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Chapter Sixteen

Calum

Holiday House is a mausoleum of memories now. Annabel is everywhere and nowhere. Every corner holds her fingerprints, every shadow curls around her absence.

I sit at the desk in the small study she loved, its surface still scattered with reminders of her—a broken fountain pen, dried lavender stalks, her floral stationary.

Lightning cracks the sky, illuminating the room in sharp relief, and my eyes fall to the corner where her trunk sits.

It’s a weathered thing, edges worn smooth by time, smelling faintly of cedar and salt.

Annabel always kept her most private treasures inside, hidden from prying eyes.

Not that she had to hide from me—I was her shadow, her confidant.

But she still locked it when she thought I wasn’t looking.

I don’t know what makes me get up and cross the room. Maybe it’s the storm, or maybe it’s her voice, faint but undeniable, whispering through the house like a siren call.

The trunk creaks as I open it. Her scent escapes—a blend of jasmine and something deeper, earthier, like damp soil after rain.

My hand trembles as I lift the lid and sift through her belongings: silk scarves, a tangle of gold bracelets, a pack of tarot cards missing the Tower.

Beneath it all, my fingers brush leather.

The journal.

I freeze, every muscle taut. She never let me read it. When I’d tease her about it, her smile would harden, her voice sharpening like a blade. “Some secrets are meant to stay secrets, Calum.”

But she’s gone now, and the journal is here, a relic of her mind, her soul. I take it out, my thumb tracing the frayed edges of the cover. It feels alive, as if it holds a pulse.

I hesitate only for a moment before opening it.

The first entry is dated almost a year before her death. The ink is bold, her handwriting loopy but elegant.

Ravensreach feels like the edge of the world.

Calum loves it here, but I don’t know. The waves are too loud at night, like they’re trying to break down the walls.

I told him it’s romantic, but that’s what he wants to hear, isn’t it?

Romantic. Everything here has to mean something.

The cliffs. The storms. The silence. It’s all so heavy, like it’s waiting to crush me.

The pages that follow are a patchwork of thoughts, some light and effervescent, others dripping with tension.

She writes about lazy mornings in bed, tangled in sheets and giggles wrapped in my arms. About Jonathan arriving unexpectedly, always with his easy smile and restless energy that made the house feel smaller.

Jonathan’s different when Calum’s around, one entry reads. Sharper, maybe. More aware of me. I told myself it’s my imagination, but tonight, when Calum went to town, Jonathan looked at me like I was something he could take. I didn’t hate it. That’s the worst part. I didn’t hate it at all.

My grip tightens on the journal, the edges biting into my palm. My chest aches, but I keep reading, my eyes devouring every word like a starving man .

The entries grow darker as the weeks pass. Annabel begins to write about an unease that seems to settle over her like a second skin. She mentions hearing footsteps in the hall at night when she knows we’re alone, the sound of laughter—hers—echoing when she isn’t speaking.

The cottage is playing tricks on me, she writes. It has to be. Yesterday, I found my hairbrush in the kitchen, of all places. I haven’t been in the kitchen in days. And my perfume—Calum says he doesn’t smell it, but I swear it lingers everywhere, like a ghost of myself haunting this place.

The wind rattles the windows, pulling me back to the present. The room feels colder now, the journal heavier in my hands.

The entries take a sharp turn in the weeks leading up to her death. The playfulness that defined her words is gone, replaced by a rawness that stings.

Jonathan kissed me today. He didn’t ask, didn’t wait. He just did it. Calum was in the studio, lost in one of his frenzies. I wanted to slap Jonathan, to scream, but I didn’t. I kissed him back.

I stop breathing. My hands shake, but I force myself to keep reading.

It was wrong. I know it was wrong. But for one moment, I wasn’t weighed down by everything. By the expectations. The plans. The suffocating love that Calum pours over me like a flood. Jonathan didn’t ask me to be anything but Annabel. Just Annabel. God, what’s wrong with me?

My heart is a stone, sinking deeper into cold, dark waters. The journal feels like a living thing now, its pages crackling with the weight of her secrets. I should stop, but I can’t. I turn the page, the next entry dated the day before her death.

Something is wrong. I don’t know what, but I feel it.

Calum hasn’t been himself. He’s distant but watching me, always watching.

Jonathan keeps calling, but I can’t bring myself to answer.

They’re pulling me apart, both of them. And the cottage—it’s worse at night.

The waves are louder. The shadows move when I’m not looking.

Last night, I thought I saw myself standing at the edge of the cliffs.

But it wasn’t me. It couldn’t have been. Could it?

The ink smudges at the end of the entry, as if she’d been interrupted. My hands are slick with sweat, the journal slipping in my grasp. I flip to the next page, expecting more, needing more.

But it’s blank.

The journal ends there, as abruptly as her life. I stare at the empty page, willing it to give me answers. It doesn’t.

I stand, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. The storm outside roars, the wind howling like a wounded animal. I clutch the journal to my chest, my breath coming in ragged gasps.

Was her death an accident? Or something else?

The cottage seems to close in around me, its shadows lengthening, its silence deafening. The walls feel alive, pulsing with a presence I can’t name. I stagger to the window and press my forehead against the cold glass, the storm’s fury echoing my own.

The waves crash against the cliffs below, relentless, hungry. They swallowed her once. Did they call to her? Did they lure her to the edge, whisper promises she couldn’t resist?

I turn away, the journal still in my hands. Her words are etched into my mind, seared into my soul. She was afraid. Of the cottage. Of us. Of something more.

I sit back down at the desk, my fingers tracing the frayed edges of the journal. The storm rages on, but inside, it’s her voice that fills the room, soft and trembling.

“Something is wrong. I don’t know what, but I feel it.”

So do I.

And I’ll find out what it was. Even if it kills me.