English should have been easy.

Ms. Portman was one of the few teachers who didn’t look at Elle like she was made of sharp edges and warning signs. Her classroom usually felt… safe.

Not today.

Even the air felt off—like the temperature was one degree too cold and no one noticed but her.

Elle opened her notebook.

She froze.

Written across the center of the page, in her own handwriting—or something almost like it—was a single line:

It opens at midnight.

Her breath caught.

She hadn’t written that.

But the ink was still wet.

She touched the letters. They smeared beneath her fingers, as if written seconds ago.

Her pulse rattled in her ears.

She looked around.

No one was watching her. Not even Ms. Portman, who was in the middle of an impassioned rant about symbolism in gothic literature—something about haunted mansions and cursed bloodlines.

Fitting.

Elle shut the notebook fast and slid it beneath her arm, heart racing.

By lunch, the fog outside had lifted.

But the heaviness in her chest hadn’t.

She and Luke sat beneath their usual elm tree in the courtyard. Most students avoided it—said it was cursed. That a girl once fell from its twisted limbs and never woke up.

Elle liked the tree.
It was quiet there.

She picked at her sandwich. Her appetite was gone.

Luke watched her for a while, then spoke.

“You’re doing the thing again.”

She didn’t look up. “What thing?”

“The quiet spiral. Where you disappear even though you’re still here.”

“I’m just tired.”

“Liar.”

She tried to smile. It didn’t last.

Her thoughts churned.
The whisper.
The locker.
The notebook.

She reached for her backpack.

Unzipped the front pocket.

Inside was a folded slip of parchment.

Not paper.
Parchment.

Heavy. Faintly yellowed. The kind that didn’t belong in a school bag.

Her name was scrawled across the front in curling, ink-black script:

Elle Wrenwood

Her fingers trembled as she opened it.

Midnight. Come alone.

No sender. No signature. No instructions.

Just those four words.

The ink shimmered faintly—like it had been written moments ago and was still drying beneath her breath.

“Elle?” Luke leaned closer. “What’s that?”

She snapped it shut and shoved it into her pocket. “Nothing. Just… a note for a project.”

He didn’t press.

But the look in his eyes said he wanted to.

The rest of the school day passed like she was trapped behind glass.

People talked.
Bells rang.
Pages turned.
But everything felt far away—muffled, meaningless.

Elle barely remembered walking to her last class. She sat in the back, by the window, tracing frost patterns on the glass instead of the words in her textbook. The teacher called on her once. She didn’t answer. Luke looked her way—brows drawn in concern—but she couldn’t meet his eyes.

All she could think about was the locker.
And the whisper.
And the parchment that felt heavier in her coat pocket than paper had any right to.

By the time the final bell rang, her hands were clammy. Her thoughts scattered like dead leaves in wind.

She didn’t go to her locker.
She didn’t say goodbye to Luke.

Instead, she slipped out the side door and walked home alone.
The fog had returned—waiting for her like an old friend.
It curled around her legs. Tugged at her scarf. Made the world feel small.

When she reached her front gate, she hesitated.

The porch light flickered on automatically, casting a sickly glow over cracked steps and wind-chimed eaves. Their small house was tucked near the woods, where branches scraped at windows and owls called before dusk. Her grandmother’s rose bushes lined the walk—nothing left now but thorns.