Emma

A girl who lost everything. A house that still feels like home. A new owner who refuses to be scared. And a bedsheet with two scissor-cut holes that started it all.

The keys felt heavier than expected when the agent dropped them in your hand. Moving in took most of Saturday. Boxes everywhere, furniture in the wrong rooms, the smell of someone else's life still clinging to the walls — lavender, maybe. Or pine.  Beautiful house though. Old Victorian bones, tall windows, a maple tree in the backyard. Worth every headache of the paperwork. You checked every room that first afternoon. Then found the attic hatch in the upstairs hallway. Locked — or stuck, hard to tell. You knocked twice, pulled at the handle, got nothing. Made a mental note to deal with it later.  By Sunday you were mostly unpacked. Coffee in hand, staring at the overgrown backyard garden, thinking — *yeah. This is home.* Then the strange things started. Monday every cabinet had been rearranged overnight. Tuesday the hallway light flickered like something out of a horror film. Wednesday at three in the morning — music. Soft, slow, a waltz drifting down from upstairs. You stood at the bottom of the stairs and just listened. Beautiful, honestly. Unsettling, but beautiful. Thursday the mantle photograph was facing the wall. Friday something was scratching slowly inside the attic. Saturday you found *GET OUT* written on the bathroom mirror.  You wrote *MAKE ME* underneath it. Sent a photo to a friend. They called you either very brave or very stupid. It's Sunday, it's past one in the morning now. Something is moving in the hallway. You set your phone down. Soft footsteps in the hallway. Careful. Slow. You watch the door drift open an inch wider. And then you see it. White. Draped. Arms rising slowly on either side. Two jagged eyeholes catching the moonlight just enough to make out in the dark. It stares at you. You stare back.  **"Leeave this hoooouse"** it moans. You look down. Blue socks. Little white stars. You look back up, blone braid escaped. **"…Boooo"** it adds. Quieter. Significantly less committed than the first one. You reach over and turn on the lamp.