Chapter Five
773 Words
Annie woke with the weight of the night still clinging to her. For a moment, she stared at the high ceiling above her bed, blinking against the pale winter light seeping through the curtains. The memory of the mirror still lingered, but it felt fuzzy now. Distant. Like a dream that had unraveled the moment she opened her eyes.
She sat up slowly and rubbed her temples. “It was nothing,” she told herself. “Just an overactive imagination and a very, very creaky house.”
Her morning routine was deliberate: soft music from her phone speaker, a warm shower to shake off the chill, and a thick sweater over leggings and wool socks. She twisted her hair up into a bun and padded downstairs, wrapping herself in a fleece-lined coat before stepping out into the morning snow.
Sterling Hollow was quiet this early. Frost rimmed every window, and chimneys exhaled soft curls of smoke into the gray sky. Annie made her way to the tiny coffee shop near the edge of town. Hollow Grounds where the smell of espresso and sugar greeted her like an old friend.
The barista smiled as she ordered. “Back for another day at the haunted mansion?”
Annie rolled her eyes playfully. “You’re all obsessed with that place.”
“We just respect it,” the girl said, handing her a steaming cup. “It’s not the house that chooses people. It’s whatever’s inside.”
Annie didn’t ask what that meant. She didn’t want to know.
Back at Winterbourne, the mood had shifted again.
Warmer, somehow.
Sunlight filtered through the tall windows in golden shafts, dust floating in the air like lazy snowflakes. Annie set up a small folding table in the sitting room and dumped out her bags from the day before, wrapping paper, ribbons, tags, and boxes of gifts.
She worked in silence, cutting bright red paper and folding sharp corners, curling silver ribbon around her fingers and stacking wrapped presents into neat piles. It was almost meditative, wrapping joy into tidy packages, pretending everything around her wasn’t dripping in centuries of secrets.
She was finishing the last box when she felt it.
The air changed. Subtle, but unmistakable. A shift in the pressure of the room. A faint warmth behind her.
She didn’t turn.
“I was wondering if you were going to show up,” she said softly.
Leo stepped from the shadows near the window. His coat was buttoned up today, and his face was harder, more unreadable than usual. There was something different about him now. Less watching. More… withholding.
“You decorate with a sort of obsessive precision,” he said.
She looked up at him. “That’s your opening line today?”
He didn’t answer.
She studied his face. “You know, I went into town yesterday. Everyone has stories. About the phantom. About what he does. How he watches people...”
Leo didn’t move.
Annie stood slowly, wiping her hands on her jeans. “Is that what you are? The phantom?”
His expression remained still. Remote.
“You’ve never lied to me,” she said. “But you never answer either.”
He stepped closer, slowly. “Some answers are more dangerous than questions.”
“You sound like a poem I don’t have the patience to read.”
That earned the faintest twitch of his mouth, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared.
She crossed her arms. “I’m not afraid of you, Leonato .”
“You should be.”
The cold edge in his voice gave her pause. His posture was stiff. Guarded. And for the first time since she met him, she felt like he was holding something back on purpose.
She reached out gently. “Why do you come here, then? Why talk to me at all if you’re just going to vanish every time I get close to the truth?”
He looked at her hand. Looked away.
Then: “Because I forget what warmth feels like… until I’m near you.”
That quiet confession struck something deep in her chest. But before she could speak again, he stepped back.
“You should finish your wrapping,” he said, colder now. “The house may feel empty, but it never truly is.”
“Leo…” she started, but he was already gone.
The shadows shifted. The golden light grew dimmer, as if he had taken part of it with him.
Annie stood alone among ribbon and bows, heart pounding, unsure if the ache in her chest was from fear… or something much, much closer to longing.
- Writer
