Shadows

“You guys understand why I’m sending you to live with them, right?” Aunt Susie’s voice is gentle, but there’s a weight under it. Kai doesn’t answer. Neither do I. Mom sighs, her eyes fixed on the road, both hands steady on the wheel. I close my eyes and turn toward the window, letting the faint beat of music leaking from Kai’s headphones pull me under. The sound hums low, steady, until it isn’t music anymore—until it’s something else. A knock. Sharp. Sudden. Enough to make my little body flinch. And just like that, I’m back there again. The memory always begins the same. Mom’s footsteps crossing the floor, steady and sure, like nothing was wrong. Her hand on the knob. The door opening. And then—nothing. No greeting. No words. Just silence that stretches too long. And then I hear it. “Vanessa, you look well.” A strange voice, hollow and thin, clinging to the air like shadows that refuse to let go. My stomach drops. The way it says her name makes my skin prickle, like something cold is crawling down my back. I press myself against the wall, holding my breath. It doesn’t sound like a person. It sounds like the dark itself has learned to whisper. I never see the face at the door. I never see anything at all. Just silence thick enough to choke on. And by morning—Mom is gone. No warning. No explanation. Dead, as though the voice had called her name and carried her away. That was the night everything changed. The night I learned that some voices don’t speak to be heard. They speak to claim. The memory fades as the music drifts back in, tinny and low from Kai’s headphones. I open my eyes to the blur of trees racing past the window, my reflection pale against the glass. The car hums beneath me, steady as ever. Ahead of us waits the house we’ll be calling home now—its walls filled with strangers’ footsteps, its halls hung with old paintings whose eyes seem to follow. Even before I see it, I can feel it, waiting, like it already knows we’re coming.