Home smelled like dust and old wood. I hadn't missed it.
The house was quiet when I got back, too quiet. My parents didn't say much, just nodded at me like they weren't sure who I'd turned into. Most days, I wandered the attic instead. That's where the boxes were.
And the flutes.
Dozens of them, carved from bone and ash, tucked into velvet cases. Some were cracked, some stained darker than they should've been. My father caught me staring once and finally told me the truth—our family didn't just descend from the Pied Piper. We carried his curse. The music could bend things that weren't meant to bend. People. Animals. Minds.
I'd always known, deep down. But hearing it out loud was different.
That night, I wrote to Enid. I didn't tell her everything, just that home was heavy and that the attic was worse. She called me thirty seconds later, not caring about the time difference.
"Okay, mood-killer," she said after listening to me ramble. "But remember, you're not him. You're you. Eli. And I like you, not some creepy ancestor with a rat fetish."
She always knew what to say.
We talked almost every night after that, her voice bouncing through the static on the line. She'd tell me about the latest werewolf gossip or how she was experimenting with new nail colors. I'd tell her about the meadow near my house, where the fireflies looked like lanterns.
Sometimes she'd fall asleep mid-story, the sound of her breathing soft in my ear. I never hung up.
By the second week of July, curiosity got the better of me. I opened one of the velvet cases, just to feel the weight of the flute. It was colder than it should've been, and when I blew a single note, the mice in the walls froze. Every last one.
I shoved it back in the case, heart racing, but later that night I pulled it out again. Then another. Then another.
I didn't like what they made me feel—power, sharp and dangerous, like a blade too close to skin—but I couldn't ignore it either.
So I picked three. Small ones, portable. I wrapped them in cloth and slid them into the bottom of my satchel.
Not to use. Not unless I had to.
Just in case.
By the time August rolled in, the attic didn't scare me anymore. The curse was still there, humming under the floorboards, but so was her voice, steady in the dark.
I started counting the days until I could go back.
Not to Nevermore.
To her.