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Ripples in the mirror

Journal Entry – October 20, 1871 Sleep refused me again. When I finally drifted off, I woke to find the clasp not on the table where I left it, but on the pillow beside me — open, the lining pulsing faintly as if something beneath it breathed. The mark on my palm glowed like it remembered his touch. I can hear him when the room goes still. Not footsteps, not breath — but something quieter, threaded into the hum of the walls, as though the wood itself repeats his name. Every t

Kate Bender

2 hours ago2 min read

The Gift and the Stranger

Journal Entry – October 19, 1871 He’s back. I knew it the moment the lamplight dimmed without warning, as if the flame itself bowed to an unseen hand. The air changed — thickened — and the scent of rain-soaked wool crept through the cracks of my door. That same scent from the night of the storm. The stranger. I found him standing in the hallway outside my room, hat in hand, eyes like river stones — smooth, unreadable, reflecting nothing. He said he’d left something behind. I

Kate Bender

23 hours ago2 min read

The Whisper Beneath the Floorboards

Journal Entry – October 20, 1871 Cherryvale, Kansas The wind woke me before dawn, a thin, reedy whine slipping through the cracks like a voice searching for shape. The room was still — too still — and for a moment I thought it was only the storm returning. But the sound was coming from beneath the floor. A whisper. Soft. Threaded with breath. It rose and fell like someone murmuring through cloth — words just beyond comprehension. I lit the lamp and watched the shadows crawl a

Kate Bender

2 days ago1 min read

The gift that keeps giving

Journal Entry – October 21, 1871 (The Whisper and the Mark) The clasp will not quiet. I found it again this morning where I’d left it—on the small table near the window—but the light from the curtain made it shimmer like something alive. I reached for it without thinking. The moment my skin met the metal, the mark on my palm answered. A soft heat first, then a pulse, as though the two shared a single breath. It isn’t just a trinket. It’s listening. When I close my hand around

Kate Bender

3 days ago1 min read

The Gift

Journal Entry – October 19, 1871 The man from the storm left this morning, though I could still smell the rain on him long after he’d gone. He said little — men rarely do when they fear what they can’t name. But I watched his hands as he packed. They shook, just enough for truth to tremble through his calm. When he settled his account, he placed a small leather pouch on the counter instead of coin. I knew before I opened it that it wasn’t payment in any honest sense. Inside w

Kate Bender

4 days ago1 min read

The Storm and the Stranger III

Journal Entry – October 17, 1871 The book no longer hums — it breathes. When I touched it last night, the air in the room thickened, as though every shadow leaned closer to listen. The candlelight wavered, but not from any draft I could feel. I spoke aloud, softly at first, words that were not my own but came unbidden — syllables that curled and folded like smoke. The room seemed to answer. The flame stilled. The hum deepened, slower now, pulsing beneath my skin rather than t

Kate Bender

6 days ago1 min read

The Storm and the Stranger II

Journal Entry – October 14, 1871 I waited until morning to touch it. The satchel sat on the bar all night, untouched, though I could feel it watching me. Every so often it let out the faintest hum — not a sound exactly, but a pressure, like when thunder rolls far away and the air forgets how to breathe. At dawn, I unlatched it. Inside was only a small bundle wrapped in oilcloth, bound tight with black twine. The knot was perfect, deliberate. I almost didn’t want to break it.

Kate Bender

Oct 171 min read

The Storm and the Stranger

Journal Entry – October 13, 1871 The storm came without warning — no wind, no scent of rain to herald it. One moment the air was still, and the next it was trembling. I had been closing the shutters at the hotel when the first bolt struck, white and clean, splitting the sky in two. The thunder that followed rattled the bottles behind the bar and made the lamps flicker like they feared the dark. By the time the stranger arrived, every man inside had turned his chair toward the

Kate Bender

Oct 162 min read

Adams' Hardware

Journal Entry – October 14, 1871 I stopped into the hardware store this morning under the pretense of needing a new latch for the back door. Truth was, I only wanted a closer look at Baxter Adams . The bell above the door gave a nervous little ring as I entered, and there he was — sleeves rolled up, sawdust clinging to his forearms, eyes that tried to be steady but told another story. The Adams family has the kind of goodness that begs to be tested. Baxter most of all. He gre

badburrito

Oct 151 min read

Cherryvale, KS

Journal Entry – October 11, 1871 Something stirred beneath the soil last night. I heard it while I slept — a slow, deliberate shifting, like breath through damp cloth. I woke with my pulse keeping time to it. Even now, the rhythm lingers in my chest, steady as a drumbeat in the earth. The land around Cherryvale is restless. I can feel it each morning when I walk toward town, the ground soft underfoot as though it remembers every grave that has ever been dug. The air carries t

badburrito

Oct 141 min read