Chapter 3 Static Memories

The roads were damp, shining like wet ribbon under a sky that couldn't make up its mind between fog and drizzle. Gwen's tires hummed a low note along the curve of the highway as she drove northeast-toward the cul-de-sac of her childhood, toward Holly Drive.

She hadn't made the drive in over a year. Maybe longer. The turns still lived in her muscle memory, even if she hated the way her hands gripped the wheel-too tight, like she was trying to squeeze the truth out of it.

She kept thinking about the photo. Not the one she hadn't found yet-the one she was hoping to find. A picture of Lila smiling, alive, after everyone had stopped saying her name.

She didn't know what she'd say to her mother.

That was the problem with ghosts: they came without context. No script. Just raw memory and the echo of something unfinished.

As she turned off the main road and into the neighborhood, the houses began to repeat themselves-the same ranch-style boxes, all beige and brown, each with a patch of yard too stubborn to die and too dull to thrive. Like the street was stuck in the year it was built.

Her mother's house sat near the end. A low-slung rambler with white siding and a wide porch Gwen never remembered being used. The hedges had grown thick around the mailbox. The curtains were drawn on every window.

She parked in the driveway and killed the engine.

Silence folded around the car.

For a moment, Gwen didn't move. Her hands stayed on the wheel, as if the car might reverse itself if she waited long enough.

But the longer she sat, the more wrong it felt-like the house could feel her there. Watching. Waiting.

She got out and locked the door behind her.

The walkway was slick with moss. Her boots slipped once, but she caught herself.

She rang the bell.

A minute passed.

Then the door creaked open.

June Morley stood there in a wool cardigan and pressed slacks, hair pinned in its usual severe twist. She looked the same as she had every year since Gwen was sixteen-as if grief had preserved her in amber.

She didn't smile. She never did.

"Gwen," she said, like stating the obvious.

"Hi, Mom."

They stood there for a breath longer than they needed to.

June stepped aside.

"You came unannounced."

"I didn't want to give you time to avoid me," Gwen said, then immediately regretted the edge in her voice.

Her mother didn't blink. "So you came for a fight."

"No." Gwen paused. "Not a fight."

"Then what?"

But Gwen didn't answer.

She stepped inside.

The inside of the house was quiet in a way Gwen remembered-not peaceful, but carefully silent, like noise might disturb something sacred or shameful.

Same wallpaper. Same rug in the hallway. A new coffee table, but the same chipped porcelain angel on the mantle, its wing still glued on crooked.

"Do you want coffee?" June asked without looking back.

"No."

June paused at the edge of the kitchen, then pivoted, folding her arms loosely. "Then what?"

Gwen pulled off her coat but didn't sit. "I wanted to ask you about Lila."

Her mother's face didn't change-not immediately. But Gwen saw it. The smallest tightening of the jaw. The blink that came just a beat too slow.

"I thought we were past that."

"I'm not."

June turned toward the sink. "You should be."

"I got a phone call," Gwen said. "From her. A voice that sounded just like-"

June's hand hit the counter. Not loud. Just firm. Flat. Final.

"She's gone."

"I know," Gwen said softly. "But someone's pretending to be her. Or they know things they shouldn't."

June picked up a dish towel and began folding it.

"What kind of things?" she asked without turning.

Gwen hesitated. "Childhood stuff. Something from Red Fern Lane. The cellar door."

June dropped the towel.

It hit the floor with a whisper.

When she turned around, her expression had shifted-not to anger. Not fear. Something colder.

"You're letting your grief rewrite your memory again."

"I'm not grieving, Mom. I'm listening."

"To what?" She snapped. "Old recordings? A stranger playing games? Your own guilt?"

Gwen flinched. "This isn't about guilt."

June took a step forward. "You think I don't remember what happened that night? You think I don't remember you locked in your room while the house burned?"

Gwen looked away. "I was sixteen."

"So was she."

That landed like a slap.

The silence that followed felt full of thorns.

"I want to go through the attic," Gwen said finally.

June stared at her for a long time.

"I boxed everything," she said. "After the funeral."

"I know."

"You won't find what you're looking for."

"Maybe I will," Gwen said. "Even if it's just a better version of the lie."

Another long pause. Then, with a clipped nod, June turned and walked toward the hall closet. She pulled down the string for the attic ladder.

It creaked as it unfolded. The dust danced in the faint light like the past being shaken loose.

Gwen stared up into the darkness.

And climbed.

The attic smelled like forgotten linen and dry insulation. Gwen blinked against the dust stirred by her ascent, her hand gripping the old metal flashlight she'd found on a shelf near the stairs. The bulb flickered once before settling into a dim amber glow.

Cardboard boxes lined the low space like gravestones-neat stacks, each one labeled in her mother's sharp handwriting: JUL 96, AUG 96, SEP 96, OCT 96.

That one stopped her cold.

She crouched.

It was an ordinary file box, its lid taped at the corners but loose from time. She peeled it open.

Inside: a stack of manila envelopes, the kind you find in old filing cabinets. Receipts. Tax forms. A broken wristwatch in a plastic bag. A gold crucifix necklace she hadn't seen since she was a kid. Lila's, maybe.

And tucked in the back, nearly hidden between two worn legal pads, was a thick envelope with no label.

She opened it.

Photographs spilled into her lap.

Most were blackened around the edges, scorched slightly, as if they'd been rescued from the house fire. A few were Polaroids. Gwen flipped through them, heart pounding.

Lila at the breakfast table, mid-bite, blurry.

Lila in the backyard, arm outstretched toward the sprinkler.

Lila standing in front of-

Gwen froze.

Her hands trembled.

She brought the photo closer to the flashlight.

It showed Lila-unmistakably Lila-standing in front of the charred remains of their old house.

The house after the fire.

The burned siding behind her was still warped from heat. The windows blackened. Debris was scattered on the lawn.

Lila stood in the center, half-turned toward the camera, smiling.

Wearing a thin silver necklace Gwen didn't recognize.

And in the bottom right corner of the photo, written in faint blue ballpoint pen:

10/13/96

Gwen's stomach twisted.

She checked the date again.

Lila's funeral had been on October 2nd.

But this photo-this photo was taken eleven days later.

Her breath quickened. She thumbed back through the stack, looking for others like it. But this was the only one dated after the fire. The only one that didn't make sense.

She stared at it for a long time.

Lila looked... alive.

Not just captured on film, but aware. As if she'd turned, just as the shutter clicked, to meet the eye behind the lens.

To meet Gwen.

The floorboards creaked beneath Gwen's feet as she descended the attic ladder, one hand clutching the envelope of photos like it might disappear if she let go. Her other hand held the flashlight, now off - she didn't need it in the hallway's grim light, but she couldn't bring herself to set it down.

Her mother was standing in the living room, arms folded, staring at the front window like it might deliver a reason to make Gwen leave.

Gwen held out the photo.

June didn't take it.

"Look at it," Gwen said.

Nothing.

"Mom."

Reluctantly, June turned and glanced at the photo. Her eyes caught on it - and didn't move.

She stared longer than Gwen expected. Long enough to make the silence between them start to feel personal.

Then, without reaching for it, she said, "It's an old picture."

"No, it's not."

"She used to dress like that all the time."

"Not after the fire," Gwen said. Her voice wasn't loud - it was brittle, pressed thin by disbelief. "This was taken after the house burned. You can see it. That's the wreckage. The warped siding. You can see where the tree fell on the roof."

June still wouldn't touch the photo. "Photos get mixed up in boxes. Dates blur. You don't know what you're seeing."

"It's written right there." Gwen pointed. "October 13th."

Her mother's jaw worked.

Gwen stepped closer. "You said everything was boxed after the funeral. So how could a picture from after the funeral end up in that box?"

"You don't want the answer."

Gwen's stomach dropped. "Try me."

June's expression hardened into something ancient. A face Gwen didn't recognize - not because it had changed, but because she'd never been allowed to see it.

"There are things you don't remember," June said.

Gwen's heart thundered. "Then remind me."

"I've spent ten years trying to forget," June hissed. "Don't you dare drag me back into it."

"You think I'm choosing this?" Gwen's voice cracked for the first time. "I didn't ask for the phone calls. I didn't ask for her voice. I didn't ask for this picture."

"You think Lila is calling you?" June said. "After all this time?"

Gwen didn't answer.

"I was the one who had to identify her body," June went on, voice sharp with something like pain. "I was the one who scrubbed her name off the mailbox. You think this-" she gestured toward the photo "-this is some kind of sign? It's just a trick of light. A mistake."

"No," Gwen said quietly. "It's a crack. And something's leaking through."

June turned away, her hands trembling as she reached for a tea mug that wasn't there. She set her hands flat on the table instead.

"You don't want to remember what happened that night," she said. "You don't."

Gwen swallowed. "Then help me."

But her mother didn't move.

Didn't speak.

Just stood there, spine rigid, hands pressed into the wood.

And the conversation was over.

Gwen drove home with the photo in her coat pocket, folded neatly inside a napkin she found in her glove compartment. She kept checking her rearview mirror the whole way - not for cars, but for something else.

The kind of fear that doesn't know where to land.

The apartment was cold when she entered, darker than usual. She didn't turn on the overhead lights. Just switched on the reading lamp by the window, the one with the soft amber glow that made everything look like it was happening thirty years ago.

She peeled off her coat, laid the photograph on the table, and sat.

The image stared back at her.

Lila, standing in front of a ruin.

Smiling.

It wasn't a casual smile either - not a candid caught mid-laugh. She was looking at the camera. Head slightly tilted. One arm curled behind her back like she was hiding something. Gwen had studied it already, but now, in this light, there was more to notice.

The necklace. A thin silver chain with a round pendant. It wasn't anything Gwen remembered. Lila had never worn anything like it. And her hair was longer than it had been at the funeral.

But Gwen's favorite shirt was visible under the open jacket. The maroon one with the bleach mark on the sleeve. That was hers. Gwen's. Lila was wearing her shirt.

Gwen pressed her fingers into her temples.

The date. October 13th, 1996. Impossible. Provable. Ink that hadn't faded.

Her thoughts swam in loops.

What if she hadn't remembered things right?

What if the official story had been written with blanks?

What if the person she buried wasn't who she thought?

She leaned back and closed her eyes.

The apartment ticked with its usual noises - heater clicking on, water settling in the pipes.

Then-

RING.

Just once.

One, clipped, deliberate ring.

Her eyes snapped open.

The phone didn't flash. The tape didn't roll. But she knew it wasn't a dream.

It had rung.

Not a message. Not a full call.

Just a note.

A signal.

She walked to it slowly, as if approaching a sleeping animal. Touched the cradle. Lifted the receiver.

Silence.

No dial tone.

No click.

Just the hollow hush of a line that didn't know where it was connected.

She lowered the handset gently and backed away.

On the table, the photograph seemed to shine a little brighter in the lamp's circle.

Like it was waiting.