The salt air clung to Lila’s skin as she dragged her suitcase across the dock, its wheels screeching against the weathered wood. The town of Marrow’s End stretched before her—weathered shingles, fog-draped piers, and a lighthouse that loomed like a sentinel over the harbor. Her father’s house sat at the edge of town, its windows dark, its porch sagging under the weight of decades. She hadn’t seen him in three years, not since the accident. But here she was, crammed into a rented room above the bakery, her fingers smudged with charcoal from the sketchbook she’d stolen from his study.
The first night, she heard the scratching.
It started at 2 a.m.—a rasp against the floorboards, like something dragging its nails across wood. Lila sat up, her breath fogging the air. The sound came again, closer this time. She grabbed her flashlight and crept downstairs, the beam slicing through the dark. The house was silent, but the floorboards beneath her feet trembled, as if something were crawling beneath them.
In the study, the door creaked open on its own. The room smelled of turpentine and dust, its walls lined with canvases that seemed to shift when she wasn’t looking. Her father’s paintings—abstract swirls of black and gold, jagged lines that pulsed like veins. She reached out, her fingertips grazing the edge of a canvas, and the air thickened. A whisper brushed her ear, low and urgent: *Don’t trust the light.*
The next morning, Lila found the key.
It was hidden beneath a loose floorboard in the study, wrapped in a moth-eaten scarf. The metal was cold in her palm, its teeth jagged, like a shark’s tooth. She followed the map etched into the back—dots connecting to places she’d never seen: the abandoned theater, the saltworks on the cliff, the old cemetery where the headstones leaned like broken teeth. Each location held a painting, same as the one in her father’s study, but these were different. They showed things that didn’t exist—a boy with wings, a woman with eyes like shattered glass, a door that led nowhere.
At the theater, she met Jace.
He was waiting by the rusted stage door, his leather jacket caked with dirt, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “You’re late,” he said, blowing smoke into the wind. His eyes were the color of storm clouds, sharp and unyielding. “They’re watching you.”
“Who?”
“The ones who paint the world.” He nodded toward the theater’s broken windows. “Your father was one of them. Until he tried to leave.”
Lila’s throat tightened. “What does that mean?”
Jace exhaled, the cigarette burning down to his fingers. “It means you’re next.” He turned, his boots crunching over debris. “Come on. If we don’t move now, they’ll find you first.”
The paintings weren’t just art. They were traps, each one a portal to a place that shouldn’t exist—a labyrinth of shifting walls, a forest where the trees whispered secrets, a city frozen in time. Lila learned to navigate them, her fingers tracing the edges of the canvases, feeling the hum of something ancient beneath the paint. But the deeper she went, the more the world blurred. Her reflection in a mirror split into two—one smiling, one screaming. Her voice echoed in her head, layered with others. The light from the lighthouse flickered in time with her heartbeat.
At the saltworks, she found the final painting.
It was larger than the others, its surface rippling like water. Inside, a figure stood at the edge of a cliff, arms outstretched. Lila’s breath caught—she recognized the face. It was her father, but younger, his eyes wide with terror. The canvas pulsed, and the air grew heavy. A voice—her own, but older—whispered: *You were never meant to leave.*
Jace appeared beside her, his hand on her shoulder. “This is where it ends,” he said. “You can walk away, or you can stay. But once you step through, there’s no going back.”
Lila stared at the painting. The figure in it turned, its face now hers. The world tilted. She heard her mother’s voice, distant and broken: *You have to choose.*
She stepped forward.
The canvas swallowed her whole.
When she opened her eyes, she was standing in a hallway of mirrors. Each one showed a different version of herself—some older, some younger, some not human at all. The air was thick with the scent of oil paint and something metallic, like blood. A door stood at the end of the hall, its handle rusted, its surface etched with symbols she didn’t recognize.
A voice echoed from the shadows: *You’ve come home.*
Lila turned. The figure was her father, but his skin was cracked, like porcelain. “You don’t understand,” he said, his voice a rasp. “The paintings aren’t just portals. They’re anchors. Without them, the world falls apart.”
“Then why did you leave?”
He smiled, sad and broken. “Because I loved you.” He reached for her, his fingers brushing her cheek. “But love isn’t enough. You have to choose, Lila. Stay, and the world keeps turning. Leave, and everything dies.”
The door creaked open behind her. A gust of wind carried the sound of waves, the scent of salt and paint. Lila hesitated, then stepped through.
The world shifted again. She was back in the study, the flashlight still in her hand. The paintings on the walls were gone, replaced by blank canvases. The scratching had stopped. Outside, the lighthouse beam swept across the sky, steady and sure.
Lila sat on the floor, her hands trembling. The key was still in her pocket, cold and heavy. She didn’t know if she’d made the right choice. But as she looked out the window, she saw the town below, its lights blinking like stars, and for the first time in years, she felt something close to peace.
