I didn't tell Clara about the book.
About the pages.
About Noah's name bleeding through.
Because I knew…
It already knew.
---
The house had begun to change again.
Quietly.
No doors slammed.
No glass shattered.
No screams in the dark.
But walls were shifting.
Staircases lengthened.
Closets deepened.
And in the far corner of the second floor—a door appeared that had never been there before.
Simple. White.
No handle.
Just a small spiral carved dead center.
---
Clara never mentioned it.
She walked past it without even looking.
But her footsteps slowed near it.
Just slightly.
Like her body knew more than her mind did.
---
The sprout in the backyard reached her height by the end of the week.
Its bark had turned gray-black, like cooled ash.
Its leaves were red now.
Veined with something that shimmered gold under moonlight.
The kind of red that doesn't belong to plants.
The kind of red that remembers blood.
---
That's when the voice started.
---
It began one night, around 3 a.m.
A single word.
Whispered from the spiral door upstairs.
Soft. Like breath.
Like the house exhaling his name:
> "Noah."
---
Clara froze when she heard it.
We both did.
She looked up at the ceiling like it might collapse inward.
Then turned to me.
> "It's not him," she whispered.
But her eyes… they wanted to believe it was.
---
The next day, she didn't speak.
At all.
She just stood near the door.
Pressing her palm to it.
Listening.
---
At midnight, I woke to find the book on my chest.
I didn't place it there.
And I hadn't touched it in days.
It was open to a fresh page:
> "The voice sealed in bark
Will return in red.
The name that burned
Will bloom again.
But only one may speak it."
---
Underneath that, a phrase etched in my own handwriting:
> "If she says it first, he stays.
If you say it first, he sleeps."
---
Clara came down the stairs slowly.
Like she'd heard it too.
But I could tell—her voice was almost gone.
She tried to say "Mom," but only a rasp came out.
The book had started sealing her now.
Just like it did to me.
But slower. Gentler.
Almost like it wanted her to win.
---
> "He's not in there," I said, nodding to the spiral door.
Clara didn't answer.
She just looked out the window.
Where the tree had once stood.
Where the new one now reached toward the attic window like a hand ready to knock.
---
Then… the spiral door opened.
On its own.
No creak.
No wind.
Just a slow, deliberate swing.
And behind it—nothing.
No hallway.
No room.
Just blackness.
And from within, a sound:
Footsteps.
Small. Bare. Familiar.
And then—
> "Mom?"
It was Noah's voice.
Perfect.
Clear.
Alive.
---
Clara gasped.
Ran toward it.
I screamed, lunged after her—pulled her back.
My voice worked again, sharp with panic.
> "That's not him!"
> "You don't know that!"
> "I do! Because if it was—he wouldn't need a name to come back!"
She looked at me, eyes wild.
> "But what if he's trapped? What if all of this was for that—to bring him back the right way?"
---
From the black doorway:
> "Clara… please."
The voice cracked.
Tears behind it.
Just like Noah's always sounded when he needed her.
---
She took a step forward.
I opened the book.
Pages flipped.
I reached the last one—the final blank.
The ink was already rising.
And two lines began forming at the same time:
> "CLARA — Noah."
"AMELIA — Noah."
Only one would finish.
Only one name would be spoken.
Only one voice would reach him.
---
I looked up.
Clara's lips were opening.
The spiral stitching crawling up her throat, unraveling.
The house leaned forward.
Like it was listening.
Waiting.
---
I did what I had to do.
I spoke his name first.
> "NOAH."
---
The book snapped shut.
The door slammed like thunder.
And Clara collapsed.
---
She didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
She just lay there.
Silent.
And when she looked up at me—
Her eyes were no longer green.
Just dark.
Heavy.
Empty.
Like the root had left her too.
---
We buried the book.
Beneath the new tree.
We didn't speak again for a long time.
---
The spiral door disappeared.
The tree stopped growing.
Clara painted her room black.
I painted mine white.
Opposites in a house we could no longer call haunted.
Because it was no longer angry.
Just quiet.
---
Sometimes I still hear him.
In my dreams.
Not calling me.
Not calling anyone.
Just laughing.
The way he used to.
And then whispering the same thing over and over:
> "I didn't want to come back.
You were supposed to let her say it."