Chapter 8
The house hadn't been this quiet in days. But it wasn't peace. It was something heavier. Something unnatural. Olivia sat on the edge of the old piano bench, her fingers hovering over the yellowed keys, too afraid to play even a single note.
It would echo.
And the hollow didn't like echoes.
Lila was gone. Or at least, that's what Henry kept saying. He said it like a fact, like reading a label on a jar—"She's gone." But Olivia could feel her sister still. Like a phantom breath on the back of her neck. Like a whisper just outside the edge of hearing.
James didn't speak at all now.
Not since the message on the mirror.
"One more for silence."
He'd shut down. Curled into himself like a boy again, his hands shaking when he tried to light a candle. Olivia found him sitting at the bottom of the stairs that morning, still in yesterday's clothes, still staring at the wall.
Henry was growing meaner by the hour. The fear in him had turned into rage, and he took it out on the house—smashing a broken vase, tearing a curtain, throwing Scarlett's old portrait down the stairs.
But it didn't break.
None of the old things ever broke.
They always landed upright. Smiling.
⸻
It was Olivia who noticed the first change in the house that day.
It started in the hallway outside Lila's bedroom. The walls there had once been covered in pale blue wallpaper. Now the color was bleeding down, peeling in wide strips as if the house itself was shedding.
And underneath—
Writing.
Thin, etched lines like fingernails dragged through plaster.
A single sentence:
"She still sleeps."
⸻
Olivia didn't tell the others right away. Instead, she grabbed her mother's journal and returned to the library.
June 11th.
She doesn't kill the ones she wants. Not right away. Scarlett preserves them. Like dolls. She steals their breath, locks them inside herself. We've seen Lila walking the halls at night, but she doesn't speak. Just stares. Just smiles. That's not our Lila anymore. That's the house's Lila.
The handwriting was shaking. Blotchy. Like it had been written while crying.
Another entry below it:
We tried to find her soul. The mirrors showed us something else.
⸻
Olivia slammed the journal shut.
Mirrors.
That's where she'd seen Lila last. The attic.
She ran up the stairs without calling Henry or James. Something in her gut told her this had to be done alone.
The attic door creaked open.
Dust rose in thick clouds, curling like breath in the cold. The mirror stood at the far end of the room. The carving of "LILA" was still there—but something had been added.
An eye.
Just one. Drawn in red.
It was watching.
Olivia stepped forward.
Her reflection followed.
But in the mirror—she wasn't alone.
There was someone behind her.
A flicker of blue.
Olivia spun—
Nothing.
The attic was empty.
She looked back at the mirror.
Now it was just her reflection again. But her own face looked off. Pale. Too still.
And behind her reflection—
A hand.
Resting on her shoulder.
Not hers.
Not human.
⸻
That night, Henry broke the silence.
"I saw her."
Olivia looked up from her corner of the library. James flinched where he sat cross-legged on the floor, drawing circles in the dust.
"Saw who?" Olivia whispered.
"Lila."
Olivia stood.
Henry's voice cracked. "She was outside. By the willow tree. She looked… wrong. Like a painting that had been left in the rain."
"Did she speak?"
"No. She just smiled. And then… then she turned and walked backward into the woods. Like she didn't need to see where she was going. Like she already knew the way."
James muttered something from the floor.
They turned to him.
"What did you say?" Olivia asked.
James raised his head, and there were deep bags under his eyes. "Scarlett is wearing her face."
⸻
They searched the woods that night.
Olivia carried a lantern. Henry had the family rifle, though they all knew it wouldn't help.
The forest felt tighter than usual. The trees seemed closer. The sky was a darker black. They passed the old hunting trail, the broken swing, the forgotten graves.
And then—a humming.
A soft, childlike hum.
They followed it.
Until they reached the hollow tree.
The one that had been split by lightning decades ago. They had never gone near it.
But the humming was coming from inside.
Olivia peered into the darkness.
"Lila?" she whispered.
The humming stopped.
And a voice replied, soft and sweet:
"She can't come to the door right now."
Then—
The laughter started.
Not cruel.
Not loud.
Just… empty.
⸻
They ran.
Back to the house.
Back to the silence.
Henry locked every door. Olivia sat by the fire, arms around James as he cried.
"They're taking pieces of us," he whispered. "One at a time."
She nodded. "Then we hold onto each other tighter."
Henry paced. "There has to be an end to this. Some… rules. Ghosts have rules, right? They want something. They follow patterns."
Olivia's voice was flat. "This isn't a ghost. It's a memory that's still breathing. A hunger dressed like a girl."
James whimpered, "What if it wears my face next?"
⸻
That night, Olivia dreamed.
She stood in a version of their home—old and restored. Clean wallpaper, sunlight through the curtains, laughter in the distance.
Lila sat at the piano, playing gently.
Scarlett sat beside her.
Not a ghost.
A girl.
She turned and smiled at Olivia.
"Do you remember me yet?"
The dream shattered into screams.
⸻
In the morning, they found red petals on the stairs.
And a trail leading to the chapel.
Inside, on the altar—
A mirror.
Framed in black wood. Carved with the name:
Mabel Finch.
Olivia recognized it.
It was a burial mirror.
The kind you placed in a casket so the dead could remember who they were.
She stepped closer.
The mirror's surface rippled.
And reflected not Olivia—
But Lila.
Lying down.
Eyes open.
Mouth moving.
Mouthing something.
Over and over again.
Olivia leaned closer, whispering, "What is it? What are you saying?"
And then, she understood.
"Don't forget me."