Dark chalns
the girl arrived in Briarwood wouse the same way everyone else did not meaning to Lila Hart had only planned to stop for the night her car died just as the fog rolled in thick and sudden swallow wing the narrow road whole the house appeared through it like a thought she hadn't meant to have tall narrow and watching one light burned in an upstairs window, steady as a held breath.
she knocked because the alternative was the dark.
An old woman opened the door eyes pale and unfocused as if she were looking at Lila through a memory insteald of the present you can stay the woman said before Lila spoke. Everyone does
the house smelled of dust and cold fireplaces its walls were crowded with portraits people painted mid smile mid turn mid bink none of them familiar all of them unsettlingly aware Lila felt it immediately the sense of being counted.
