Nan was waiting in the kitchen, peeling apples with a curved blade. The radio murmured behind her, tuned to an old jazz station that barely came in anymore.

“You’re late,” she said—not unkindly.

“I stayed to finish something,” Elle replied.

Nan raised an eyebrow. “Something, or someone?”

Elle didn’t answer.

The air inside was warm, but it didn’t chase the chill out of her bones.

She dropped her backpack beside the table with a thud. Nan slid a slice of apple toward her.

“You’ve been quiet lately.”

Elle picked it up but didn’t eat. “I’m always quiet.”

“Quieter than usual.”

Silence settled between them—gentle but heavy. The grandfather clock in the hall ticked like a heartbeat.

Then Nan said, “There’s something stirring, isn’t there?”

Elle froze. “What do you mean?”

Nan wiped her hands on a dish towel. Looked up with eyes that had seen too much. “I mean the air feels different. The way it used to. Before it all closed.”

Elle’s voice came small. “Before what closed?”

Nan leaned forward, her voice lowering like the walls might listen. “The Rift.”

The word struck like a drop in pressure.

Elle had heard it before—in bedtime stories and half-whispered conversations. A tear between worlds. A place where shadows breathed and names had weight. Where doors didn’t open with keys… but with blood.

“You don’t really believe in that stuff,” she said too quickly.

Nan gave her a small, sad smile. “Doesn’t matter if I believe it. What matters is that you feel it. Don’t you?”

Elle didn’t answer.

Because yes.

She did.

That night, she couldn’t sleep.

The note sat on her desk, glowing faintly under the moonlight that spilled through the window.

Midnight. Come alone.

She stared until the letters blurred. Until the ink shimmered like it was breathing.

The house had gone quiet—only the ticking of the hallway clock and the wind rustling the eaves.

Elle sat at her desk long after Nan had gone to bed, fingers resting on the parchment like it might change beneath her touch.

Midnight. Come alone.

The words didn’t fade.

She thought of her parents—not their faces; those were already slipping—but the sounds.
Her mother humming in the kitchen.
Her father calling her name from the garden, always pretending he couldn’t find her.

She was seven when the accident happened.

At least, that’s what the police called it.

Fog. Slippery roads.
A crash. No survivors.

But sometimes—when the fog crept in just like this—she remembered other things.

Shadows that didn’t belong on the road.
Something scraping across the car roof.
A whisper that wasn’t human.

She’d told Nan once.

Nan had turned off every light, locked the doors, and sat beside her in the dark.

Not asking.
Not speaking.
Just watching.

And that’s when Elle knew—

It wasn’t just a story.

Whatever the Rift was, Nan feared it. And fear, Elle had learned, was a kind of truth.

She looked down at the parchment again.

It was warm now.
Almost pulsing.

Her fingers twitched. Her breath caught in her throat.

Some part of her knew—the kind of knowing that lives deep in the bones—that this moment mattered.
That something old had awakened.
That it had whispered her name.

11:57 p.m.

She stood.

Pulled on her coat.

Slipped the parchment into her pocket.

And left.

Then stepped through.

Her knees nearly gave out.

Elle gripped the wall beside it, heart pounding against her ribs like it was trying to claw its way free. The disc in her palm pulsed with cold fire, the spiral still glowing faintly against the black surface.

Her breath came in shallow gasps.

The hallway seemed to tilt under her feet.

She had seen something.

No—she had been somewhere.

That forest.
Those voices.
That sky filled with eyes.

The spiral wasn’t just a mark.

It was a memory—etched into something older than her nightmares.

With shaking fingers, she slipped the disc into her coat pocket.

She didn’t look back at the locker.

Couldn’t.

She stumbled forward, every creak of the hallway now a scream. The air buzzed with pressure. Every shadow had grown teeth.

Ravenshade wasn’t just a school anymore.

It was awake.

Watching.

By the time she reached the exit, her hands were shaking so hard she had to slam her shoulder against the door to open it.

Author’s Note
If you’ve read this far, you’ve felt it too—the way the air in Ravenshade shifts when the shadows start listening. Thank you for following Elle into the dark. The next chapter won’t wait for you to be ready… and neither will the Rift.