Confronting the Unseen

The air in Oakhaven had always been as still as a painted pond. Not a whisper, not a sigh, not even a particularly enthusiastic sneeze was permitted. Elara, however, had a knack for making things… pop. Not with a bang, mind you – that would be entirely too noisy – but with a gentle, shimmering *poof*, like a bubble surfacing from a very quiet bathtub. This was her echo-weaving, and in Oakhaven, it was considered about as appropriate as a juggling clown at a funeral.

Today, Elara was trying her very best to be quiet. She was attempting to re-fold a ridiculously large tablecloth that her grandmother had declared “perfectly stored” by simply cramming it into a chest. The problem was, every time Elara touched it, a faint shimmer would appear, and she’d get a fleeting scent of lavender and a mental image of her grandmother, younger and quite pleased with herself, holding a teacup. It was a harmless memory, but in Oakhaven, even harmless memories were a tad too… present.

Suddenly, a cold draft snaked through the room, despite the windows being firmly shut. The lavender scent vanished, replaced by a peculiar stillness, a silence that felt heavier, more suffocating, than Oakhaven’s usual brand of quiet. A shadowy figure, wispy and indistinct, flickered at the edge of Elara’s vision. It wasn’t solid, not really, more like a patch of deeper darkness that seemed to absorb light.