The Whispers Return

Journal Entry – November 1, 1871

The book hums again. I hear it when the house falls still — that low vibration, soft as breath pressed against the ear. It follows me now, even outside these walls.

This morning I walked to town for lamp oil and flour. The streets were already muddy from the night’s rain, wagon wheels cutting deep ruts that glistened in the pale sun. At Adams Hardware, Baxter was fixing a hinge behind the counter, his sleeves rolled to the elbow. I smiled and said good morning, pretending I was only there for matches, but the hum came with me — faint, persistent, tucked beneath the creak of the floorboards.

He didn’t hear it, or if he did, he said nothing. When I passed the long mirror near the door, my reflection moved half a beat behind me. I stopped. So did it — but its mouth shaped a word I didn’t speak.

By the time I turned back, Baxter was watching me with that worried look again. I laughed, said I hadn’t slept, and hurried home with the book wrapped in oilcloth. I told myself the sound was only the echo of the hardware store’s saw, but it began again the moment I set the book down.

The Kentucky woman called it white work — harmless prayers for guidance and calm. But peace has a taste, and this isn’t it. This is copper and smoke, warm and close, like breath on my neck.

I should have burned it the night I first felt it answer back. But I can’t. It opens on its own now, pages trembling as if they know I’m lying when I say I won’t look.