Mara didn't go back to the couch. After the kitchen window, sleep felt like a luxury she couldn't afford.
She sat at the dining table instead, the flashlight propped up to cast a weak circle of light across the room.
The house was still, but it wasn't quiet—not anymore. Every groan of the floorboards, every tap of a branch against the roof, made her flinch.
She kept her eyes on the stairs, waiting for that damn phone to ring again.
Ellie. The name scratched at her thoughts, unfamiliar yet heavy, like a stone lodged in her memory.
Mara rubbed her temples, trying to piece it together. She'd lived in this house in 1999—sixteen, sullen, stuck here after her mom's car accident.
Her grandmother had been kind but distant, her father a ghost even before he died the next year.
No Ellie. No masked men. Just a blur of lonely days and quiet nights. So why did that voice feel like it belonged to her?
She stood, pacing to shake off the fog in her head. The mud on the window gnawed at her.
She'd wiped it clean with a rag, but her fingers still felt dirty, gritty with something she couldn't wash away.
It was nothing, she told herself. A stray mark from the wind, a trick of the light. But the latch had been loose, just like Ellie said.
And that crash through the phone—too loud, too close.
Mara grabbed a box from the living room, needing a distraction. She'd search the house, find something concrete—proof this was all in her head.
She started with the hall closet, pulling out moth-eaten coats and a stack of photo albums.
The first one she opened was from '99, snapshots of her younger self: scowling in a too-big sweater, leaning against the porch rail, staring off into the trees.
Her eyes looked hollow, older than sixteen. She flipped through, unease prickling her spine. No Ellie. No sign of anything wrong.
The phone rang.
Her hands stilled, the album slipping to the floor with a soft thud. The sound drilled through the house, sharp and relentless, pulling her gaze to the ceiling.
She didn't want to answer. She could ignore it, let it ring itself out, pretend she hadn't heard.
But her feet betrayed her again, carrying her to the stairs, up the ladder, into the attic's chill.
The phone sat there, receiver back on the hook—impossible, since she'd left it dangling.
It rang again as she approached, the bell vibrating through the wood. She snatched it up, her voice sharper than she meant. "Ellie?"
"Mara, thank God," came the reply, breathless but softer this time. "He's gone—for now. I barricaded the attic door with the trunk. I don't think he saw me come up here."
Mara's flashlight swept the attic, landing on the trunk. It hadn't moved, still half-open, spilling its quilts like guts.
"Ellie, listen to me. I'm here, right where you say you are, and there's no one. No barricade. It's just me."
"You don't get it," Ellie said, her tone edging toward panic. "It's not now for me—it's then. 1999. He's downstairs, I can hear him walking. His boots—they're loud, like he wants me to know he's there."
Mara's throat tightened. "Who is he? Why's he after you?"
"I don't know!" Ellie's voice broke. "He just… he's always been outside, watching. Tonight he got closer. I saw his mask through the window—stitched up, ugly. He didn't say anything, just stared." A pause, then a whisper. "Mara, I'm scared."
The flashlight trembled in Mara's hand. She wanted to tell Ellie she was safe, that this was some twisted game, but the words wouldn't come. "Okay," she said instead. "Just… stay hidden. I'll figure this out."
"Hurry," Ellie breathed. "He's—"
A thud cut her off, dull but heavy, like something hitting wood. Mara's head snapped up, her beam darting across the attic.
It came again—thud, thud—faint, muffled, from above the ceiling. Dust sifted down, settling on her shoulders.
She held her breath, listening. The phone hummed in her ear, Ellie silent on the other end.
"Ellie?" Mara whispered. No answer. The line was still open, static crackling faintly, but the girl was gone.
The thuds stopped. Mara lowered the receiver, her pulse roaring in her ears. She backed toward the ladder, eyes locked on the ceiling.
Nothing moved, no shadows shifted, but the air felt thicker, charged with something she couldn't name.
She climbed down, legs shaky, and shut the attic hatch behind her, sliding the bolt with a trembling hand.
Back in the dining room, she sank into a chair, the photo album still splayed on the floor.
Her younger self stared up from the page, eyes dark and unreadable. Mara reached for it, then froze.
The porch rail in the picture—there, in the background, barely visible—was a smudge.
A shape. Too tall to be a bush, too still to be a trick of the shutter. It could've been anything.
But in the pit of her stomach, she knew it wasn't.