Episode 31

The scent of salt and pine, usually a balm to Kadja’s senses, now carried an undercurrent of unease. The old Tudor home in Bar Harbor, with its gabled roofs and shadowed eaves, had initially promised a fresh start. But the whispers had followed them, morphing from the familiar, lunar-driven torment to something more pervasive, more insidious. Neighbors, once curious about the newcomers with the strangely quiet child, now cast wary glances from behind lace curtains, their fear palpable. Kadja felt it too, a prickling on her skin, a growing dread that clung to the very air of their new dwelling.

It started subtly, as it always did. Flickering lights that no faulty wiring could explain. Cold spots that lingered like phantom breaths. Then came the sounds: the distant creak of floorboards when no one was there, the soft sigh that seemed to emanate from the walls themselves. Kadja, who had learned to brace herself for the moon’s changing face, found herself perpetually on edge. The shadows here were different, deeper, more insistent. They didn’t just hover; they seemed to seep from the very woodwork, coiling in the corners of her vision.

Wesley, her son, the beacon of calm in her own turbulent existence, was also reacting. His vibrant curiosity, once a source of joy, was now tinged with a strange timidity. He’d stopped talking about the ‘sad whispers’ he sometimes heard, his bright eyes now holding a shadow of their own. It was as if the house itself was absorbing his youthful light.