Chapter 6

The door creaked open behind me, but I didn’t look up.

I was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the guest room, my room now, technically. The desk was covered in a mess of paper and charcoal. Pages littered the ground like fallen leaves. I stared down at the latest one: another failed attempt to sketch the house from my vision.

I could see it in my mind, sharpened angles and stained wood, but every time I tried to draw the left side, it faded into a blur, like the image dissolved if I pushed too hard to remember it.

“You didn’t come home last night,” Dan said, his voice rough. “I was about to send someone to find you.”

I flinched. I had expected anger, not worry. I kept my eyes on the paper.

“Had a lot on my mind.” He exhaled through his nose. Silence stretched between us. Then he stepped closer, kneeling beside me, careful not to touch the scattered sketches. “You look like you haven’t slept.”

“I tried to,” I muttered. “Didn’t go so well.”

He picked up one of the drawings. His fingers were gentle. “What is all this?” I hesitated. “A house. From a dream. Or maybe a memory. I don’t know.” Dan studied the sketch for a long moment, like he was trying to read a language in the lines. “It looks familiar.”

That made my breath catch. “You’ve seen it?”

He nodded slowly. “I think so. Once, maybe twice. A long time ago. Somewhere out near Ridgewater? My father took me there once when I was a kid. Said the land was cursed.”

Ridgewater. That name didn’t ring a bell, but it tugged at something in my chest.

“I thought I’d remember more when I woke up,” I said, frustrated. “But the vision, whatever it was, vanished the second I opened my eyes. It’s like my brain won’t let me have it.”

Dan tilted his head. “Emerald, what are you?”

The question punched through me harder than expected. I turned to him slowly, and for once, he didn’t look smug or cruel or detached. He looked… concerned. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I thought I was normal. But after yesterday... after the fire... the people with the red eyes, ”

Dan cursed under his breath. “So it’s starting again.”

“What is starting again?” I grabbed his arm. “Dan, you know something. I need answers.” He didn’t pull away. His jaw tightened, but he looked at me like he was deciding whether to protect me or trust me.

“I can’t tell you everything,” he said finally. “But I know this: your father wasn’t just some man who lived off the grid. He was part of something older. Dangerous. That house you’re sketching? It’s not just abandoned. People have died trying to get to it.”

“Why?”

“Because it holds pieces of the truth, and some people will do anything to destroy those pieces before they fall into the wrong hands.”

A chill slithered down my spine. “Whose hands are the wrong ones?” Dan didn’t answer right away. He handed me one of my sketches. “The left side of the house, you keep leaving it out.”

“Because I can’t see it.”

“Maybe your memory isn’t the problem,” he said gently. “Maybe something, or someone, doesn’t want you to.” The thought landed with a thud in my chest. My throat went dry. “You think someone’s trying to block my memory?”

He nodded. “Or distract you.”

I stared at him. “Why are you helping me now?”

He looked away. “Because if someone else finds that house first, it’s not just your past that’s at risk. It’s all of ours.” There was something raw in his voice, fear, maybe, or guilt. It was the first time I saw him not as the cold man I married, but as someone caught in this mess, just like me.

“Someone else is looking, aren’t they?” I asked. “Who?” Dan hesitated again, but this time, I saw it the moment he shut himself off, his expression hardening like a door slowly closing.“All I can say is... Stephany’s not just some office fling. She’s connected, maybe even planted. And she’s not the only one.”

I stared at him, confused. “Connected to what?”

“There are families, Emerald. Old families. Bloodlines are tied to all this. Yours... mine... others. Some are watching. Some are hunting. They’ve been waiting for a moment like this.”

My heart skipped. The memory of the black SUV flashed through my mind. The strange men in the woods. The heat in my chest. My vision. None of it had felt real until now.

“So the people in the SUV, those red-eyed men...” My voice trailed off.

He met my gaze, deadly serious. “They weren’t just after us. They were after you.”

And suddenly, the air didn’t just feel heavy. It felt loaded like the calm before something far worse.

He stood, extending his hand. “We’re going to Ridgewater.”

I blinked. “Now?”

“If we wait, they’ll get there first.”

I hesitated for only a second before grabbing his hand.

This wasn’t just about my father anymore.

It was about all of us, and whatever truth lay hidden behind the part of the house I still couldn’t see.

The drive to Ridgewater was steeped in an uneasy silence. Dan barely spoke, but his hand kept flexing on the steering wheel like he was wrestling with something. I didn’t push. I had too much swirling in my head, the flashes of fire, the men with red eyes, the voice that hadn’t sounded like mine.

We arrived just past dusk.

Ridgewater looked like time had given up on it. Trees leaned too close to the gravel road, overgrown and tangled, whispering things I couldn’t quite catch. The abandoned house, my father’s house, sat crouched in the woods like a memory trying to disappear.

Even from the car, I felt something. Something alive, buried in the bones of this place.

Dan killed the engine. “This is it,” he said quietly.

It didn’t feel like a question.

I stepped out, the cold biting through my sleeves. Moss crawled up the front steps, and the windows stared out like dead eyes. I hugged myself and glanced at Dan.

“You’ve been quiet.”

“I’m processing,” I said. “This place feels… familiar. But like a dream, I forgot the moment I woke up.”

We walked toward the porch. The air felt heavier here. Thicker.

Inside, the house was quiet, and abandoned furniture slouched under dust-covered sheets. The wood beneath our feet groaned like it resented being stepped on. The smell of mildew, old smoke, and something else coppery curled through the air.

“I don’t remember this house,” I murmured, “but I keep seeing pieces of it in my head. Flashes. Fragments.” Dan crouched beside a wall, running his fingers across a set of faint scratch marks. “You drew it. The sketch you made this morning. You saw this hallway.” I nodded. “But not everything. I keep trying to remember the rest, but... something stops me. Like my mind refuses to go further.”

“Memory fragmentation,” Dan said softly, standing again. “Sometimes trauma does that.”

“This place doesn’t feel like trauma. It feels like… prophecy.”

Before he could answer, a sound cracked through the silence, wood splintering from somewhere upstairs. Dan’s head jerked toward the staircase. I froze. Another sound followed slow, deliberate footsteps creaking down the old hallway above. He stepped in front of me, instinctively protective. “Stay close.” I took a step back toward the door, but then, without warning, the porch light flickered to life outside. We both stopped.

And just beyond the dusty glass of the front door, silhouetted by the glow, stood someone.

A tall figure.

Still. Watching.

Neither of us moved.

“Dan…” I whispered, my voice trembling.

“I see them.”

The figure didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just stood there, as if waiting for us to come out or daring us to stay inside.

I couldn’t make out a face. Just the outline. Familiar enough to make my pulse race. Unfamiliar enough to fill my chest with dread.

“Do you think it’s them?” I asked, heart pounding.

“I don’t know,” Dan murmured. “But whoever it is… they knew we’d come here.”

Dan and I didn’t move. The figure outside remained motionless, outlined in the porch light like some kind of omen. A low groan rumbled through the floorboards beneath our feet, so subtle at first, I thought I imagined it. But Dan turned sharply toward the hallway, his expression shifting.

"You felt that?"

I nodded slowly. “What was that?”

Before he could respond, a sudden wind whipped through the room. Except no windows were open. The air turned colder, thicker. The kind of cold that didn’t come from weather, but memory. From something older than either of us. The chandelier above creaked and began to sway, dust raining from its iron arms.

I took a step back. “This house is...”