Clara’s hands trembled as she lifted the iron key from the hollow beneath the floorboard, its rusted edges biting into her palm. The air in the attic reeked of mildew and forgotten years, the dust motes swirling like trapped ghosts…
Lila found the door on a Tuesday, tucked behind a stack of moth-eaten quilts in her grandmother’s attic. The air smelled of dust and old cedar, the kind that clung to your skin and lingered in your lungs. She’d been…
Clara’s boots crunched over gravel as she pulled her coat tighter, the wind slicing through the collar. The lighthouse stood at the edge of the world, its white paint peeling like sunburned skin. She hadn’t spoken to her aunt since…
Clara stepped off the creaking wagon, her boots sinking into the red dirt as the sun blazed overhead. The town of Red Rock sprawled before her, a jagged line of wooden shacks and smoke-belching chimneys clinging to the base of…
Mara stepped off the creaking ferry, her boots sinking into the damp gravel of Hollow’s End. The air reeked of salt and decay, a sharp contrast to the sterile hospital corridors she’d left behind. Her mother’s voice echoed in her…
The salt-kissed air tasted like memory as Clara tightened the straps of her backpack, her boots crunching over gravel that scattered like shattered glass beneath the late afternoon sun. The lighthouse stood sentinel at the cliff’s edge, its white paint…
Mara’s fingers brushed the damp stone as she pressed herself against the lighthouse wall, her breath fogging in the cold air. The storm had died hours ago, leaving only the creak of the rusted lantern and the distant crash of…
The first time she saw him, the sea was a bruise of gray, and the lighthouse beam cut through the storm like a blade. Mara stood at the edge of the cliff, her boots sinking into the mud as wind…
The city of Varethis breathed through its spires, a labyrinth of copper pipes and soot-streaked stone that hummed with the weight of secrets. Kael moved like a shadow between the alleys, his boots silent on the damp cobblestones, the scent…
Lila’s fingers brushed the cracked leather of the book, its spine frayed where decades of curious hands had pried it from the library’s forgotten shelf. The air smelled of dust and old paper, but beneath that, something else—a faint metallic…
The air in the sublevel corridor tasted metallic, like rusted pipes and static. Dr. Elara Voss pressed her palm against the steel door, feeling the faint vibration of something alive beneath the surface. The vault had been sealed for thirty…
The first time she saw him again, the sea was a blade of glass beneath the sun. Mira stood at the edge of the dock, her boots sinking into the wet wood as the wind tugged at her coat. The…
The first time she saw him, Clara was kneading dough in the bakery’s early morning hush, the scent of yeast thick in the air like a promise. The bell above the door jingled, and she turned, flour still clinging to…
The air smelled of rust and pine when Mira found the first bone. She knelt in the dirt, her fingers brushing the jagged edge of a femur, and wondered if it had been there since the mine closed in 1947.…
The air in the attic reeked of mildew and old paper, a scent that clung to Clara’s sleeves as she crouched beneath the floorboards. Her fingers trembled, not from the chill of the draft seeping through the cracks, but from…