Right?
My hand trembled as I set the camera aside. I stared at the bag. At the medallion. It was sitting calmly like it hadn’t been tied to whatever the hell I saw outside my window.
“What the fuck,” I whispered.
I stood up, heart hammering, and bolted down the stairs, flicking on the lights and checking every lock and window. All the windows were locked. Nothing broken, and there was no sign of forced entry. Back upstairs, I even checked behind the shower curtain like some horror movie rookie.
In the room, I yanked the curtains apart, my breath fogging the glass. The street was empty, washed in yellow light from the lamps.
That thing had been real.
And now the photo was gone.
Pulling the curtains shut again, I wrapped the DSLR cord around it and shoved it under my bed, then returned to the bag and zipped it shut. My fingers hesitated over the books I borrowed, then I grabbed the top one—The Hollow-Eyed Bride of Crystmoor—and crawled into bed with it like it was a weapon.
I wasn’t going to doubt. I refused to doubt. Doubt made you stupid. Doubt made you weak. Doubt made you the crazy girl in thehorror movies that no one listened to until she ended up gutted in a forest.
I knew what I saw. I knew what I felt. I wasn’t wrong.
Curling deeper into the covers, I opened the book.
I stared at it for a while, not really reading. The words blurred together. But I forced myself. I had to. I couldn’t let this fear crawl into my bones.
And as I flipped through the first few pages, one word jumped out at me.
Vel’Tharun.
The name of the river spirit who granted wishes to the dead in exchange for their most loved possession.
CHAPTER FOUR
SANORA
One thing about me—I had too many questions and zero impulse control. But I didn’t have guts. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. I didn’t do brave things because I was fearless. I did them because my brain was too busy calculating thewhat ifsto care about thewhat could happens. I didn’t have courage. What I had was a chronic inability to recognise danger.
It started when I was nine.
There was a cave system at the edge of my hometown, black as sin and always wet like the stone walls cried. People said it was where the dead went to weep. They said if you went too deep, you’d hear the sound of grief. Not ghosts—grief. Thick, human sorrow, echoing off stone like someone was breaking apart from the inside.
Some idiot said the crying only started after midnight and that the walls bled blood if you brought anything made of silver.
So naturally, I brought a silver bracelet and a flashlight.
I was nine and couldn’t spell common sense. I snuck out, barefoot and shaking, and wandered past the thorn bushes and over the creek to get there. The cave was colder than I thought.
I didn’t hear crying. But I felt something
I stayed there for twenty-three minutes. Not because I found it fascinating—I’d lost my torch and couldn’t find the exit.
Did I learn anything? No. But I went back two more times that summer because I wanted to see a wall bleed.
Another time, there was a crooked house at the end of the street with so many vines wrapped around it you’d think it was being strangled by the earth itself. Nobody went near it. They said the woman who lived there had died twice.
Kids dared each other to go near it. I didn’t wait for a dare. I was fifteen and bored. Also, I’d just read an article about post-death consciousness and thought maybe she was a case study. I’d do anything for my curiosity.
I brought a notebook and a boiled egg for protection, climbed the fence, and knocked on her door as if I was selling sweets. When the door opened on its own, I said thank you and walked in.
It was the smell that got me. Like chemical and burning teeth.
