The house had been breathing since midnight.
Julian pressed his palm flat against the bedroom wall, feeling the slow, rhythmic expansion of the plaster beneath his fingers. In. Out. Like the ribs of some great beast. The lantern on the nightstand flickered, casting leaping shadows that made the floral wallpaper seem to twist—those roses hadn't been there yesterday, had they? Their petals were too red, their thorns too pronounced, as if they'd grown overnight.
Sabrina had vanished at dusk.
"Don't follow me," she'd whispered, her amethyst eyes reflecting the last bloody light of sunset. "And whatever you hear… don't answer the walls."
Now, as Julian stood alone in the suffocating silence, a new sound began: scratching.
It started behind the headboard—a skittering, insectile noise that raised the hairs on his neck. Then it moved left, trailing along the baseboard like fingernails on bone. Julian's breath fogged in the suddenly frigid air. He reached for the dagger under his pillow, its hilt slick with his sweat.
"Julian…"
The voice was Sabrina's, but wrong—garbled, as if spoken through water. It came from inside the wall.
Plaster cracked near the window. A spiderweb of fractures spread outward, and Julian watched in horror as something pressed against the other side. The shape of a hand, fingers splayed, the wallpaper bulging around its outline. Then—
CRACK.
A single blackened finger burst through, its nail split and oozing a thick, tarlike substance. The smell hit him first: rotting willow bark and spoiled meat. The finger twitched, then began to scrape downward, carving something into the wall.
Julian's throat locked. He should run. He should scream. But his feet were rooted to the floorboards as the thing wrote its message in jagged strokes:
Y O U R T U R N
The lantern sputtered out.
In the darkness, the wall split open with a wet, tearing sound. A draft of air rushed past Julian's face—air that carried the unmistakable scent of Sabrina's perfume… and beneath it, the coppery tang of blood.
Then the whispering began in earnest.
"She lied to you," hissed the wall. "She's one of them now. But you already knew that, didn't you? You felt it when she kissed you last night. Her lips were too cold. Her heartbeat was too slow."
Julian stumbled back, his calves hitting the bed. The dagger trembled in his grip.
"Look under the bed, Julian."
He didn't want to. God help him, he didn't. But his body moved against his will, knees hitting the floor as he bent down.
The space beneath the bed wasn't empty.
Sabrina stared back at him.
Her eyes were wide, unblinking, her mouth stretched in a silent scream. Her fingers clawed at the floorboards, leaving bloody grooves. And wrapped around her throat like a lover's embrace—thick, glistening willow roots, pulsing as they squeezed.
"Help…" mouthed the thing wearing Sabrina's face.
From the wall, the real Sabrina's voice giggled. "Too late."
The roots yanked.
Sabrina's body slid into the darkness under the bed—and the last thing Julian saw before the lantern flared back to life was her outstretched hand, fingers curling into a gesture he recognized.
The same one she'd used to seal the curse.
The wall fell silent.
The room was empty.
And on the floor where Sabrina had lain, a single fresh willow sapling pushed through the boards, its leaves already unfurling.
Julian reached for it—
—and the bedroom door slammed open behind him.