Chapter 7 The Creek Memory
Sleep doesn’t reach me again.
Not after the voicemail. Not after hearing her voice.The voice that’s been dead for twelve years. Whispering my name through a line that shouldn’t exist.
I sit curled at the end of the couch, knees to my chest, staring at the dark TV screen like it’s a portal and I’m afraid of what might look back. Eli hasn’t moved far. He leans forward in the armchair, elbows on his knees, watching the front door, the window, me, everything at once.
He doesn’t push. Doesn’t ask questions. He just waits.
The clock ticks past two.
My mind won’t stop replaying the voicemail:
"Seraphina?
Seraphina, please.
You have to remember.
He-"
He who?
My body knows the answer, my mind refuses to surface. I press both palms to my eyes, breathing around the ache building in my throat.
“Sera.”
I lift my head.
Eli’s still leaning forward, voice barely above a whisper. “Come here.”
The words unravel me. I slide off the couch and sit on the floor near his feet. Ground-level. Safer.
He shifts so we’re eye level. “Tell me what you heard.”
“I can’t-”
“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “Start anywhere.”
His steadiness is a lifeline.
“The way she said my name,” I whisper. “She sounded… scared.”
“Not angry?”
“No. Not like the postcard. This was pleading.”
He exhales. “Voicemails can be spoofed. It could be Marcus. It could be-”
“It wasn’t Marcus.”
I know Marcus’s voice like I know the sound of panic in my own chest. This wasn’t him. The trembling, the breathlessness, the familiarity-
It was Kahlia.
I open my mouth to say it, but a scent hits me.
Wet earth. Algae. Sun on murky water.
The creek.
The room tilts.
“Sera?” Eli stands instantly.
“I- don’t feel right.”
My hands go numb. My breath catches. The living room falls away like someone pulled a curtain.
And suddenly...
I’m standing in the creek again.
Humidity clings to my skin. The sky is overripe blue. Water churns around my ankles. My legs look younger, smaller, fifteen, maybe sixteen.
Laughter rings beside me.
Kahlia.
She splashes me, curls wild in the sun. She’s smiling at least, at first. Eli sits on the bank, skipping stones, pretending not to stare at us the way he always did.
“Stop pouting,” she teases.
“I’m not pouting.”
“You are. Your face does that thing when you’re lying.”
Eli snorts. Heat climbs my cheeks.
“You two are impossible,” I mutter.
Kahlia throws an arm around me. “We’re perfect.”
Then she freezes.
Her body stiffens against mine. Her gaze lifts over my shoulder. I turn.
A man stands on the far bank.
Tall. Shadowed. Watching us.
My stomach flips.
I know that silhouette. The shoulders. The tilt of the head.
Marcus?
No. That’s impossible. I didn’t meet Marcus until college.
Except memory can lie to protect you.
Kahlia squeezes my arm. “Don’t talk to him.”
“Why? Who is he?”
Her voice cracks. “He said- he said he’d-”
The wind swallows the rest.
“Kahlia,” I plead. “Tell me.”
She starts crying.
The man steps closer, water sloshing around his shoes. Kahlia shoves me back toward Eli.
“No! Don’t let him-”
The world tilts.
The water darkens.
Kahlia slips. Falls. Her hand clamps around my wrist, nails digging deep. I reach for her other hand, but something yanks her from behind.
She screams, and the memory shatters.
I jolt back into my living room, gasping, gripping the carpet like I’m afraid it will swallow me. Eli crouches in front of me but doesn’t touch, hands hovering.
“Sera, talk to me. What did you see?”
“The creek,” I sob. “I was there. And she-”
I choke. My chest won’t open.
Eli drops to his knees. “Look at me. Breathe.”
I lift my eyes. His face inches from mine, worry etched deep, soft underneath, terrified for me.
“You’re safe,” he whispers. “What happened?”
“I remember her screaming,” I choke out. “Someone pulled her. Someone she knew.”
His eyes sharpen.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Just a shadow. A man.”
He swallows. “Sera… was I there?”
The question slices me open.
“No. You were on the bank. Not when she screamed.”
Relief flares through him, sharp, then fades into something darker.
“But she screamed my name,” he murmurs.
“I know.”
He drags a hand through his hair. “We argued before she disappeared. I told you that. But I wasn’t at the creek when-”
A heavy thump sounds upstairs.
We both freeze.
“Is Maya awake?” he whispers.
“No.” My voice trembles. “That wasn’t her room.”
Eli steps in front of me, shielding me instinctively.
“Stay behind me.”
We move up the stairs quietly, each step deliberate. The hallway is pitch-black. Eli flips the switch.
Nothing.
The lights don't come on.
He mutters under his breath, moving cautiously toward the attic hatch.
“Sera,” he whispers. “Look.”
The attic string is swinging.
Slowly. Like someone just pulled it.
The air is still.
Eli’s jaw hardens. “Stay here.”
“Eli-”
“I mean it.”
He pulls the string. The attic ladder groans down, dust falling like ash.
He climbs two rungs and peers in.
He goes completely still.
“What?” I whisper. “What do you see?”
His voice is a low, shocked rasp.
“Sera… you need to come up here.”
My heartbeat stutters. “Why? What is it?”
“Just- look.”
I climb the last few steps and freeze.
The shoebox sits exactly where I left it…except the lid is cracked open.
My stomach drops.
“I-I didn’t leave it like that,” I whisper. “It was shut earlier. Completely shut.”
Eli looks back at me sharply. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
He doesn’t question me. He just turns back to the box, jaw tightening.
“And there’s something inside now.”
A cold wave rips down my spine.
“What?”
Eli reaches in slowly, cautious like he expects something to bite.
When he pulls his hand back, he’s holding something small.
Metal. Tarnished. Impossible.
He steps down a rung, turning toward me with that expression I’ve only seen once, the night Kahlia died.
He opens his palm, and I nearly collapse.
A bracelet.
Kahlia’s bracelet.
The one she wore the night she died. The one I saw on her wrist as she screamed. The one that was supposed to be buried with her.
My breath stutters out of me.
“Eli,” I whisper, voice cracking. “That wasn’t here earlier.”
He nods, voice barely audible.
“It seems like someone put this up here tonight.”
A heavy silence fills the hallway, thick and suffocating. Holding the bracelet of a dead girl, I suddenly understand:
This isn’t a haunting.
This isn’t a warning.
This is a message.
Someone wants me to remember.
And someone else wants me to stay afraid.