Chapter Six: The House Remembers

Elena hesitated at the door.

The knock had been soft, but something about it felt wrong. Not in the way of danger—at least, not the kind you could run from—but in the way of things that did not belong yet refused to leave.

She turned the handle.

The door creaked open.

And Leon Blackwell stood on her porch.

Only—he shouldn't have been.

She had watched him leave. Had listened to the low hum of his car disappearing down the road. And yet, there he was, standing beneath the dim porch light, his sharp features caught between shadow and moonlight.

"Miss Carter," he murmured, his voice as smooth as ever. As if he had not just reappeared in a way that defied logic.

Elena met his gaze, searching.

"How did you get back here so fast?"

A flicker of amusement passed through his eyes. "You assume I left at all."

Her fingers tightened on the edge of the door.

"You did."

Leon stepped closer, his presence unsettlingly effortless. "Did I?"

The silence stretched, thick as the mist rolling over the fields beyond. Something inside the house groaned—a sound too deep, too old, as if the very walls were remembering something.

Elena exhaled sharply and stepped aside. "Come in."

Leon's eyes flickered. Just for a second.

It was an invitation.

A rule had been broken.

The air shifted, something unseen curling against the edge of reality. But if he noticed, he did not show it. Instead, he stepped inside, slow, deliberate, as if he had all the time in the world.

The moment he crossed the threshold, the house shuddered.

The floorboards beneath them groaned, the walls creaked in protest, and the lantern overhead flickered—not with the soft hesitation of dying light, but as if something unseen had brushed against the flame.

Leon stilled.

And for the first time since arriving in Blackwood Hollow—

He listened.

A breath of wind—no, not wind, something older—curled through the house, slipping through the cracks like fingers searching for something long lost. The temperature dropped.

Elena felt it too.

She turned sharply toward the farthest hallway, her breath uneven.

"That's never happened before," she muttered, more to herself than to him.

Leon said nothing at first. His gaze followed the shadows stretching beyond the dim candlelight, his expression unreadable.

"Has it not?" he asked softly.

Elena looked at him then, truly looked at him. The way his presence made the house react. The way the shadows curled just slightly too close to where he stood.

"You don't belong here," she whispered.

Leon smiled, slow.

"No," he said. "I don't."

The candlelight trembled again.

Outside, the mist thickened. The trees whispered.

And deep beneath the old farmhouse floorboards—

Something knocked back.