The humming slithered down the staircase like smoke.
Jonathan Ward held his wife tight, his cheek pressed to her hair, and still the sound wormed in: soft, tuneless, half-breath, half-note. The sound of Evelyn sewing at night, of thread whispering through cloth. Except Evelyn was in his arms. Which meant whatever hummed above had stolen more than her face. It had stolen her habit.
His stomach turned to stone. He wanted to shout up the stairs, to tell it to stop, but he bit his tongue. The house listened. He'd learned that already. Words were nails in these walls, permanent as ink.
Gregor Hale stood by the door, Elise draped against his chest like a broken doll, her silver eyes open but unfocused. He was listening too—head tilted, jaw tight, like a hound scenting smoke.
"Is it… me?" Evelyn whispered. Her voice was hoarse with terror.
Jonathan pulled back enough to see her face. "It sounds like you, but it isn't you."
The humming grew louder. Steps creaked overhead. The boards groaned like teeth grinding.
"Salt," Gregor said. "Lay it at the foot of the stairs. Make the house choose."
Jonathan stumbled to the stove, grabbed the jar, and poured a rough white line across the first tread. His hands shook, spilling too much. Evelyn flinched at the hiss the granules made against the wood.
The humming paused. The thing upstairs had noticed.
Jonathan's heart hammered. "Why does it sound like her?" he whispered.
Gregor didn't take his eyes off the stairwell. "Because it remembers what you remember. That's how it hunts."
The humming resumed, softer now, taunting.
Jonathan squeezed Evelyn's hand. "Stay here. Don't cross the salt."
She nodded, though her eyes flicked toward the stairs with a haunted guilt, as though she feared her own shadow might betray her.
From Gregor came a sound almost like a sigh. "It won't stay up there. It will want the door."
Jonathan turned on him. "Then stop it."
Gregor's gaze was iron. "I can't unless you command me. This is your house. Not mine."
The humming broke into laughter—Evelyn's laugh, but stretched too thin, like a child imitating.
Jonathan's skin crawled. He lifted his truncheon, felt how pitiful it was against something made of memory and hunger. He set his jaw anyway.
"I'll go up," he said.
Evelyn's fingers clutched his sleeve. "No. Please."
"I have to," Jonathan said, though he didn't know if it was true.
Gregor shifted Elise's weight, eyes unreadable. "If you go, speak nothing you can't unsay. It will try to make you give. Don't."
Jonathan grabbed the lamp from the table. The flame quivered in the glass as he set his boot on the first stair, just behind the salt-line. The wood groaned, but the line held. He lifted his foot over and climbed.
Each step was heavier. The humming swelled, coming from the hallway at the top.
The second-floor landing was narrow, the plaster walls cracked where rain had seeped over years. The bedroom door stood ajar. The light from his lamp spilled across the threshold, catching the corner of the quilt Evelyn had sewn their first winter together.
And in the doorway stood Evelyn.
Not the one downstairs. This one smiled, braid loose, nightdress trailing. Her lips moved with the hum, soft and steady.
"Jonathan," she said, tilting her head just right, the way Evelyn always did when teasing him. "Why don't you come in? It's warmer here."
Jonathan's grip tightened on the lamp. "You're not her."
She laughed lightly. "Then who am I? I remember your coat hem. I remember your father's coin. I remember the ribbon—red, because the day was gray. Didn't I say that?"
Jonathan's throat closed. The words were perfect. They were his.
From below, Evelyn shouted, "Don't listen!"
The upstairs Evelyn's smile sharpened. "She would say that. She's jealous. I'm the one who hummed you to sleep when the rain leaked through the roof."
The lamp guttered. Jonathan forced breath into his lungs. "If you're her, what was the first word you ever spoke to me?"
The false Evelyn tilted her head. "Jonathan."
His stomach lurched. Of course it was. Evelyn had spoken his name the first time they met, in the square, when she offered him bread because he'd been standing too long in the rain.
The thing knew it. It knew everything.
Jonathan staggered back a step. "No," he whispered.
The false Evelyn stepped forward. Her bare foot pressed the quilt and left no weight. "Invite me," she murmured. "Keep me."
Jonathan's heart rattled his ribs.
From below, Gregor's voice rose, iron in the air: "It cannot cross unasked. Hold your tongue."
Jonathan clamped his jaw shut. His teeth ached.
The false Evelyn's eyes burned brighter. "Then I'll ask," she purred. She turned her gaze down the stairwell.
"Evelyn Ward," she called, voice dripping sweetness. "Invite me."
Jonathan froze. His Evelyn's breath caught below.
The false Evelyn leaned against the frame, smile wide. "Sister-self," she crooned. "Don't you want to keep us together?"
The real Evelyn's voice shook. "I… I…"
Jonathan's chest locked. "Don't!" he shouted.
The false Evelyn's smile sharpened. She started humming again, and the house hummed with her—the beams, the glass, even the lamp in Jonathan's hand. The wood under his boots thrummed.
And then Elise screamed.
Her voice cut the house in half. High, raw, nothing human left in it. Her silver eyes blazed, and in the scream was another word—the impossible one, the latch-lifting syllable.
The false Evelyn reeled back. The humming shattered into shrieks. Plaster cracked overhead. Dust rained down.
Jonathan clutched the banister. The lamp flame died, plunging him into shadow.
The false Evelyn crouched in the doorway, eyes glowing, mouth distorting into something wider than a face should hold. She hissed, voice layered:
"If you won't keep me, I'll take her."
She lunged—not down the stairs, but across, into the wall itself. The plaster split like paper. The thing vanished inside, leaving the house moaning.
Jonathan's knees shook. He half-stumbled, half-ran down to the sitting room. Evelyn clung to him, trembling. Elise lay panting on the settee, her body slack, eyes dim again.
Gregor stood by the hearth, arms crossed, watching the wall above them crack hairline fractures down to the floor.
"It's in the house," Jonathan gasped.
Gregor's iron eyes flicked to him. "It always was."
And then the floorboards split open at their feet.