Chapter 8: Unraveled Secrets
1295 Words
Layla POV
The whispers started again—right before Gran’s cane hit the floor .
Crack.
The sound echoed through the silence like a bone snapping in two.
And then… nothing.
No birds. No wind. Not even the creak of the trees. Just that thick, suffocating kind of quiet that wraps around your throat and dares you to breathe.
I didn’t.
The cane had rolled halfway across the porch and stopped—angled toward me like it had chosen a side.
My heart pounded. My fingers trembled around the note I hadn’t meant to read again, but did.
He’s not the only one looking for you.
In my hand, the note crinkled softly. The paper was thin, soft-edged from being handled too much. The ink had bled at the corners.
Not angry.
Not afraid.
Just certain. Like a verdict.
I looked out across the yard. Fog blanketed the fields. Heavy. Still.
Too still.
Something was out there.
And then they came—the whispers. Curling like smoke beneath my skin.
"The blood remembers. It wakes."
I flinched.
The words didn’t come from outside. They came from inside me—from something buried deep in my bones. Something old. Something waiting.
My grip tightened on the note. I squeezed my eyes shut, not to block it out—but to hold onto myself.
Then I saw it.
Gran’s cane.
Still lying there.
Still pointing at me.
I bent down and picked it up. The second my fingers wrapped around it, something in the air shifted. My pulse steadied. The ground beneath me felt real again.
Like someone had placed a warm hand between my shoulder blades. Grounding me once more.
Gran.
Still here.
Still trying.
I stood slowly. The porch boards groaned beneath me, and the house loomed ahead, dark and waiting.
When I opened the door, it sighed like it had been holding its breath too.
The scent hit me first—lavender, dust, dried herbs… and something else. Sharp. Metallic.
Copper.
I stepped inside, heart hammering.
Click.
Deadbolt.
Clink.
Chain.
I locked the door behind me like it would matter.
Like locks ever kept the unseen out.
The air was different now.
Thicker.
My skin prickled.
I pressed my forehead against the door and tried to breathe the way Gran taught me.
In through the nose. Count to five.
Again.
But the name rose anyway, caught in my lungs like a scream I couldn’t swallow.
Kaelen.
When he looked at me, it wasn’t curiosity—it was recognition. Like someone remembering a promise made lifetimes ago.
His amber eyes. Firelight. The kind of gaze that sees right through you.
I’d seen him in my dreams more times than I could count —shadows kissing his skin, the echo of something long forgotten in the way he said my name.
And somehow… I’d known his name before he ever told me.
He wasn’t just a dream anymore.
He was bleeding into my waking life.
He made me feel like I belonged to him—or maybe he belonged to me.
Like we had unfinished business.
Like he’d waited long enough.
And now this note.
These voices.
The shadows that move when no one should be there.
This isn’t a coincidence.
There’s more to this. I feel it in my bones. Not just paranoia—something deeper. Like the edges of a memory I haven’t let myself remember.
I just know that he’s in the middle of it all.
Whatever game he’s playing, whatever truth he’s not saying out loud—he knows. I saw it in his eyes. The way he looked at me like he already knew how the story ends.
Their excuse had been paper-thin.
Handymen, my ass.
There had been no truck. No tools.
Just that look between him and the other guy... Sebastian...
Like they’d said, everything in a glance and left me in the dark on purpose.
I moved through the house, past the living room, past Gran’s worn armchair. Every step felt heavier, like the air was getting thicker the deeper I went.
And then I saw it.
My reflection in the mirror.
I froze.
Barefoot. Pale. My hair a storm that hadn't passed. Oversized T-shirt clinging to my skin, slipping off one shoulder. My eyes—
They didn’t look like mine.
They looked like a stranger wearing my skin. Like someone who had already begun to vanish.
I looked away and kept walking.
Gran’s door waited at the end of the hall. Closed. Still.
I hadn’t opened it since I got here.
Because I knew—once I did, everything would change. The silence would speak. The house would remember.
And it would remember me.
My hand hovered on the knob.
Then I turned it.
I knew I would find answers in here, and it was time...
The room smelled like her. Lavender. Ink. Old stories.
Like comfort wrapped in memory.
The bed was perfectly made.
Pillows fluffed.
Like she’d just stepped out. Like she might scold me for tracking dirt on her floors.
But she wasn’t coming back.
I crossed the room.
The dresser was cluttered with little pieces of her life—brooches, dried flowers, an old porcelain fox I used to think was weird.
Now, it looked like a guardian.
I opened the top drawer.
Scarves. Folded prayers. Tucked beneath them—
Journals.
Leather-bound. Faded. Well-worn.
I pulled one free, then another.
And beneath them—letters.
Stacked. Hidden.
I sat on the edge of the bed, heart in my throat.
The journal was warm in my hands. Like it remembered me.
I opened it.
Gran’s handwriting filled the pages—tight, curling, fast.
"They came again last night. He was standing by the orchard. Watching."
"The necklace must remain hidden. It calls to things best left sleeping."
I flipped faster. The words blurred. My breath caught.
Then—something stranger.
A page written in a script I didn’t recognize.
Not English. Not Latin.
But I understood it.
Not with my eyes. With something else.
Something old.
"Blood remembers."
The words shimmered in my mind like a half-formed spell.
I looked up.
Another pile of letters waited by the mirror, and every one had my name on the envelope.
On top of them—
Something silver.
I reached for it.
A necklace. The pendant heavy, etched with symbols I didn’t know—but my bones did.
The second I touched it, something stirred—
Old.
Powerful.
Mine.
My breath caught.
The necklace didn’t just remember me.
It claimed me.
The pendant seared against my skin.
And then—
Fire.
Lightning.
Circles drawn in ash.
A voice, dark and ancient, whispering my name like a curse… and a promise.
I stumbled back, crashing into the desk. Journals scattered to the floor like they were trying to escape too.
This...
They were looking for this.
Something inside me shifted. A door cracked open—and now it would not close.
I stepped into the hallway, arms full of fallen journals and letters.
The pendant clung to my throat like it had always been there.
It throbbed against my skin.
Cold.
Alive.
Waiting.
I don’t remember putting it on.
And yet… here it is—
Pulsing like a second heartbeat.
A whisper brushed the back of my neck. Soft. Knowing.
“She wears it again.”
My gaze snapped to the mirror.
As fog blurred the glass— words etched themselves into the mist.
Two simple words.
It’s time
They weren’t loud.
They didn’t scream.
But they slammed into me like a thunderclap.
Like a promise.
Like a threat.
Like the moment before everything changes.
And somehow, deep in my bones,
I knew—
Those two words would unravel everything I thought I knew about myself.
- Writer
