Chapter 3

• 3Isabella.
• I knew I should’ve bought thicker curtains.
• The ones in my bedroom were thin, beige, and flimsy, the kind you hang up when you don’t expect to have neighbors or prying eyes. Which I didn’t. But I also didn’t expect how loud the trees would be when the wind picked up.
• They scratched the window like they wanted in.
• I turned over in bed and stared at the ceiling. My phone glowed from the nightstand beside me. 2:14 AM. The cottage creaked like it was complaining about its age. Or maybe it was just settling. That’s what people said, right? Old houses settle.
• Unfortunately, so do bad thoughts.
• I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the sound of my breathing, which was harder than it should’ve been considering I’d read every listicle on “calming nighttime rituals” known to man. I’d already done a warm shower, peppermint tea, five minutes of guided meditation (which was really just a woman whispering about moonlight and inner peace), and still. wide awake.
• That stupid knock from earlier, not even a real knock, just a wind-slammed branch, had jolted me straight into heart-thudding alertness.
• And now, everything sounded like footsteps.
• I rolled over again, hugged the pillow tighter, and pulled the blanket up over my ears like I was six and afraid of monsters.
• Which, apparently, I still was.
• There’s something about lying in an unfamiliar house at night that makes your brain invent entire horror movies. My thoughts had cycled through home invasion, axe murderer, and vengeful ghost of a former tenant in the span of ten minutes. And the worst part was, I couldn’t decide which was more likely.
• I was half a second away from grabbing the flashlight when I heard a soft thump outside the window again. Not the scratch of a branch this time. A pressure, like someone was leaning against the wall just below the glass.
• I froze. Every inch of my skin lit up with alert.
• Noah.
• No. Don’t be ridiculous.
• He wouldn’t just show up outside my bedroom window in the middle of the night. That’s a vampire thing. Or a peeping tom thing. Either way, not Noah. Probably.
• I reached for my phone again and turned on the flashlight, then got up and tiptoed to the window.
• There was nothing in the yard.
• I pressed my palm to the cold glass.
• The sound must’ve come from something stupid like a raccoon or a deer. Or maybe a squirrel.
• I told myself to go back to bed. I was being dramatic. Sleep-deprived and dramatic. But my nerves weren’t listening. I curled back into bed and stared at the ceiling again.
• And then, I fell asleep eventually.
• ***
• There were lights. Bright and blinding lights.
• I was standing on a red carpet, wearing a dress I didn’t remember putting on. Around me, people in suits waved microphones and shouted questions I couldn’t understand. Cameras clicked. A woman leaned in with a mic and said, “Did you steal the manuscript, Isabella?”
• My heart pounded. I opened my mouth to answer and Nadia appeared.
• Hair perfect. Smile glossy and sharp. The kind of smile you put on when you’re winning. The kind that says I planned this.
• She turned to me and said sweetly, “You shouldn’t have tried to outshine me.”
• Then everything went black.
• And I was in a hotel lobby, standing in front of a monitor playing a looped interview. Nadia was on screen, smiling for the camera.
• “She was obsessed,” Nadia said. “Always reading my work. Always trying to be me.”
• The reporters gasped. Someone whispered, “Sad, really.”
• Then came the laughter. It was quiet at first, then louder. It filled the room until I couldn’t breathe.
• I turned to run and slammed into someone.
• Noah.
• Except it wasn’t really him. His eyes weren’t right. Too dark and empty. His hands gripped my shoulders and he leaned in, whispered something I couldn’t make out, and then—
• I woke up, heart racing, skin damp and breath caught in my throat.
• It was still dark.
• I sat up slowly, trying to piece together what had just happened. The blanket was tangled around my legs. My hands were trembling.
• Just a dream.
• Just a dream.
• But my body didn’t believe it yet.
• I reached for the water bottle on my nightstand, took a long drink, and let my pulse settle. I knew that dream. Not the exact details, but the flavor of it. The shame, the helplessness. The feeling of being exposed under a hundred judgmental eyes.
• The worst part was the dream version of Nadia wasn’t even that different from the real one.
• ***
• The morning light didn’t make things better so much as it made them manageable. I dragged myself into the kitchen, hair a mess, hoodie three sizes too big, and turned on the kettle. The floor was cold beneath my bare feet. Outside, the trees swayed gently like they hadn’t been trying to give me an heart attack the night before.
• I made tea and sat at the tiny kitchen table with my journal again.
• Last night’s dream? I wrote. A full-blown shame spiral in three acts.
• I scribbled a rough breakdown:
• Red carpet (gross)
• Nadia’s voice (grosser)
• Noah turning into a shadow-man (???)
• Conclusion: My subconscious hates me.
• I tapped the pen against my lip and stared at the page.
• It didn’t take a therapist to figure out what it meant. I was still angry, still humiliated and still haunted by everything I couldn’t prove.
• And still too curious about a man I barely knew.
• I flipped to the next page and started free-writing. .
• She didn’t run because she was afraid. She ran because no one had believed her. And sometimes, when people don’t believe you, it doesn’t matter if you’re right, you still lose. You lose everything.
• But in the woods, no one was watching. No one was asking questions. Just one man with silver eyes and a name like a rainstorm.
• I stopped and put the pen down.
• That last line was dramatic as hell, but… accurate.
• Noah had been in my dream for a reason. He was the only person in this whole town I’d felt something real with, even if it had only been five minutes, a flat tire, and maybe three sentences.
• But I couldn’t decide if that made him comforting or dangerous.
• There was something about the way he moved, the way he looked at me like he was doing math behind those eyes. Not in a creepy way but in a calculating way. Like he was checking the angles before stepping too close.
• He hadn’t stepped close, but I’d wanted him to, which was a whole other level of confusing, given that I had literally just rebuilt my self-esteem enough to not cry at YouTube ads.
• I stared out the kitchen window, watching the sunlight catch on the leaves.
• If this was a horror movie, this was the part where the main girl ignored the signs, opened the cellar door, and got eaten.
• I wasn’t that girl. I wasn’t stupid, but I was curious.
• And in Willow Creek, curiosity didn’t just kill the cat, it invited the ghost inside.