Midnight is a slow song

There was something oddly alive about the silence in Moira. Lina Duarte stepped out of the car, stretching her back as the wind licked at her face with the smell of seaweed and woodsmoke. The house loomed just up the slope—a slouching stone cottage with a red-tiled roof and windows that looked too dark, too old. It was the kind of house you didn’t just live in; you inherited it, like a scar or a secret. But Lina didn’t care. Not anymore. She dragged her suitcase up the cracked path, her boots crunching over dead leaves and something softer—moss maybe, or the past. The front door creaked open before she touched it. Not dramatically, not haunted. Just… tired. The inside smelled like dust and lemons. A woman had cleaned before she came, probably the landlady. There were doilies on the side tables. Framed black-and-white photos on the wall—none of which belonged to Lina, and none she could name. But it was quiet. Blessedly, suffocatingly quiet. And that’s what she wanted. Silence. Stillness. A break from the noise of Lisbon, where people asked her how she was holding up with too much concern and not enough patience. Her ex, Tiago, still sent her late-night texts filled with memories and guilt. Where art had stopped feeling like creation and started feeling like performance. Lina dropped her bag in the small bedroom and lay on the narrow bed, staring at the wooden ceiling beams. “Don’t be creepy,” she whispered to the house. “Just let me be.” It didn’t answer. But the air seemed to shift—like someone had just left the room That night, she didn’t dream. Or maybe she did, but it wasn’t hers. She was standing on the cliffs. The sea below was a wild, black mirror. Behind her, a figure watched—not menacing, not even curious. Just still. Like he had been waiting a long, long time. She turned to face him, but woke before she saw his eyes The attic was supposed to be locked. But when Lina tugged the pull-rope, the stairs groaned down like an exhale. Dust drifted down in lazy spirals. She climbed slowly, flashlight in hand. It was just boxes. Old ones. A trunk with iron corners. Some broken furniture. And against the far wall, beneath a dusty sheet, a painting. She pulled the cover off. It was… her. Or someone who looked exactly like her, painted in oils that had cracked and yellowed with time. She was standing by the sea cliffs, in a red coat Lina had never owned, with wind-whipped hair and a look in her eyes that made her stomach twist. Behind her in the painting was a figure in the shadows. Barely there. Watching. Lina stepped back, heart thudding. The air was suddenly too cold. The flashlight flickered once, then again. She swallowed hard. “Okay,” she whispered, voice shaking. “Now you’re being creepy.”