I felt a chill run down my spine. The necklace matched one I had seen in an old photograph on the mantelpiece, a picture of Daniel’s late wife that had always seemed distant, a smile that never quite reached her eyes.
My hand trembled as I reached for the necklace, the metal cold against
my skin. A sudden noise made me startle—a creak from the stairs above, the sound of someone moving in the house.
“We should go back up,” I whispered, my voice hoarse.
Grace nodded, but before we could turn, a faint voice echoed from the hallway, a low hum that seemed to vibrate the very air.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” the voice said, a whisper that seemed to come from the walls themselves.
I turned, heart pounding, to see Daniel standing in the doorway, his face a mask of
shock and something else—something I couldn’t read.
First Steps Into a New Life
It was a Tuesday morning in late October, the kind where the light slipped in through the kitchen window in thin, gold ribbons and made the steam from my mug swirl like tiny ghosts. I was sitting at the small wooden table, the one Daniel had bought at a thrift shop on Maple Street, stirring a spoonful of sugar into my coffee, when the phone rang. The ringtone was a bright, tinny version of “You’re My Best
