May 20, 1947
Ashford Manor
I’ve started losing time.
This morning I woke with ink on my fingertips and a smear of violet across my wrist. There was a page torn from my journal, folded neatly on the nightstand, in my own handwriting. But I didn’t write it.
It said:
“Meet me at the weeping birch. Midnight. Come alone.”
There’s no signature. No date. Just those few words in my hand, but not in my voice.
I haven’t been to the weeping birch in ages, not since your funeral. I don’t even like to walk past it. You remember why.
I asked Lucy if I’d been out last night. She gave me a strange look and said I hadn’t left the house. Then, softer:
“Not unless you were sleepwalking again.”
Again.
I asked her what she meant. She shook her head and said she’d probably imagined it. But something passed across her face. A flicker. She’s seen something.
Or perhaps I have and simply don’t remember.
I’m afraid to go tonight. But I know I will. I always do what the notes say, don’t I? Even when they frighten me.
There’s something about this house.
It doesn’t hold time the way it used to.
—Calliope.
