CHAPTER ONE: https://imgflip.com/i/abnqtz

Chapter 2 — The Whispering Walls

The storm had broken by dawn. Mist pressed against the windows as if the lake had crept up to the very glass. Margaret woke before Thomas and Josephine, the echo of a voice still clinging to her half-dream. It had said her name—but not in a tone she recognized.

She rose, wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, and padded down the hall. The floorboards were damp with the night’s humidity, cool beneath her bare feet. Somewhere within the walls, water ticked—a patient dripping, like a clock that had forgotten its measure.

She thought of the attic door, the one Thomas had sworn shut. It was open again, a narrow wedge of darkness. A faint draft slipped through, carrying a smell of cedar and dust.

Downstairs, the house felt awake. Every beam and hinge seemed to breathe. Margaret crossed to the kitchen to light the stove, but when the match flared she saw that the kettle was already steaming.

“Tom?” she called.

No answer.

She reached for the kettle; it was cold to the touch, though the thin column of vapor continued to rise. The mist reached her face, whispering softly before it vanished.

It’s warmer upstairs.

Margaret froze. The words were not spoken aloud—more like the echo of a thought that wasn’t hers.

"Sometimes I talk without a mouth. The house listens if you listen first."

By midday, Thomas was outside repairing the fence and Josephine had wandered to the lakeshore. Margaret tried to busy herself with unpacking, yet every room seemed to shift slightly when she left it. A chair angled differently. A picture frame turned to the wall.

When she carried a box of linens into the hallway, the radio on the parlor shelf clicked to life. Static first, then a tune she half-remembered from childhood—a lullaby sung out of tune. She crossed the room, heart hammering, and turned the knob. The music stopped.

A heartbeat later, it resumed, quieter this time, the melody warped as if underwater.

Margaret unplugged the set. Still, the song went on.

She found Josephine sketching by the window later that afternoon.
“Sweetheart,” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady, “did you turn the radio on today?”

Josephine shook her head. “It only plays when you’re not in the room.”
The child said it as though it were the simplest fact in the world.

Margaret felt her throat tighten. “Who told you that?”

“The lady in the wallpaper.”

That night, Margaret dreamt of wallpaper. The faded yellow pattern rippled as if a breeze moved behind it. Faces swam beneath the paper’s surface, pressing outward, mouthing words she couldn’t hear. When she woke, her hand was against the wall, and a soft warmth pulsed beneath her palm—as if the house itself had a heartbeat.

The next morning, she found tiny fingerprints in the flour she’d left on the counter. Too small to be Josephine’s, too fresh to be old.

She wiped them away. New ones appeared in the same place, perfectly formed.

"I left my handprints so she’d know where to find me."

That evening Thomas remarked that the lake sounded strange. “Like it’s breathing,” he said.
Margaret didn’t answer. Her eyes were fixed on the wall beside the staircase where the wallpaper had begun to peel, curling back to reveal words written in pencil beneath:

You heard me.

A cold draft swept through the room, stirring the curtains. The radio blared a single chord—sharp, metallic—and then fell silent again.

"I think she finally does."