Through the Walls They Whisper

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 fabric tearing: “We were light once.”

The cellar door shuddered in answer.

I followed the sound to the hallway by the kitchen. The plaster there bulges, faintly pulsing, and when I press my ear to it I hear dozens whispering beneath — miners from Cherryvale, a preacher from Topeka, the woman who sold me the Kentucky book. Their words overlap, building a rhythm that beats against my chest until I feel my own breath catch.

When I whispered, “What are you?” the answer came from everywhere at once:

“We are what the light left behind.”

The mirror fogged. The mark on my arm flared white. For a moment I saw faces forming in the grain of the wood — open mouths, pleading, half-formed. Then the air snapped still, like a string pulled too tight.

I ran outside for air. The fog was waiting there too. It curled around the porch posts and whispered the same phrase again and again, until my throat echoed it back without meaning to.

Inside, the coins chimed. The house hummed.

And somewhere deep beneath the inn, the stranger laughed — a dozen voices layered into one.