top of page
Search

The Paper Without Words

  • Writer: Kate Bender
    Kate Bender
  • Dec 12, 2025
  • 1 min read

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 arm, settling beneath my collarbone like a second heartbeat.


When I whispered the phrase aloud, the fog stirred as though delighted.


It wants more from me.

And I think I am ready to give it.

Recent Posts

See All
The Hunger Underfoot

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

 
 
 
The Door That Went Nowhere

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 reme

 
 
 
The House Bends

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 corr

 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page