Chapter 9

Elliot has barely recognised his own life by the end of the week.

Somehow, between the supernatural chaos, the research with Harper, his new relationship with Sam, and the constant orbit they’d fallen into, they both had still managed to keep up with their responsibilities.

Sam kept on top of her uni projects, scribbling near, colour-coded notes at every spare moment. Elliot had caught up on work, finished a design prototype, and even answered the backlog of emails he’d been avoiding.

In the strangest way, despite everything, their lives had grown more organised, more stable, just by being close to each other.

And now he was standing in the attic, in Room 6, in his new room, feeling for the first time since he moved into the house, like he had the space to breathe.

He’d rung Mr Caldwell on Monday afternoon, half-expecting the landlord to brush off his request to move rooms. Instead, Caldwell had barely blinked.

“Room 6? Keys are on the hook in the kitchen. Rents higher. Let me know when you’ve moved.” He has on the phone barely 3 minutes.

David had offered to help immediately, refusing any payment with a firm shake of his head, and together they’d dismantled Elliot's desk from Room 5, carried it up a flight of stairs, and rebuilt it sturdily in the attic. This time, the screws sat straight, every leg even, every surface firm. David worked with quiet efficiency that surprised Elliot, barely needing the instructions.

Now, the attic room was warm, calm, and softly lit. it didn’t feel like part of the same house at all.

A thick, well-cared-for carpet covered the floor, laid down years earlier by a previous tenant who, according to Harper, “Had taste nobody else in the house deserved.” The walls were painted a gentle eggshell white that caught the afternoon sun beautifully. The slanted ceiling dipped gracefully over the space, and the large window, centred directly above the bed, spilled natural light across the duvet.

Elliot stood by the doorway, taking it in.

The layout already felt familiar: the rebuilt desk sat along the left wall, just inside the door, perfectly level thanks to David’s handiwork; the double bed rested against the back wall, its sturdy wooden frame flanked by matching bedside tabled and topped with the new duvet Sam had insisted they buy. Along the right wall stood the heavy solid wardrobe that Sam had eyes with a smirk before teasing, “Don’t murder this one.” And beneath the front wall’s gentle slope of ceiling were the two wide chests of drawers, now neatly arranged side by side, one already claimed by Sam’s TV, its cable tucked carefully behind. The room felt settled, lived-in, and not just by him.

Technically, the attic room was his and his alone. But Elliot couldn’t see it that way. Not when Sam had settled so naturally into the space. Not when the thought of her spending nights beside Room 2 made his chest tighten. And even though Room 3 was still hers on paper, still the room she paid rent for, it had begun to look more like a placeholder than a bedroom. Over the last few days her belongings had quietly migrated upstairs: three-quarters of the wardrobe now held her clothes, the entire left set of drawers belonged to her, and even the right-hand drawers had started filling with folded t-shirts and pyjamas she had brought up. Her textbooks lived on the desk, her bathrobe hung from his chair, her uni bag hung from hers. Her hairbrush sat lay on one bedside table.

Elliot wasn’t annoyed by any of it. If anything, her felt warm. Grounded. Like the room had already shaped itself around the two of them, not just him alone.

Room 6 felt safe. Separate from Room 2. Separate from the strange weight of the floors below. Closer to Sam.

Elliot has just finished stacking the last of Sam’s lecture notes on the desk when his phone buzzed.

Sam: Be back in 5 mins xx

A smile warmed his face before he could help it. He slipped the phone into his pocket and headed down the stairs, heartbeat picking up with every step. The house felt unusually still, like it was holding its breath with him.

He reached the hallway and hovered near the front door, unable to sit still. Five minutes suddenly felt like half an hour. He checked the time. Then the door. Then the time again. His foot tapped a nervous rhythm against the worn floorboards.

When the latch finally clicked, he stood up straighter without meaning to.

The door swung inward, and Sam stepped inside, wrapped in her favourite grey coat, hair slightly windswept, bag slipping off her shoulder. The second she saw him, everything in her face softened; her smile, her eyes, her whole posture melting into relief.

“Hi,” she breathed.

Elliot didn’t even answer. He crossed the hall in two steps and took her into his arms.

She collided with him in a quiet, aching sort of way; arms pulling tightly around his neck, her face burying into the side of his jaw. He held her just as tightly, lifting her a fraction off the ground before letting her settle against him again. They stayed like that, swaying slightly, the chill of the outside air fading between them.

“I missed you,” she whispered into his shoulder, voice small and honest.

He closed his eyes, forehead resting gently against her temple. “I missed you too. A lot.”

She pulled back just enough to look up at him. Her eyes were warm, shining with something soft and certain. He cupped her cheek without thinking, and she leaned into the touch as if she’d been waiting all day for it.

Their kiss wasn’t rushed; it was slow, relieved, familiar despite being new. Her fingers curled lightly into the back of his shirt. His thumb stroked her cheekbone. It was the kind of kiss that didn’t demand anything, just acknowledge what had already been building.

When they finally separated, breath mingling in the quiet hallway, she smiled up at him and with that shy, radiant expression he was starting to recognise as uniquely Sam.

“Come on,” she murmured, threading her fingers thought his. “Let’s go upstairs.”

And hand in hand, they climbed toward Room 6, the room that was supposed to be his, but already felt unmistakably theirs.

Room 6’s door clicked softly behind them as Sam and Elliot stepped inside still holding hands, their fingers interlaced like they hadn’t been separated at all. The attic room felt warm and lived-in now; clothes draped over chairs, textbooks stacked on the desk, two mugs from earlier in the week still sitting on the bedside table. Ti smelled faintly of Sam’s vanilla shampoo and Elliot’s fabric softener, something faintly sweet and familiar.

They sank onto the edge of the bed at the same time, knees bumping, shoulders touching. Sam let out a long breath; a quiet exhale that sounded like relief finally escaping her chest. Elliot felt it against his arm, the tension he’d been carrying since last night eased just a little.

Then Elliot shifted, turning toward her, thumb brushing over her knuckles.

“I, um… slept like shit without you,” he admitted, voice soft, almost embarrassed by the honesty. “The room felt… wrong. Too big. Too empty.”

Sam’s expression softened instantly, warm and tender. “I know,” she whispered. “I barely slept either.”

She lifted their joined hands and rested them against her chest for a moment, as if grounding herself.

“I kept waking up and reaching for you,” she confessed with a shy little laugh. “Like my brain forgot I wasn’t here. I think my mum thought I was jet-lagged or something.”

Elliot couldn’t help smiling, something bright and grateful blooming behind his ribs. It was ridiculous how much he’d missed her; barely twenty-four hours apart and it felt like a week.

“I really did miss you,” Sam added, quieter now, almost afraid of saying it too boldly.

Elliot squeezed her hand, gentle and certain. “I missed you too.”

Those four words hung between them for a long moment, warm and sincere, pulling them closer without either of them having to move.

And slowly, naturally, Sam leaned her head onto his shoulder. Elliot let his cheek rest against the top of her hair. Outside the single skylight, the sky was beginning to dim, and in the soft fading light, being together again felt like the only thing that made sense.

Sam settled a little closer, her knee brushing his. The exhaustion had faded from her face, replaced by a warm, content expression that was still a little frayed at the edges.

“So… how was it?” Elliot asked, keeping his voice low, almost hesitant. “Your family thing.”

Sam huffed a tiny laugh, tipping her head back. “Chaotic. Loud. Exactly what you’d expect from a Patel family gathering, honestly.”

He smiled. “Tell me.”

She did.

Words spilled out of her softly, the way they always did when she wasn’t trying to filter anything:

How her mum spent the whole afternoon darting between rooms making sure everyone was fed even though everyone was already fed twice over.

How the house was full of people she loved, and yet she couldn’t shake the weird, hollow feeling that she was missing something important.

“That something was you,” she added quietly, leaning into him without thinking. “I kept trying to study between everything, but every time I took a break, I’d… I don’t know. Reach for you. Expecting you to be there.”

Elliot's breath stilled for a beat.

She fiddled with the hem of his sleeve. “And then I’d remember you weren’t. and it just felt wrong.”

He swallowed, jaw tightening with the effort to keep the emotion steady. “Sam…”

“I know it sounds dramatic,” she cut in gently. “It was just one night. But even surrounded by my whole family. I still-”

She hesitated, embarrassed by how honest she was being.

“-missed you,” she finished, voice soft as breath.

Elliot cupped her cheek with one hand, thumb brushing along her skin. “It doesn’t sound dramatic,” he murmured. “I missed you too. More than I expected to.”

Her eyes flicked up at him, wide and warm.

“And for the record,” he added, “I’d love to meet your family one day. No pressure, just… if you ever want that.”

A shy smile bloomed across her face, slow and unguarded. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I’d really like that.”

The quiet that followed was warm rather than awkward, settling over them like a soft blanket. Sam rested her cheek against his shoulder, her fingertips idly tracing a slow line along the inside of his arm as if reassuring herself he was really here this time.

“I’m glad you moved rooms,” she murmured eventually, voice lower.

Elliot turned his head slightly, breathing in the faint scent of her hair; shampoo from last night, a soft vanilla he’d already come to associate with comfort. “Me too,” he said. “Feels… safer up here.”

Her fingers paused.

He hesitated only a second before adding, “Feels like home because you’re in it.”

That made her look up with wide eyes at first that softened, then warmed in a way that made his heart flutter. She didn’t blush dramatically; instead, her expression melted into something tender, something sure.

She shifted slightly, her knees brushing his. “Good,” she whispered. “Because I’m not leaving.”

Eventually, Sam straightened a little. “We should get ready for bed,” she said softly, though she didn’t move away from him.

They stood together, the familiar ease between them growing deeper, steadier.

This time, there was no shy shuffle to opposite corners of the room, no careful choreography to avoid seeing each other undress. The awkwardness of earlier days had faded, replaced with a quiet trust neither of them had spoken into existence, it was simply there.

Elliot pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside, the lamplight throwing warm gold across his shoulders and chest. He saw Sam’s eyes flick toward him before she caught herself, lips twitching with a tiny, guilty smile.

Sam peeled off her jumper, then her top, then her jeans, standing in her underwear and bra for a moment as she reached for the oversized t-shirt hanging from his chair. She turned her back only when unclasping her bra, more habit than modesty, giving him an unobstructed view of the smooth lines of her bare back, the soft dip of her spine, the delicate movements of her shoulders as she slipped the straps down her arms. Something inside him tightened, warm and protective all at once.

The t-shirt fell over her like water; too big, hanging mid-thigh, sleeves swallowing most of the length of her arms. She looked impossibly beautiful in it.

Elliot stepped out of his jeans and into his sleep shorts, feeling none of the old self-consciousness. The air between them throbbed with a quiet awareness, not rushed or frantic, just real.

When she turned back, they both paused for a heartbeat, taking each other in. a silent, shared thought hung in the air: This is ours now.

Sam smiled first, slow and soft. “Bed?”

“Yeah,” he said, voice rougher than intended.

They slipped beneath the duvet, naturally gravitating toward each other. Sam curled into his chest, her leg sliding over his hip, her hand finding its familiar place against his ribs. Elliot wrapped his arms around her, fitting her against him like they’d spent years learning the shape of each other.

Her breath warmed his collarbone. His chin rested lightly atop her head.

The worlds outside the attic felt far away; Muted. Harmless. Irrelevant.

Sam exhaled, long and contented. They drifted toward sleep tangled together, not from fear or necessity this time, but simply because it felt right.

They were still wrapped around each other when the shouting jolted them, awake.

It wasn’t a gradual stir or the soft awareness of morning; it was a sharp, sudden rise from sleep, hearts beating, bodies tensing. Elliot blinked into the dim light filtering through the attic window, unsure at first if he was dreaming. But the voices rose again, muffled but unmistakably heated, echoing up from the floor below.

Jordan. Angry. Loud.

Harper. Crying.

Sam instantly pushed herself upright, her hand gripping Elliot's arm. “What-what’s happening?”

He didn’t know. But the tone, the slam, the crack of pain in Harper’s voice snapped them both awake.

A heavy thud rattled up through the boards beneath them. 

Jordan and Harper’s door.

Followed by the crash of footsteps storming down the landing.

Elliot and Sam shared a wide-eyed look, the same thought passing between them without being spoken.

Something was very wrong.

Before either remembered what they weren’t wearing, they were already out of bed. Elliot grabbed the closest shirt to throw over his bare torso, btu there was no time to fully dress. Not when Harper sounded like that.

They rushed to the attic door, pulled it open, and hurried down the narrow staircase, feet cold against the wood. The air felt charged as they descended.

Halfway down to the second floor, they paused only because they had to, pressed shoulder to shoulder, listening.

Room 4’s door slammed. Hard.

Jordan stomped past without even glancing at them, jaw tight, face flushed, eyes glossed with something between betrayal and fury. He didn’t speak. Didn’t look back. Didn’t hesitate. He just left, front door slamming behind him.

Elliot and Sam exchanged another shaken glance.

Then Sam said, “Harper,” and kept moving.

Sam reached Room 4 first. The door was closed, trembling faintly in its frame from the earlier slam.

She knocked gently with her knuckles. “Harper? It’s me. I’m coming in, okay?”

There was no verbal response, just a muffled sound. The kind of sound someone make when trying and failing to stop themselves crying.

Sam didn’t wait. She pushed the door open softly.

Harper was sitting on the floor beside her bed, knees drawn up, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. In her hands she held a single sheet of paper, thin, yellow, and fragile with age, the edges curled, the ink faded, the handwriting looping and elegant.

Sam crossed the room in seconds, sinking beside Harper and wrapping her arms around her without hesitation. Harper clutched her back instantly, burying her face into Sam’s shoulder, the paper crinkling weakly in her grip.

Harper drew in a shaky breath and held the page out for Elliot, her fingers trembling so faintly he almost missed it. Sam kept one arm wrapped securely around Harper’s shoulders, rubbing small circles between her shoulder blades.

Elliot stepped closer, still in just his sleep shorts and t-shirt, feet cold against the landing floorboards.  “What is it?” he asked softly. “Can I see?”

Harper swallowed hard and nodded.

Up close, the paper looked even older; the edges browned and feathered, the ink faded to a soft, ghost brown. It felt fragile just looking at it. Elliot took it gently, careful not to crease or crumple it.

His breath caught.

It wasn’t just writing. It was intimate. Raw. Painfully earnest.

He read slowly, absorbing each line:

My dearest,

You slept long into the morning, and I watched the rise and fall of your breath, counting each one as though it was a gift I had not earned.

I fear the days are taking more from you. Small pieces I cannot catch, though I try.

When you did not know me yesterday, my heart broke for the first time in my life. And yet, when you smiled today, even not knowing my name, I loved you as fiercely as the day we wed.

I will endure every forgetting, every slip, every last moment if it means I may have even one more day with you.

Yours, forever,

Thomas

Elliot’s chest tightened. He blinked hard, trying to clear the sting in his eyes. “This… this is a love letter,” he said quietly. “It’s-god, it’s heartbreaking.”

Harper let out a small, wounded sound, half laugh, half sob. “Jordan didn’t even read it to the end, he saw the first times and just assumed-” Her voice cracked. Sam pulled her in tighter.

“He thought it was modern?” Elliot asked, stunned.

Harper nodded miserably. “He said the paper looked fancy. Like I hid it somewhere. He didn’t believe me when I said I’d never seen it before.”

Elliot took in the letter again, the brittle paper, the faded ink, the spelling, the phrasing.

No modern pen had ever written this. The whole thing smelled faintly of dust and age and history.

“This isn’t new,” Elliot said firmly, lowering it so Harper could see he meant it. “This is Victorian. Easily.”

Harper pressed trembling fingers to her mouth, eyes glassy. “He wouldn’t even listen long enough for me to show him. He took one look and-” She shook her head, shoulders hunching. “He stormed out before I could even get the words out.”

Sam squeezed her gently. “He’ll realise he was wrong,” she murmured. “You know he will.”

Elliot glanced again at the letter, a window into Thomas’s grief, a lot piled with desperation and devotion, he felt the weight of it settling in his chest, heavy and cold.

The rest of the morning blurred past in strained quiet. After the confrontation in Room 4, Harper stayed in her room to breathe and collect herself. Elliot and Sam retreated back upstairs to ger dressed properly, neither of them speaking much, both shaken for different reasons.

By the early afternoon, the house felt oddly hollow. Jordan hadn’t returned. David was still at work. Harper eventually came and thanked Sam.

The lull that followed was gentle but unease. Elliot settled at the kitchen table with his laptop, half-working, half-worrying about everything happening under the roof. Sam had been studying across from him for a while, but eventually stretched, sighed, and stood.

“I left one of by books upstairs,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” 

A minute passed, maybe two.

Then a sound; a violent, tearing screen from the first floor.

Sam’s voice.

Elliot's chair skipped backwards as he bolted for the staircase, heart hammering. Harper, startled in the living room, sprinted after him.

Elliot hit the first-floor landing just two steps ahead of Harper, breath burning in his chest. Sam’s scream still rang in his ears; high, terrified, nothing like the startled yelps he’d heard from her before. This one had torn straight through him.

Room 3’s door was wide open.

Sam was on the floor just inside, knees drawn up, fingers gripping the carpet. Her whole body shook. Her face was pale, eyes wide and unfocussed, as though she wasn’t entirely back in the room yet.

“Sam?” Elliot dropped to his knees beside her so fast he barely felt the impact. “Sam, hey. Sweetheart, talk to me. What happened?”

She startled at the sound of his voice, then latched onto him, curling into his torse with a choked sob. The force of it nearly knocked him backward. Elliot wrapped his arms around her instantly, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other pulling her fully against him.

Harper stood in the doorway, breathless, eyes darting around the room. “What-what happened? Sam, are you hurt?”

Sam shook her head against Elliot's chest, but the movement was jerky, panicked.

Elliot guided her chin up gently so he could see her face. Her eyes were glassy, unfocussed. “Sam, look at me. What did you see?”

She swallowed, a tremor running through her shoulders. “There was-” Her voice broke. She tried again. “There was someone in my room.”

Elliot felt every muscle in his body tighten. “Someone? As in… someone actually here?”

“I…” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Not someone. A shape. A figure. Dark. Standing by my bed. It-” Her breath hitched. “It was right there.”

Harper pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh my god…”

Elliot held Sam tighter. He looked toward the bed. Nothing. Just the duvet slightly ruffled, pillows askew. But there, spread carefully across the duvet, were several sheets of old paper.

Not modern paper. Not fresh. Edges curled. Ink browned with age.

The sight of them made goosebumps sweep up his arms.

“What is that?” Harper stepped toward the bed but didn’t touch anything.

Sam clung to Elliot’s sleeve as she spoke again, voice smaller than he’d ever heard it. “It wasn’t there when I walked in. it was just the shape. Then I screamed and when I looked again it was gone. And those were on the bed.”

Elliot kissed the top of her head, grounding them both. “It’s alright. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

He wasn’t sure he believed that, but he needed her to.

Harper leaned closer to the papers, eyes widening. “These are… invoices? Letters?” She didn’t dare pick them up. “They have her name on them. Eleanor Caldwell.”

Elliot's blood ran cold. Pieces of the past, delivered to them again. this time in Sam’s room.

“It’s okay,” he murmured against her hair. “I’m right here. I’m not leaving you.”

Sam clutched his shirt like a lifeline. “Please don’t.”

“Never.”

Behind them, Harper stepped back from the bed. Face pale. “This isn’t random anymore,” she whispered. “It’s… it’s deliberate. It’s showing us things.”

Elliot held Sam tighter. He knew Harper was right, and that terrified him more than anything in the house so far.

Harper fetched the discarded pages from the duvet, careful not to touch more than the edges. Elliot caught a glimpse of the brittle paper as she set them gently on Sam’s desk; old invoices, strange letters, all dated more than a century ago.

But Sam didn’t look at them. She pressed her forehead into Elliot's shoulder, trembling again.

“Let’s get you out of here,” he murmured.

He helped her stand, one arm firmly around her waist. Harper guided them to the hallway, papers back in hand, closing the door behind them as if that alone might keep the room at bay. Sam leaned heavily against Elliot as they stepped onto the landing.

They ended up sitting on the top stair for a few minutes, Sam curled into his side, Elliot keeping one protective arm around her. Harper sat on her knees behind her, rubbing Sam’s back in quiet circles.

No one spoke for a while. The house was still, and every breath echoed faintly down the corridor.

Eventually, Sam whispered, voice fragile, “It wasn’t a trick of the light. It was someone. Someone standing over my bed.”

Elliot tightened his hold. “I believe you.”

Her shoulders loosened the tiniest bit at that, as though she’d been bracing for disbelief.

Harper nodded solemnly. “Whatever this is… whatever the house is showing us… it’s getting stronger.”

Elliot pressed a gently kiss into Sam’s hair. “We’ll deal with it together.”

Sam closer her eyes, leaning into him fully now, letting herself be held while her heartbeat slowly found something close to normal. She wasn’t steady yet. Not even close. But with Elliot beside her, she seemed able to breathe again.

By the time the sun dipped low behind the neighbouring houses, the three of them had migrated to the kitchen. No one had suggested it aloud; it was simply where their feet carried them once Sam felt steady enough to stand again. The kettle boiled in the background, steam fogging the window. Harper sat at the kitchen table with the papers spread out carefully before her, as though afraid any sudden movement might cause them to crumble to dust.

Elliot hadn’t stopped keeping a hand on Sam’s back. She still flinched whenever the floorboards creaked, but the trembling had eased into something closer to dazed exhaustion.

Harper exhaled slowly, lifting one of the pages between her fingertips.

“Look at the ink,” she murmured. “This isn’t staged. It’s… old.”

The invoice was dated 1891, stamped by a physician from London, the handwriting precise but hurried, too hurried for anyone trying to forge something ornate. The next page detailed an “apothecary remedy,” a dark brown stain along the corner where something had long ago seeped into it. And last was a letter requesting a consultation with a travelling healer whose credentials were described in flowery, suspiciously grand language.

Sam wrapped both hands around her mug of tea, drawing in the warmth. “It was on my bed,” she whispered. “Just… there. Right where the shadow was.”

Elliot sat beside her, close enough that their knees pressed together. “You didn’t touch any of this before we came in?”

She shook her head immediately. “No. I just screamed and fell back. I didn’t go near the bed again.”

Harper let out a low breath and lowered the pages back onto the table. “So whatever’s in the house wanted us to see them.”

Elliot rubbed a hand across his face. “It’s not just showing random things anymore. It’s curating. Choosing.”

Sam swallowed. “And it keeps choosing me.”

He took her hand under the table and squeezed.

Harper’s voice softened. “We’ll figure it out. All of us. You’re not going through this alone.”

The kitchen fell quiet after that. The last of the orange light slipped away from the sky, leaving the room washed in muted greys.

Sam leaned her head lightly on Elliot’s shoulder. “We should put these somewhere safe,” he murmured.

“Yeah,” Harper agreed. “Let’s keep them together. We can go through them properly later… maybe after David gets home.”

They all nodded, though none of them said what they were thinking: David didn’t know yet.

The front door clicked open softly; nothing urgent or loud, just a small, tired sound that carried down the hallway. Elliot glanced up from the kitchen table, Sam’s legs draped across his lap as she leaned against the wall, and met Harper’s eyes across the room. She looked just as alert as he suddenly felt.

David stepped into view.

Even from a distance, Elliot could see something was wrong. David’s shoulders slumped forward, the usual steady calm in his expression had been hollowed out. He closed the door behind him with deliberate care, as though even that tiny movement required more energy than he had.

“David?” Elliot asked, voice gentle but edged with concern. “You okay?”

David hesitated just long enough for the answer to reveal itself, then shook his head weakly. “Not… really,” he said, and his voice cracked in a way Elliot had never heard before.

Sam shifted, lifting her legs from Elliot’s lap so she could sit upright beside him. Harper had already stood, taking a cautious step toward the hallway.

David’s eyes shone with something raw an exhausted.

“I…” he swallowed, dragged a hand across his face. “I got a call at work. My dad… he’s ill. Properly ill.”

His voice broke again, softer this time, almost apologetic, as if he felt guilty for saying it out loud.

Elliot stood immediately, instinct pulling him forward.

“Come sit down,” he said quietly.

David nodded once, the movement small and defeated. He stepped fully into the house, shrugging out of his coat with trembling fingers, and followed them as the group shifted naturally toward the lounge, the one place in the house that felt like it could hold something this heavy.

He moved slowly, as though each step carried more weight than the last.

When he finally lowered himself onto the sofa, he didn’t speak again, just let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped inside him all evening.

Elliot sat down beside Sam again, who rested her legs softly back across his, offering warmth both to him and, in her own quiet way, David.

David sat heavily on the sofa, elbows braced against his knees, and for a moment it looked like he might shut down entirely. But when Harper placed a quiet, steady hand on his shoulder, something in him loosened. His voice, when it finally came, was low and rough at the edges like he hadn’t used it properly all day.

“My dad… he practically raised me on his own,” he said, staring at a distant point on the floor. “Mum died when I was thirteen. Cancer. Quick. Too quick. It was just the two of us after that.”

Sam shifted slightly, the movement gentle, respectful. Elliot tightened his arm around her legs draped over his lap.

David exhaled slowly, then breathed trembling. “He didn’t know what he was doing. Not really. He was thirty-five, grieving, working full-time at the factory and still trying to keep me going. But he never… he never let me fall apart. Not once.”

He rubbed his palms together as though warming cold hands.

“He taught me everything important. How to work hard. How to treat people. What patience actually looks like. He made sure I still went to school, still saw friends, even when I didn’t want to get out of bed. He’d come home exhausted, hands raw from a double shift, and still sit through my homework with me.”

A faint, tired smile tugged at his mouth, too brief to be called happiness, but a real memory, nonetheless.

“He used to say, ‘If you’ve got kindness, you’ve already won half the fight.’ And I lived by that. Tried to, anyway. Everything good about me… that’s him. every bit of discipline, every bit of calm. He shaped all of it.”

He paused, swallowing hard, eyes shining in a way he didn’t bother to hide.

“And now he’s ill. Properly ill. And I just-” His voice cracked, a muted sound that made Harper’s hand tighten on his shoulder. “I can’t lose him. not yet. Not like this.”

A sift, respectful silence followed.

Harper slid a little closer. Sam squeezed Elliot's arm. And Elliot, watching David’s shoulders tremble just once before he steadied himself, felt empathy burning his chest.

David finally leaned back, eyes closed for a moment, as though holding himself together took real, physical effort.

David exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his face before continuing. “When I left school… I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do,” he said, voice low and tired, but steadier now that the words were flowing. “Most people my age were talking about travel, or apprenticeships, or degrees. I just felt… lost. Completely lost.”

Sam shifted slightly, her legs still comfortably across Elliot's lap, listening with quiet empathy. Harper’s hand stayed resting on top of David’s shoulder, grounding him.

“My dad never pushed me,” David went on. “Not once. He’d sit at the kitchen table with me for hours after his shift, talking through options. Never telling me which one to pick. Just making sure I felt like something was possible.”

He huffed a tiny laugh, not amused, but softened by memory. “I dropped out of my first college course. Hated it. Absolutely hated it. Thought I’d wasted everyone’s time. Came home ready for him to be disappointed.”

He looked down at his hands. “But he just made us both a cup of tea, sat across from me, and said, ‘Alright. What’s next, then?’ Like it wasn’t a failure, just the next step.”

Elliot felt the weight of that line settle in the room like a blanket.

“Later on, when I finally figured out what I wanted to do, he supported all of it. Held extra shifts so I didn’t have to work full-time while studying. Read through my essays even though he barely understood half of them. Came to every little award ceremony, every presentation, everything.”

David’s voice tightened. “He used to say, ‘I just want you to have chances I didn’t.’ and the stupid thing is… I never realised how much he gave up making sure I did.”

He paused blinking hard. “I owe him everything. Every job I landed, every promotion, every time I managed to stand on my own two feet. He was always there in the background, making sure I didn’t fall.”

The room felt quiet again. not heavy this time, but reverent. The kind of silence that follows honesty.

Harper was the first to gently nudge him toward something lighter.

“Tell us a good story about him,” she said, giving his arm a small squeeze. “Something funny. Something… him.”

David’s tired expression softened, the corners of his mouth twitching upward despite the day he’s had. He let out a quiet breath, almost a laugh, and rubbed his palms together again.

“Well,” he said, leaning back into the sofa cushions, “there was the time he tried to teach me to drive.”

Sam perked up instantly, legs still stretched across Elliot’s lap. “Was it a disaster?”

“Catastrophic,” David said, deadpan. “He took me to one of those empty supermarket car parks on a Sunday morning. Thought he’d be clever and stand outside the car so he could ‘guide’ me without shouting in my ear.”

Elliot raised a brow. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes,” David said, warming into it. “The second I let the clutch out, I panicked. Stalled it, jolted it, somehow managed to bunny hop across the whole car park. My dad tried to keep up by jogging next to the window, shouting encouragement, mind you, still being supportive, but eventually just wheezed, bent double, pointed at the ground and yelled, ‘STOP THE BLOODY CAR, DAVID!’”

Sam giggled behind her hand. “Did you stop?”

“I stopped,” he said with a nod. “Immediately. Unfortunately, the abrupt stop made him trip over his own feet. He landed on his backside. In a puddle.”

His smile widened fondly. “He just sat there laughing. Proper tears-down-the-face laughing. And then said, ‘Well, son… you didn’t hit me. That’s a win.’”

The group laughed, not loudly but warmly. The kind of laughter that feels like a blanket over a heavy moment.

David continued, voice gentler now. “There was the time he tried to fix the boiler without reading the manual. The time he burned an entire pan of rice so badly we had to throw the pan away with it. The times he pretended he wasn’t terrified of spiders just so I’d think he was brave…”

He shook his head, smiling toward the floor.

“He wasn’t perfect. Not even close. But he tried so hard. Every day. He… he always made me feel like we were a team.”

Sam’s expression was soft, moved. Harper rubbed his shoulder. Elliot found his chest tightening further.

Talking seemed to steady David, grounding him in the memories of who his father was instead of what might happen next. 

“Thanks,” David said quietly after a long moment. “Really. Thanks. I didn’t realise how much I needed to talk about him.”

An hour or so passed before someone, Elliot wasn’t sure who, turned on the TV. A soap opera flickered across the screen, voices drifted through the room in bright, overly dramatic tones that none of them paid attention to. Still, the noise felt almost necessary; silence would’ve been too heavy after everything that had happened.

David sank into the armchair nearest the doorway, shoulders still low, face drawn but calmer than when he’d first walked in. Harper stayed close beside him on the sofa arm, her hand resting gently on his forearm in a way that didn’t ask anything of him but reminded him he wasn’t alone.

Elliot and Sam were still settled in their favourite two-seater, her legs still draped over him, her weight warm and reassuring. He rested one hand over her calf, thumb brushing idle lines there, grounding both of them. The dim lamplight softened everything; David’s tired features, Harper’s worry, Sam’s exhausted eyes, and the quiet hum of the TV filled all the cracks between them.

None of them spoke much. They didn’t need to. David has said a lot already, and the rest of them were simply holding the space together, letting him breathe, letting themselves breathe. And underneath the domestic stillness, Elliot felt it; the subtle tension running through the house, the memory of the shadow in Sam’s room, the argument that had driven Jordan out. But for now, it was just the four of them, the low flicker of the television, and a momentary illusion of calm.

It happened subtly at first.

The sound of the soap opera muttering softly in the background almost masked it. A single, sharp creak from upstairs, somewhere along the first-floor landing. Not the usual stiff pipes or the settling of old wood. This had weight to it. Deliberation.

The four of them froze.

David lifted his head. Harper’s hand stilled halfway to her face. Sam’s fingers tightened instinctively around Elliot's wrist.

A second creak followed, louder and closer, this time from the very top of the staircase.

Like someone had stepped forward.

Elliot's throat went dry. His mind conjured the image automatically: the landing empty in the dim evening light except for something standing just beyond sight.

Then came the third noise.

A long, slow groan of floorboards shifting. Not from upstairs this time, but from down here. Somewhere near the bottom of the staircase.

Sam’s breath hitched sharply and Elliot's arm snapped tighter around her. Harper sat bolt upright. David, usually the calmest among them looked pale.

The soap opera’s voices carried on obliviously, cheerful, laughing, deeply at odds with the cold dread sliding into the room.

No one moved.

No one spoke.

But somewhere in the silent hallway just outside the lounge, the air thickened as though something unseen had finally arrived.

The last creak faded into the low hum of the TV, and for a moment Elliot thought maybe that was it. Just old wood shifting under the change of temperature. The others seemed to think the same; nobody moved, nobody breathed all that differently. Sam’s hand tightened slightly around his wrist, but even she seemed to be waiting for the room to settle.

Then it came.

A voice, soft, strained, and unbearably human, drifted into the lounge.

A man’s voice. Tired. Breaking. Threadbare with grief.

“Eleanor… please… please remember me…”

Sam jerked upright, breath caught in her throat.

Harper’s entire face drained of colour.

David froze mid-breath, his mouth slightly open.

Elliot felt every muscle in his body lock, like his nerves had been plunged into ice cold water. The voice didn’t echo. It didn’t rumble. It simply existed in the air, as vivid and real as if the man stood right there in the doorway.

“Don’t forget… don’t forget… don’t leave me…”

It wasn’t angry.

It wasn’t threatening. It was desperate.

The kind of desperation that made the room feel too small, too close, like someone else was in it with them even if they couldn’t see him.

Harper’s eyes flicked to the doorway, wide, terrified, but there was nothing there. Just the faint flicker of the television light catching the edges of the frame.

Sam pressed herself into Elliot’s side without thinking.

David slowly brought a hand to his mouth; shaken in a way they’d never seen.

The voice faded, thinning out like a breath in cold air.

Then the silence returned.

None of them spoke.

They just sat there, all four of them, staring toward the empty doorway, terrified to hear anything else, but even more terrified that they might.