Chapter Eighty Eight - The Haunting Of Harper

The kitchen was still, almost unnaturally so.

A thin stream of morning light spilled in through the window, slicing across the room in long, pale bands. Outside, rain clung to the glass like tears that couldn't fall—gathering, trembling, never quite letting go. The world felt quiet, suspended in gray.

Harper sat at the far end of the breakfast table, her posture slouched, one knee drawn up onto the chair. Her fingers wrapped around a mug of tea that had long gone cold. She hadn't taken a sip. It steamed faintly when Julia poured it, but now it sat untouched, forgotten—like everything else in her orbit.

She hadn't spoken a word since sleeping on the sofa.

Julia stood by the sink, pretending to organize the fruit bowl, her hands hovering uncertainly over an apple, then a pear, before dropping them both back into the bowl. Her eyes flicked again to Harper.

Her niece looked like she was made of shadows. Pale face, hollow cheeks, and eyes too old for sixteen. Eyes that didn't blink enough.

Julia finally sat across from her. She folded her hands on the table like a peace offering.

"Why did you run away?" she asked softly.

Harper's gaze didn't move. She kept staring ahead, somewhere past Julia's shoulder, like something was sitting in the corner of the room that only she could see.

Silence.

Julia tried again, more gently, "Are you still taking your medication? Like you're supposed to?"

"Yes."

It wasn't defensive. It was cold. Mechanical. As if she was ticking boxes in a conversation she'd already rehearsed.

"Then talk to me, sweetheart. What's going on?"

Harper finally turned her head. Her expression didn't change. Her lips barely moved.

"Do you think I killed my grandmother?"

Julia flinched. The words came like a knife on bare skin—no warning, no buildup, just sharp steel.

"What?" she whispered.

Harper leaned back in her chair slightly, the mug still trapped between her hands like a weapon disguised in ceramic.

"You heard me." she said. "Do you think I killed her?"

Julia blinked, struggling to read Harper's face. But there was nothing there. Not grief. Not fear. Not even anger. Just emptiness. A hollow kind of detachment that frightened her more than any outburst ever could.

"Is this about Cece?"

"You're dodging." Harper replied. "Answer my question."

Julia inhaled slowly. "No." she said. "I don't think you killed her."

Harper tilted her head, like she was testing the truth of that answer.

"Well, I went there that night. To her house. With the gun."

Julia's heart stopped beating for a second. She stared.

"The gun?" she echoed.

"The one under my bed. The one that everyone won't shut up about."

She said it like she was talking about a sandwich. Like none of this mattered anymore.

"I was going to kill her." Harper added casually. "I planned it. I thought about what I'd say to her. I imagined the sound it would make. How her body would lie on the floor and I'd have the last laugh. I'd put a bullet through right through her forehead."

Julia's mouth went dry.

"I thought it would fix something. Anything. Everything." Harper continued, eyes drifting to the window again. "That maybe if she was gone, the rot in my chest would finally stop spreading. That I could finally fucking sleep at night. I was so angry I thought I might black out."

"Harper...Don't say such things." Julia whispered, but she didn't know what came next.

Her voice changed then—flattened, sharpened. Less like a confession, more like a report.

"You want to know the funny part?" she asked, eyes flicking back to Julia. "I actually couldn't do it. I threatened her but didn't pull the trigger. All bark but no bite. Like a coward."

"You're not a coward." Julia said, throat tight.

"I couldn't even kill the woman who had ruined my entire life." Harper continued, more to herself than anyone. "Who made my families life hell. Who broke everything she touched. I stood there, and I still couldn't do it. So I turned the gun on myself instead."

Julia froze. "What?"

"That's why I lied to the detectives. Well.. Sorta lied." Harper said bluntly. "They asked what the gun was for. I told them it was a suicide attempt. And it was. Eventually. Just not at first."

She leaned forward now, eyes like dark glass, reflecting nothing.

"I was going to shoot her. But when I realized I wasn't strong enough to do it, I figured the next best thing was to disappear. Because why the hell should I get to keep breathing if I couldn't even protect the people I loved?"

Julia's hands were trembling in her lap. Her voice cracked. "You... you didn't do it. You're still here."

"Yeah.." Harper said flatly. "Unfortunately."

Something passed between them—ugly and raw. A silence too thick to cut through.

Julia reached out across the table, her hand hovering for a moment before it landed on Harper's. Her touch was warm. Real.

"I'm really glad you're still here." she whispered.

Harper didn't flinch, but her fingers didn't move.

"But why do I still feel like I did it?" she murmured. "I still feel disgusting. Like there's dry blood under my nails, even if I didn't pull the trigger. She's dead and I'm not, and it feels wrong. I carry it in my stomach like lead."

Julia gripped her hand tighter. "You carry it because you care."

"No." Harper said. Her voice was cold. Certain. "I carry it because I almost did it. Because I wanted to. Because part of me still wishes I did."

Julia's breath caught.

Harper pulled her hand away.

"Don't make me into a victim." she said. "I don't want to be pitied. I don't deserve it."

Julia watched her rise from the table, her movements slow and deliberate. Harper stood there for a moment, staring at the rain streaking down the windowpane like it meant something.

Then she left the room without another word.

And Julia sat there alone at the table, staring at the untouched tea, her own hands shaking.

Harper hadn't screamed.

She hadn't cried.

But something inside that girl was screaming louder than anyone could bear to hear.

The stairs groaned under Harper's deliberate steps as she ascended, the dim light from below fading into near darkness. The silence of the house pressed around her like a suffocating shroud—every breath caught between the cracks in the old wood. At the top, she paused before her door, cold fingers lingering on the chipped paint. Slowly, she pushed it open and slipped inside, the heavy click of the latch snapping shut like a tomb sealing.

The spare room was a cramped, cold cage. The walls, stained with age and neglect, closed in with their peeling paint and faded wallpaper, curling at the edges like dead skin. 

Harper dropped onto the bed, the mattress sagging beneath her weight. Her back rested against the cracked plaster, eyes locked on the broken surface as though it might crack open and swallow her whole.

Minutes passed—or maybe hours—before the air shifted. A dark pulse seemed to seep from the shadows themselves. From the corner of her vision, a shape materialized—thin at first, then solidifying into a terrible clarity.

Cece.

Her grandmother's pale, deathly face emerged from the darkness. The bullet wound specifically on her forehead was a raw, blackened gash, a jagged tear in her flesh that looked eerily fresh, as if the blood had never dried but was instead still oozing, spreading like poison.

Her eyes—empty sockets rimmed with bruised purple—burned with a malevolent fire, hollow yet hungry. The ghostly visage seemed to crawl from the walls, a nightmare made flesh, dragging the cold of death into the stale air.

Her voice was a rasp, dry and cruel, like fingernails scraping stone.

"Weak."

Harper's lips pressed into a thin, bitter line. No fear. No regret. Just a flat, hard edge.

"Go fuck yourself." she said bluntly, her voice low and sharp, cutting through the silence like a knife.

The apparition leaned closer, the wound on her forehead darkening, pulsing with a sick life of its own.