Chapter Two – Silence Has a Sound
723 Words
Lina woke to gulls screaming overhead.
The sun had found its way through the salt-specked windows, stretching long fingers across the floorboards like it had been searching for her all night. She sat up slowly. Her back ached from the strange mattress, and her mind felt foggy, as if something important had been left behind in the attic.
She hadn’t gone back up there. Not yet.
The house was still.
It still like a painting that hadn’t dried yet. Still like the breath you hold right before saying something that will change everything.
She made tea in the tiny kitchen, the kettle whining louder than it should’ve. Everything here seemed to want attention. The cupboards creaked. The pipes sighed. Even the refrigerator gave a low, groaning hum, like it remembered a time when it was newer, brighter, more useful.
Maybe she wasn’t the only one feeling forgotten.
By midmorning, Lina had pulled on a sweater two sizes too big and wandered into town. Moira looked like a village that had fallen asleep fifty years ago and never fully woken up. Cobblestone streets curved gently between faded pastel buildings. Flower boxes overflowed with lazy green things. The scent of bread and ocean salt curled together in the air like an old couple still dancing.
No one stared, but they didn’t exactly smile either. Not unkindness. Just… caution. Like they knew how to spot a passing stranger when they saw one.
Lina ducked into a small café with fogged windows and books stacked in the corners. The chalkboard outside read CAFÉ DUARTE—a coincidence, probably. The surname wasn’t uncommon.
Inside, a young woman behind the counter looked up with soft brown eyes and a flour-dusted apron.
“You’re the new girl in Anabela’s place, right?” she asked.
Lina blinked, surprised. “Yeah. I didn’t think anyone would know.”
The woman grinned. “This town’s small enough that we know when someone sneezes before they do. I’m Inês. That’s João—my husband.”
A man in his thirties waved from behind a shelf, holding two bags of coffee beans and a crooked smile.
Lina smiled back, warming a little. “I’m Lina.”
“You want coffee or something stronger?” Inês asked.
“Coffee,” Lina said. “Something soft. Gentle.”
“Gentle it is,” Inês said, disappearing behind the espresso machine. “You look like you’ve been running from something.”
Lina looked out the window at the fog slipping between buildings. “Not running. Just… stepping away.
She wandered along the sea cliffs after that, sketchbook under one arm, pencil resting behind her ear like it had always belonged there. Her fingers itched to draw, not something specific, but the feeling of this place. The wind. The hush. The space between things.
She sat on a bench with peeling green paint and drew the horizon. Then the curve of the coastline. Then, without meaning to, the shadow of a figure standing just behind her shoulder.
She stared at it.
Erased it.
Drew it again
That night, back at the house, the lights flickered.
Not in a faulty-wiring sort of way. More like… in a do n’t-look-away sort of way.
Lina ignored it. She lit candles, poured a glass of wine, and turned on some old jazz from her phone.
The music filled the space.
She started painting again—this time with messy abandon, letting the colors guide her. Deep blues. Bone white. Soft grey. She didn’t think. Just moved.
When she stepped back two hours later, her breath caught in her throat.
She had painted the figure again.
A tall man, wrapped in mist, standing on the cliffs. His face was shadowed, eyes indistinct. But the posture… the presence… it was him. The man from the attic painting. From her dreams. From the sketch earlier.
She touched the wet paint with trembling fingers. Her heart thudded painfully.
The wind howled outside.
And then, faintly—too faint to be real—she heard it.
A cello.
Low. Sad. Beautiful.
Playing just beyond the walls.
Lina spun around, heart racing. But the house was still. The windows shut. No sound but her breathing.
She stared at the painting again.
The man in the mist hadn’t moved.
But she had the strangest feeling that he was getting closer.
- Writer
