Chapter 2 2.Chapter 2:Echoes in the Walls

Chapter 2: Echoes in the Walls** of *Whispers of the Obsidian Mirror*:

### **Chapter 2: Echoes in the Walls**

The house didn't sleep.

Kira lay awake in her new bedroom, staring at the carved ceiling. The old four-poster bed groaned with every twitch she made, its mattress barely more forgiving than stone. Outside, the trees rustled in the windless dark, their branches tapping faintly on the windowpane like bony fingers begging entrance.

She had closed the attic door. She had pushed the shelf back. She had even placed a heavy trunk against it, just in case. But still, sleep wouldn't come.

Then she heard it.

*Knock... knock... scratch.*

She sat up, the sound echoing faintly through the floorboards. She held her breath, waiting. Silence.

Then again, louder this time-closer.

*Knock... scratch-scratch-scratch.*

It wasn't coming from the front door. No one would be visiting her at this hour. It wasn't even from the hallway.

It was *inside* the walls.

Kira climbed out of bed slowly, slipping her arms into her sweater. The air in the room was colder than it should have been. She stepped carefully to the far wall and pressed her ear against it.

Nothing.

Just when she began to pull away-

*SCRAAATCH.*

She jerked back. The sound had come from directly behind the wall-long, deliberate, like fingernails on wood. Not the frantic skittering of a mouse. No. This was something else. Something *alive*... and patient.

Kira stepped back, heart pounding. "Old houses make old noises," she muttered to herself, repeating it like a mantra. "Pipes. Rats. Old boards settling."

But her voice felt too loud, as if she were disturbing something that didn't want to be disturbed.

She turned on every light in the room.

By dawn, the noises stopped. But they left behind a silence that felt *off*, like the breath before a scream.

That morning, Kira stumbled into the kitchen, eyes heavy from lack of sleep. She dug through dusty cabinets until she found instant coffee from a decade past and a chipped mug that said *World's Best Witch.* Fitting, she thought grimly.

While the kettle boiled, she wandered to the back porch. Morrow's End was quieter than any place she'd ever lived. No traffic, no kids on bikes, no barking dogs. Just trees and fog. The house sat perched on a slight hill, overlooking a forest that stretched into the unknown.

The lawyer, Mr. Harrow, had mentioned a caretaker, but Kira hadn't seen anyone around. There were signs of abandonment everywhere-ivy strangling the windows, the porch steps sinking into rot, a bird's nest inside the mailbox.

She went back inside and sat at the long wooden kitchen table. A dusty newspaper was folded at one end. *The Morrow Gazette*, dated nearly ten years ago. The headline read:

**"LOCAL MAN VANISHES WITHOUT A TRACE – ELIAS VANE STILL MISSING."**

Her skin prickled.

That name again.

She unfolded the paper, scanning the article. Elias had been a history teacher at the local high school. Disappeared one night walking home. No witnesses. No leads. Just... gone.

One quote stood out:

"Elias was obsessed with that Langley house," said Sheriff Weller. "Claimed it was connected to the founding of Morrow's End. Told everyone it held the town's oldest secret. Fool talk."

Kira pushed the paper away, uneasy. Why would her grandmother be writing letters to a man who vanished ten years ago? Why keep them hidden in a locked chest?

Something *didn't* add up.

Later that afternoon, Kira went searching for answers.

The town center was a cluster of old buildings with faded signs and suspicious stares. She walked into the library, the scent of mildew and dust heavy in the air. A single librarian sat behind the desk-an older woman with short white curls and large, wary eyes.

"Hi," Kira offered, mustering a polite smile. "I just moved into the Langley house."

The woman stiffened. "You're Evelyn's granddaughter?"

Kira nodded.

"Haven't seen her in years. Thought she passed long ago."

Kira blinked. "She died two weeks ago."

The woman gave a tight nod. "Of course. Time moves strangely around that house."

Kira hesitated. "I... I found a name. Elias Vane. Do you know who he was?"

The librarian frowned. "A good man. Too curious for his own good."

"What happened to him?"

"He started looking into things better left buried. Local legends. Rituals. Vanished. Just like your grandmother's sisters." She leaned closer. "Evelyn wasn't the first Langley woman to live alone in that house. She was just the last."

Kira felt the words settle like cold stones in her stomach. "What do you mean?"

"There's always been a Langley woman in that house. Since the town began. And every one of them ended the same way-alone, or mad, or both."

The librarian rose and walked toward a bookshelf, pulling down a brittle ledger. She flipped through it, revealing black-and-white photographs, sketches, and newspaper clippings.

One page had a portrait of the Langley line: stern-faced women with eyes too sharp and expressions too calm. In the corner of the photograph, the same mirror sat in the background-its black surface catching no light.

"You see it, don't you?" the librarian asked quietly.

Kira's breath hitched. "The mirror."

"It's older than this town. Maybe older than anything. Some say it was brought here by a preacher running from the Devil. Others say it *is* the Devil."

Kira shook her head. "It's just a mirror."

"No. It's a *door*. And it only opens when it wants something."

Kira left the library with the air feeling thinner in her lungs.

That night, the scratching came again.

*Knock... knock... SCRATCH.*

This time, it was louder. This time, it came from *inside her room.*

She jumped from bed and flicked on the light.

The wall beside the mirror trembled slightly. Her reflection... was missing.

Kira's reflection wasn't *there.*

She stared into the mirror, her chest tight.

Then something blinked from inside it.

A face-not hers.