Journal Entry – October 27, 1871 He speaks now. Not through sound — through suggestion.  Words that bloom inside my mind like smoke. I can feel them settle behind my eyes before I understand their meaning. Last night, the mirror shuddered in its frame, and the frost receded — not melting, but retreating, as if something on the other side no longer needed to hide. His outline stood sharper than ever, and when I reached toward him, the surface gave way like water. He asked for

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Journal Entry – October 10, 1871 My first day behind the bar has proven more revealing than I expected. The men here drink like it’s...

Journal Entry – October 9, 1871 The road into Cherryvale is little more than a vein of mud and clay, slick from last night’s rain. I...

Journal Entry – October 1, 1871 Location: Bender Inn Interior The lavender in the air does little to cover the coppery edge clinging to...

Journal Entry – October 01, 1871 The dining room was bathed in golden lamplight, soft enough to make even the plainest of company seem...

September 30, 1871 The wind has a voice tonight—low and sharp, like a blade whispering through the grass. It carries the scent of...

September 29, 1871 The whistle blew long before dawn, echoing through the valleys like a warning lost to time. I hadn’t slept. Instead, I...

September 27, 1871 The dining car swayed like a slow waltz, brass lamps throwing soft halos across polished silver and the dark glass of...

September 26, 1871 We’re close now—I can feel it. The line between sleep and waking grows thinner each night. I keep drifting into...

September 25, 1871 We passed through Sullivan under a sky that wept without rain. Just a dull, steady mist that blurred the world into a...

September 24, 1871 The hills grow narrower. The light feels… off. Even the sun, when it appears, has taken on a tarnished hue, like brass...

September 23, 1871 We paused at a rural depot near Bonne Terre just before sunset. No one disembarked but me. I told Ma I needed air. The...