Chapter 9
The Whispering Willow's Secret
The willow ghost grows more urgent, appearing in Amy's dreams and whispering a name that makes Amy's blood run cold: her grandmother's.
The name hung in the air of my waking mind like smoke from a dying fire. Grandmother. Not just any grandmother, but my grandmother—the one who had raised me on tales of Southern ghosts and whispered warnings about the willow tree at the edge of our family’s old property. The one who had died when I was twelve, under circumstances I had never fully understood, and whose memory I had carefully, deliberately, buried beneath years of skepticism and a librarian’s love for documented fact.
I sat up in bed, the sheets tangled around my legs, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps. The dream had been vivid, more real than any I had experienced since beginning this journey. The willow ghost had stood before me, no longer a shadowy figure but a woman in a faded calico dress, her face obscured by a veil of hanging moss. She had reached out a hand, her fingers translucent as morning mist, and whispered a single word: “Evelyn.”
My grandmother’s name.
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