Nessa didn't sleep that night.
Instead, she sat at the edge of town, where the forest met the old train tracks, sketchpad open on her lap and charcoal smudged across her fingers. The wind was still, but she could feel something beneath it—something waiting.
Luka found her there just before dawn.
He didn't speak right away.
Just sat beside her, letting the silence settle between them like an old song neither had forgotten.
Then he signed:
You dreamt about it again, didn't you?
She nodded without looking up.
Then flipped to a new page and began drawing.
Fast this time.
A house half-swallowed by roots.
A door hidden beneath the earth.
A boy standing in front of it, hand outstretched.
Behind him, shadows curled upward like smoke caught in wind.
At the bottom of the page, she added one final thing.
A spiral.
Not just any spiral.
The same one Mira used to draw.
The same one Eli still saw etched into the birch tree at the edge of Hollowbrook.
Luka swallowed hard. "This place… it's real."
Nessa looked at him.
Then signed back:
It's waking up.
Back at the hardware store, Eli studied Nessa's latest drawings with quiet intensity.
He recognized pieces of them now—fragments from Mira's sketches years ago. A porch. A window. A shadow curling beneath floorboards like breath held too long.
He tapped the edge of the page twice.
Then signed:
This isn't just memory. It's something else.
Luka hesitated. "A new echo?"
Eli shook his head slowly.
Then signed:
Something older. Something that never left.
He looked toward the chair by the window.
Toward the silence that had always listened.
Then added softly:
Mira opened the door once. But maybe… it was never really closed.
Luka exhaled sharply. "You think it's happening again?"
Eli didn't answer right away.
Instead, he reached for his own sketchpad and began drawing.
A girl standing at the edge of the forest.
A boy beside her.
Behind them, the trees leaned inward.
Waiting.
Then he signed:
If it is, she's ready.
That afternoon, they returned to the birch tree.
The door beneath its roots remained gone.
But the air around it felt different.
Heavy.
Like sound trying to remember how to exist.
Nessa stepped forward first.
She knelt and pressed her palm against the ground where the door should have been.
Her eyes fluttered shut.
And then—
A hum.
Faint.
Low.
Like the echo of a voice buried beneath centuries of silence.
Luka stiffened. "Do you hear that?"
Eli nodded once.
Then placed his hand over Nessa's back.
A heartbeat later, he felt it too.
Not sound.
Not silence.
Something in between.
A rhythm.
A presence.
A memory stirring.
Nessa opened her eyes.
Then signed:
It knows we're here.
That night, Hollowbrook changed.
People woke up with dreams they couldn't explain.
Miss Dara found spirals drawn in chalk outside the school.
Mr. Kael discovered a music box in the archive room, its lid slightly open though no one had touched it in years.
And somewhere deep in the woods, the wind carried a melody only some could hear.
Not loud.
Not intrusive.
Just enough to remind them—
The silence wasn't done speaking.
Not yet.