Chapter 1
The fog lay on the road like a thick veil, turning everything around into blurry outlines. The car moved slowly, the headlights snatching silhouettes of trees and rare road signs from the gray haze. Lynn, sitting in the back seat, looked out the window, resting her chin on her bent arm. She had long since stopped counting the kilometers. In this fog, time had lost its meaning, as had distance. There was only a feeling of the unknown - viscous, alarming, but somehow alluring.
"Almost there," Mom said, without taking her eyes off the road. Her voice was tired, but carefully calm.
Lynn said nothing. She was not drawn to Laurivale. It was too quiet, too far from her old life, from her friends, school, the familiar noise of the city. But they had no choice, after their father went into the shadows, leaving debts and accusations, Mom decided to go where they would not be found. To a small forgotten town that she had once heard about from her late grandmother - Laurivale. A place on the edge of nowhere.
As they drove into the town, the fog began to clear. Lanterns illuminated old streets, houses stood close to each other, many with peeling paint and boarded-up windows. And yet there was something cozy, or rather, strangely attractive, about it.
The house they had bought at a good discount with their last money stood on the outskirts - a two-story house with a slanted porch and an overgrown garden. It smelled of damp earth, mint and something else - barely perceptible, but familiar, as if from a dream.
Oliver ran out first, shouting happily:
- We have a tree! A real tree in the yard!
- You just want to climb, - Mom grinned. - Lynn, will you help with the boxes?
But Lynn didn't move, she was still standing by the car, staring at the windows of the house. The upper left one... she was sure she saw movement there. Not sharp, just as if someone had retreated into the shadows.
"Does someone live here?" she asked hoarsely.
"Of course not. We're the first tenants in years. Just mice, probably," Mom waved her hand dismissively.
***
The first hours passed in a bustle: things, boxes, attempts to fix the Internet, which refused to work. Lynn arranged the room upstairs - an old creaky floor, walls in dull wallpaper, a closet with the initials "L.C." scratched into it. Lynn didn't know who it was, but she didn't touch it.
At night she woke up with a strange feeling - as if someone was calling her. Not loudly, not in a whisper, but internally. The voice was not spoken, but she heard it. It did not speak words, only pulled, gently but insistently, towards the window. Towards the field behind the house, hidden behind the fog. She went up to the glass and in the fog it seemed to her as if someone was standing by the old apple tree. A tall silhouette, or was it just a play of shadows?
***
The next day they went to the local school to settle the formalities. The school was old, but well-kept. The corridors smelled of chalk and polish, the walls were decorated with faded certificates. Lynn noticed that they were looking at her. Not with mockery, not with interest - rather, with something like wariness.
A guy came up to her during recess. Dark hair, gray eyes, a thin face with expressive cheekbones.
- Are you new? Do you live in the house on Hailrow now?
- Yes ... - she answered cautiously. - Why?
- It's just... no one has lived there for a long time.
He paused, as if he wanted to say more, but changed his mind.
- I'm Noah, we're in the same class. If you have any questions, ask.
He left, leaving Lynn with the feeling that he had given her not an offer of help, but a warning.
***
In the evening, she heard them again. The voices. They were not frightening. On the contrary, they sounded familiar, almost gentle. Sometimes - like children's laughter, sometimes - like a whisper in a library. She tried to concentrate, to convince herself that it was just fatigue, stress. But the more she tried, the clearer the feeling became: these were not just sounds in her head.
The voices were calling her. Not by name, but to something, to themselves.
***
A week passed. One evening, when Lynn was returning home, Noah caught up with her.
- You look tired, - he noticed, looking straight at me.
"It's hard to sleep when the house is whispering in your ear," she said without thinking.
Noah froze.
"Do you hear them too?"
In a moment, they both realized that this was no longer delirium, no longer fiction, no longer loneliness. There was something in this city, and it was watching them.
