It was well after midnight before the wind started whispering.
Margo woke from sleep, her face against the chill of the pillow, her breathing shallow and slow. Beyond her window, the night breathed — it sighed through the trees as though it had lungs. Shadows crept across the moonlight, inching slowly along the walls like things with too many legs.
Tap… tap… tap…
She was awake.
Tap… tap… tap…
She spun round slowly. Her window — misty, quivering infinitesimally — carried the imprint of a hand slapped against the glass.
A boy's hand.
She sat bolt upright, heart ticking like a timebomb. The hand vanished. She crept over to the window, breath caught in her throat. Looking out into the garden, she saw… no one. Only the still garden. The trees stood like praying figures.
Until she saw him.
Gabriel.
Barefoot on the grass, face pale with moonlight, a smile drawn lightly onto his features. Not unkind. Not cruel. Simply there.
She breathed into the glass, "Gabriel…?"
He made no sound. He lifted his hand again. Waved. Slowly.
And then he was gone, turning away through the trees like a ghost being swallowed by the earth.
Had it been real?
She let her fingers press against the chill of the pane.
The morning after was cinnamon and butter.
Downstairs, Lindsay hummed to herself, flipping pancakes in her pink bathrobe. The radio played a old jazz song — something mournful, blue.
"Good morning, sunshine," Lindsay grinned.
Margo, half groggy, slowly sat down. "Did you see anybody last night? Outside?"
Lindsay hesitated. "Outside? No, why?"
"I thought I saw… somebody. Gabriel."
Lindsay raised an eyebrow but let it fall. "Perhaps it was just a dream, sweetie."
Margo wanted to obey. But something within her taunted. A shiver that clung to her bones like damp.
At school, all was not as it had been.
Gabriel was not in class. George wasn't.
Margo sat next to Vielle, who was unusually quiet. She kept looking at Margo — almost resentful. Her fingers clutched the edge of her sleeve, knuckles white.
"Did you see Gabriel today?" Margo asked.
Vielle glared at her like she'd uttered something disgusting. "Gabriel? You're still going on about him?"
".yeah?"
Vielle leaned forward. Her voice barely above a whisper.
"Margo… do you know that he's not real, huh?"
"What?"
"Gabriel. He does not exist. Nobody in this school has the slightest idea who you're speaking of."
Margo laughed nervously. "Stop. That's not funny."
"I'm serious."
She turned to the girl in front of her. "Hey, did you meet Gabriel yesterday?"
The girl wrinkled her forehead. "Who?"
"The guy I bumped into. Yesterday. Tall, white, gentle voice?"
"No clue what you're even referring to," she said, pulling out her phone as if Margo had wasted her time.
Margo's face went cold. She looked around the room — people were chatting, typing, laughing. Normal. Too normal.
Was it a dream?
No… he touched me. I felt him. He called out my name.
That night, she sat on the edge of her bed, lights off, curtains drawn.
The wind began again.
Tap… tap… tap…
Her eyes flinched.
Please, she begged herself. Please don't be there.
But she glanced.
And he was.
Gabriel. Still. Smiling.
His hand this time wasn't lying at the glass.
It was raised… pointing towards the woods.
And on the window, fog wrote a word:
"Come."
The grass was wet beneath her bare feet.
Margo didn't remember putting her shoes on. She didn't remember opening the front door. But she was outside now — sweater pulled tight around her, the wind combing through her hair like curious fingers.
The moonlight was silver, bleeding over the world like paint water. The woods before her whispered. Every tree looked like it leaned in, watching. Listening.
She stepped forward, heart pounding like a distant drum.
Crunch.
A twig snapped underfoot.
Then she saw them.
Faces — pale, twisted, half-concealed under tree bark. Eyes too wide. Some smiling. Some saying things. Silent.
She didn't move.
One face — a lipless girl — mouthed: "Don't."
Another — black and empty eyes — grinned: "Too late."
Her legs shook, but something drew her on. A string from her chest, thin but unbreakable.
Then…
"Hey."
A voice, as soft as snow.
She turned — and he was there.
Gabriel.
He was the same. Nearly. But different.
His eyes were not quite normal. There was a stillness in them. Not dead — but like one of those still photographs that, somehow, sprang to life.
"Gabriel…" she whispered, her hand falling away. "You're—"
"Real," he said with a soft smile. "I swear."
"But… no one at school has any memory of you. They stare at me like I've lost my mind."
He slowly approached her, hands in his pockets, like they were walking out on some midnight adventure.
"Because they're not supposed to remember me."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not… like them, Margo. I don't go to that school. Not quite."
Her voice had been quivering now. "Then where do you belong?"
Gabriel gazed up. The moon shone in his eyes like glass.
"In-between places. Spaces where time is not linear. Where ideas echo louder than screams. Where people like you might glimpse people like me."
"I don't know," she said. "Why me?"
He moved closer. She didn't flinch.
"Because you're alone. Really alone. The kind of alone that rings. People like us — we seek each other out."
"I'm not alone," she said quickly. "I have Lindsay. I have Vielle."
He cocked his head to one side. "You really think so?"
She faltered.
He moved closer again, inches from her face.
"Tell me this, Margo. If you disappeared tomorrow… would they look for you?"
Her lips parted, but nothing came out.
"Would Lindsay ever smile long enough to knock on doors? Would Vielle say your name over these woods? Or would they just. forget?"
Margo's eyes brim with tears. "That's not true…"
Gabriel's face softens. He reaches out, pushes a strand of hair from her face.
"I don't want to hurt you," he whispers. "I want to be with you. You understand me. You see me. That's rare."
She gazed up at him, the wind slicing between them. "But what are you?"
He smiled once more. "Not a ghost. Not a demon. Just. something that was human, long ago. Before I entered the woods after someone."
"Did they see you too?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied. "But they didn't linger."
"Why?"
His eyes clouded over, for an instant. "They were afraid of what followed."
Before she could speak, something at the back of Gabriel moved.
A moan.
A tree far back in the woods tore itself apart like an opening mouth. Inside it, hands started to come out — dozens of hands. White, curling, grabbing.
"Are they." she breathed.
"Memories," said Gabriel. "Stuff that sticks with you when you don't release."
The hands grabbed at the air as if trying to reach her.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked.
Gabriel regarded her with a kind of wistfulness. "Because I want you to make a choice. You can leave. Forget everything. Pretend it was all a dream. Or…"
He gestured toward the woods, toward the path behind him that pounded like a heartbeat.
"Walk with me. And see where I live."