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Journal Entry – December 11, 1871 The preacher’s Bible — the one left behind in his room — has lost all its words. Not blank, not smudged, not faded: erased. The pages feel smooth, warm, as though something licked the ink clean. I tried writing a verse from memory, but the letters curled into strange shapes as soon as my pen left the page. They formed a new sentence, in a language I do not know: “Kah veth ul drath.” The mark on my wrist brightened. I felt heat spread up my ar

Journal Entry – December 10, 1871 The guests are losing time. Mr. Rourke swore it was morning even as the sun set outside his window. He blinked at the darkness like it had betrayed him. Others moved slowly through the hall, as if walking through deep water. The fog watches them with a kind of patient interest, curling around their legs, lingering at their throats. I set my hand on the stair railing and felt something pulse beneath the wood — a heartbeat, deep and distant, li

Journal Entry – December 9, 1871 A new door appeared in the hallway outside the parlor — narrow, tall, unpainted, as though carved from a single piece of ash wood still green at the core. I don’t remember it being there yesterday. Neither do the guests. When I turned the handle, it wouldn’t open. The metal was warm beneath my hand, almost pulsing. I pressed my ear to the wood — and heard breathing. Not mine. Not human. A slow, steady inhalation, followed by a shuddering exhal

Journal Entry – December 8, 1871 The house shifted last night. I heard it before I felt it — a slow, deliberate creaking, not of age or weather, but intention. When I walked the hall at dawn, the corridor seemed longer, the wallpaper subtly changed, as though the house had been thinking while I slept. Mrs. Crane asked me where the stairs had gone. The stairs were exactly where they’ve always been. But when she stood in front of them, she looked at me like I  was the one who’d

Journal Entry – December 7, 1871 She didn’t struggle. The older woman, traveling alone — quiet, polite, the one who always apologized for taking up space. I found her in the hallway before dawn, standing barefoot, staring at nothing. When I touched her shoulder, she exhaled as though relieved. And when I pressed my hand over her mouth, she leaned into it. Grateful. The fog wrapped her gently as we walked to the lake — a procession of two. No wind. No birds. No sound except he

Journal Entry – December 6, 1871 He spoke again tonight — the stranger, though he feels less like a stranger now than the people sleeping under my roof. His voice drifted from the rafters, from the spaces between the boards, from the dim edges of candlelight. He told me the lake was “a good beginning.” He told me the soil hungers too. I felt the earth shift under my feet near the orchard — not violently, but softly, like the ground sighing after a long sleep. The roots trembl

Journal Entry – December 5, 1871 Another guest is missing. Mr. Thorne — the banker — left his boots by the fire, his papers neatly tucked beneath the bed, his coat folded with care. But he is gone. The others don’t remember him. When I said his name, Mrs. Crane only smiled politely, as though I’d mentioned a stranger who passed by once in summer. The fog led me to the well. I should have turned back. The water was too still — no wind, no ripple, no echo of my reflection. Only

Journal Entry – December 4, 1871 The house feels lighter today. So do I. The guests spoke softly at breakfast, as though something in the walls might overhear. Mrs. Crane asked why I was smiling, though I swear I wasn’t. But when I stood before the mirror, my reflection disagreed. My eyes looked different — sharper, colder, brightened by a color I’ve never seen in them before. I touched the mark on my arm and felt warmth — not from the skin, but from something moving beneath

Journal Entry – December 3, 1871 The lake was frozen thick this morning, but not thick enough to deny me. I carried the merchant’s body before sunrise, wrapped in canvas. The fog helped — it swallowed my footsteps, softened my shape, and clung to me like a shroud. At the shoreline, a stone axe lay half-buried in snow, abandoned by hunters weeks ago. The handle fit my hand perfectly. The first strike cracked the ice. The second split it. The third opened a mouth in the frozen

Journal Entry – December 2, 1871 I found him at dawn, half-buried in snow beneath the orchard trees — the traveling merchant who had tried to leave in the night. His eyes were open, frost clinging to the lashes. His mouth hung slightly parted, not in fear, but in relief. There were no wounds. No signs of struggle. Just stillness. As if he’d stepped willingly into the cold and laid himself there. The fog slid around him when I knelt beside the body, curling through his hair an

Journal Entry – December 1, 1871 The fog was waiting for me when I woke — gathered at the foot of my bed like a loyal animal, rising and falling with the rhythm of my breath. When I sat up, it lifted in a slow, deliberate swirl and drifted toward the door, pausing as if expecting me to follow. The house feels thinner today, stretched in places where it shouldn’t be. The beams whistle softly. The floorboards pulse. Even the air has changed — thicker, as if the walls have learn

Journal Entry – November 30, 1871 I opened the cellar door tonight. The latch was warm, almost pulsing. For hours I told myself I wouldn’t — that I would wait for dawn, for courage, for reason. But the voices wouldn’t stop. They rose from beneath the floorboards in a low, mournful hum, too human to ignore and too inhuman to belong to the living. The first step down was slick with soot. The air was thick — wet earth, candlewax, and something older, like metal steeped in blood.

Journal Entry – November 29, 1871 They’re speaking to me now. Not the way the stranger does — not from inside my head — but through the walls, the floor, the very bones of this place. Each board carries a different tone, each pipe a separate breath. When the wind moves, it gathers them all into a single voice that calls my name. This morning, while I scrubbed the bar, I heard the first one clearly. A man’s voice, cracked and wet: “Don’t open it again.”  Then another, soft as

Journal Entry – November 28, 1871 The house tastes of smoke. Every breath carries the tang of cinders, as though I’ve swallowed the hearth itself. When I speak, a thin wisp escapes my mouth, curling upward like a secret eager to flee. I found gray streaks along the wallpaper this morning — long vertical trails that weren’t there before, as if something inside the walls were leaking outward. When I touched one, the ash stuck to my fingers and pulsed, faintly warm, before vanis

Journal Entry – November 27, 1871 The fog has taken the house. It seeps through the floorboards in the morning and clings to the rafters by night. When I walk the hall, it follows in thin ribbons, coiling around my ankles like cats. Every door I open exhales — warm, damp, faintly sweet. Last night, as I turned down the beds, I heard the walls breathe.  A long inhale through plaster and wood, then a sigh that carried my name inside it. The guests didn’t stir. Perhaps they no l

Journal Entry – November 26, 1871 The fog hasn’t left. It lingers in the hollows of the yard, breathing against the windows like an animal that’s learned the rhythm of sleep. I can see shapes moving in it — not men, not ghosts, but the memory of them, impressions left where warmth once lived. By mid-morning it slipped through the cracks of the kitchen door, soft as steam. I should have feared it, but it smelled of rain and pine — almost clean. I told myself it was only the ch

Journal Entry – November 25, 1871 The bell began ringing before dawn. Three chimes. Pause. Then three again — too measured to be wind, too precise to be mistake. The church stands nearly a mile from here, yet the sound carried as though the rope were tied to my own ribs. By the third toll, every guest was awake. None spoke. They simply stared at the ceiling, lips parted, waiting for the next note. I wrapped my shawl and walked to town through fog so thick it clung to my mouth

Journal Entry – November 24, 1871 One of the guests is gone. I counted twice before sunrise, knocking softly at each door, pretending I was checking the hearths. Twelve yesterday. Eleven this morning. The preacher’s bed was neatly made, his satchel still on the chair. The pages of his Bible are blank. The others don’t remember him. When I said his name, Mrs. Crane only blinked and asked if I meant her brother. I didn’t. She’s never had one. The kitchen smells wrong today — sw

Journal Entry – November 23, 1871 I think the others are beginning to hear it too. At breakfast, the guests sat in silence long after the food had gone cold. No one seemed hungry. When I asked if the coffee was too bitter, Mrs. Crane lifted her head slowly and said, “It hums,” as if that explained everything. Then she smiled and went on stirring an empty cup. Last night I dreamed of a table set for thirteen, though I had only twelve guests. The thirteenth chair faced me. I co

Journal Entry – November 22, 1871 The cellar breathes louder now. This morning I heard it through the floor while pouring coffee for the travelers. They didn’t notice—their chatter drowned the sound—but each time a spoon struck porcelain, the vibration answered from below, as if the house itself mimicked us. By afternoon, the hum spread to the walls. The wallpaper near the stairwell puckered and swelled, as though air pushed from beneath the plaster. When I pressed my hand to