered, tearing his gaze away from the scenery to glance at his mother.

His mother drove in silence, both hands gripping the wheel. Every so often, her fingers tapped against it—a nervous habit of hers.

"It won't be so bad," she replied, her voice patient but tired. "You used to love coming here."

He sighed and slumped further into his seat, dragging a hand through his black hair. "Yeah, when I was thirteen. When Grandma was still..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "Look, it's just—this place feels weird now."

His mother sighed, her grip on the wheel tightening slightly. "Ethan, we've talked about this. Your father's busy with work, and I need to handle a few things here. It's just for a few weeks."

"By 'handle things,' you mean selling it."

Her fingers stopped tapping. "Ethan—"

"I don't like it," he cut in. "It's Grandma's house. It shouldn't be—" He shook his head. "I don't know, it just feels wrong."

His mother's jaw tightened, and she focused on the road ahead. "I know it's hard. But it's been sitting empty for two years. We can't just leave it like that forever."

Ethan crossed his arms, looking back out the window, watching the trees blur past. "Whatever."

Silence filled the car for the rest of the drive.

He knew she wasn't wrong. But still, something about it didn't sit right with him. The house was full of memories—his childhood summers, his grandmother's laughter, the scent of old books and fresh-baked bread. Selling it felt like erasing all of that.

By the time they pulled up to the house, the sky had darkened into deep blue. The headlights illuminated the old wooden exterior, its white paint faded. The porch steps creaked under the weight of time itself. The house stood there like a relic from another age, watching them with its empty windows. The moment Ethan stepped out of the car, he felt it. A shift in the air. It wasn't an eerie sensation—more like a quiet expectation, a hush before a whispered secret. 

He lingered on the porch, his gaze tracing the details he hadn't seen in years. The swing in the backyard still hung from the old oak, moving slightly in the wind, as if someone had just been there.

His mother grabbed a few bags and walked ahead, fishing the keys from her pocket. The wooden steps groaned under the boy's weight as he followed her in.

The scent hit him first—dust, old wood, mingled with something faintly floral—his grandmother's favorite lavender sachets, still tucked away in forgotten corners. It was familiar yet different, like a song half-forgotten.

He wandered through the house, his fingers tracing over the edges of furniture, picture frames, old mementos.

A wedding photo. His grandmother beamed in her white dress, her joy undimmed by time. Beside her stood a man—his grandfather, presumably—but the years had drained the image of clarity. His face had softened into a blur, his features lost to fading ink and time's slow erosion.

Another picture: his father as a child, perched on a man's shoulders—his grandfather's, he knew, but here too, the details had faded. The edges curled, the colors bled into sepia, and the face that should have been familiar had been stolen by age.

Then, his own picture—six years old, grinning wide with a missing front tooth, sitting beside Grandma on the porch swing.

Ethan's chest tightened. It truly felt like even the house missed her.

The dining room table was still there, the same one he used to sit at with his grandmother, listening to her stories. Everything was the same, yet it felt like something was missing.

"Dinner's almost ready," his mother called from the kitchen, her voice breaking the spell.

***

He joined her at the table, though his appetite was lacking. They ate in the dimly lit dining room, the only sounds the quiet clink of utensils and the occasional murmur of wind against the windows. The conversation was light at first—work, school, the long drive up—but inevitably, it circled back to the house.

His mother set her fork down with a quiet clatter. "Ethan, we need to talk about this. Your father's coming in a few days to meet with potential buyers."

Ethan stiffened, his grip on his own fork tightening. "It's too soon."

"Ethan—"

"No, seriously." He gestured vaguely around them, the movement sharp, frustrated. "How can you just sell it? This place—" His throat tightened. "It's part of us."

She sighed, rubbing her temple. "I know it feels that way. But it's just a house."

Ethan scoffed. "It's not."

She hesitated, her fingers tracing the rim of her glass. "Your grandmother was the one holding this place together. Without her, it's just walls, Ethan. Walls and old memories. And those won't keep the lights on."

Something about the way she said it—just walls—made his stomach churn.

He opened his mouth to argue, to tell her that she was wrong, that it was more than that, but before he could, the house answered for him.

A deep groan echoed from somewhere within the walls, the slow, aching shift of wood under unseen weight.

His mother barely reacted, glancing toward the hallway as if she'd heard it a thousand times before. "The house settling," she murmured.

But Ethan wasn't so sure.

The boy exhaled slowly, forcing himself to let it go, to focus on the conversation—but the unease lingered.

It's like the house itself was listening.

***

After dinner, Ethan wandered upstairs, drawn to his grandfather's old study. He had never met the man, never even seen a picture of him. His grandfather had disappeared long before he was born, leaving behind little more than questions.

He hesitated, then turned the knob. The hinges groaned in protest.

The room smelled of old books and faint tobacco, as if the air itself had been frozen in time. Dust motes floated in the dim light. His grandfather's heavy wooden desk sat against the far wall, its surface cluttered with old tomes whose spines were cracked with age.

His fingers brushed against the desk, and something caught his eye. A leather-bound book, tucked into the corner, nearly hidden beneath a stack of loose papers. He picked it up carefully, his fingertips tracing the faded initials on the cover—E.H.

"Edwin Hughes," Ethan muttered.

A grandfather's journal?

He flipped through the pages, eyes scanning the cramped, hurried handwriting. Some of it was illegible, scrawled with frantic energy. Dates were scratched out. Words repeated. In places, the ink had bled, as if someone had written over the same lines again and again.

I hear it in the trees. In the wind. It calls.

Ethan frowned. The next few pages were filled with similar fragmented thoughts. Some barely made any sense. Notes about dreams. Scribbled diagrams of what seemed to be constellations—yet none he recognized. The stars were wrong, their patterns unfamiliar, as if mapped from a sky he had never seen.

A passage stood alone on the page, written in heavy, deliberate strokes:

The door is never truly closed.

A floorboard creaked behind him.

Ethan spun, his breath catching in his throat. The hallway outside was empty. The house was silent.

He swallowed hard and shut the journal. With the book clutched tightly in his hands, he made his way outside, needing air. The night was cool, cicadas humming in the distance. The boy settled beneath the old oak tree, leaning against its sturdy trunk.

Opening the journal again, he slowly flipped through its yellowed pages. But before he realized it, exhaustion pulled at his eyelids. A breeze rustled the leaves overhead. The scent of old paper mixed with the crisp night air, lulling him into drowsiness. The words on the page blurred as his thoughts drifted.

His grandmother used to say this tree was ancient, older than the house itself. That it had seen things. Remembered things.

Ethan had laughed it off as a child.

Now, he wasn't so sure.

***

Ethan slowly drifted back to consciousness, his mind foggy, thoughts knotted like roots in a dense forest.

"He doesn't seem to be breathing," mused a young male voice, tinged more with curiosity than concern.

A sharp slap crashed against Ethan's cheek, sending a fresh jolt of pain through his already aching skull.

"What in the gods' name are you doing?!" snapped a second voice—female, edged with outrage.

"What? It woke him up, didn't it?" The first voice carried no hint of concern, even a faint smile lurking in its tone. "Oops, seems like he's about to pass out again. Let me try once more—"

"Maybe I should plant a fist in your face and see if it knocks any sense into that hollow skull of yours!" she shot back, exasperation thick in her tone.

A weary sigh cut through their bickering. "Enough, both of you. He's already awake."