The log cabin should have felt safe, all heavy wood and thick curtains, but every night the shadows gathered outside the windows, tall and patient, swaying like trees that had learned how to breathe. Whenever she yanked the door open, flashlight slicing the dark, the porch was empty, the yard still, the woods holding their breath like they’d never moved at all. It was only when she locked the door again that the knocking started—slow, polite taps that traveled from wall to wall, followed by the soft slide of windows lifting on their own and the long, aching creak of doors she knew she had already closed. By the time she realized the shadows were never outside—that they were learning the layout of the cabin from the inside out—the knocks had stopped using the door altogether. They rapped, very gently, from the underside of her bed, and when she finally whispered, “Who’s there?” the wood answered back in her own voice, “You are.”

Connor