Chapter 5: The Rules Her Mother Left Behind
Nia heard the front door slam before she saw anything.
She reached for the wall, fingers scraping over the paint until she found the light switch.
Nothing happened.
“Marcus?””
“I'm here.””
His voice came from somewhere to her right.
She held the journal against her chest and tried to slow her breathing. The house smelled of rain, old wood, and the faint lavender scent of the candle her mother had once kept on the mantel.
Then a match struck.
A tiny flame appeared.
The first Marcus stood near the living room, holding a wooden match between his fingers. The warm light revealed the tension in his jaw and the dampness around his eyes.
Behind him, the staircase remained dark.
“Stay close to me,” he said.
Nia shook her head.
“I don't know which one of you I'm supposed to trust.””
“Then trust what your mother wrote.””
He set the match inside a glass candleholder on the coffee table.
Nia opened the journal.
The handwriting was unmistakably Denise's—rounded letters, careful spacing, and little hooks at the ends of her capital letters. Her mother had used the same handwriting on birthday cards, grocery lists, and the notes she left in Nia's lunchbox when she was a child.
The first page contained a date.
October 17, twenty years earlier.
Below it was a sentence.
The house has opened its second door again.
Nia looked up.
“What does that mean?””
Marcus sat on the edge of the couch.
“I don't know everything.””
“That's becoming your favorite answer.””
“I know.””
“Then tell me what you do know.””
He took a breath.
“Your mother found me when I was a boy. I was living in a house that looked exactly like this one, except it was on the other side of something I couldn't explain.””
Nia stared at him.
“Another house?””
“Another version of it.””
She waited for him to laugh, to admit he was making some elaborate joke, but he remained painfully serious.
“The rooms were the same,” he continued.
“The stairs, the windows, the kitchen cabinets. But the people inside weren't always the people they were supposed to be.””
“That's impossible.””
“I thought so, too.””
“Who were you?””
He looked down at his hands.
“I was a boy who had been told that his mother was dead. Then one night, I heard her calling me from upstairs.””
Nia felt a chill crawl up her arms.
“Was she there?””
“No.””
“Then who was calling you?””
Marcus glanced at the staircase.
“Something that knew how she sounded.””
A floorboard creaked above them.
Nia closed the journal.
“Can we leave?””
“Yes.””
“Then let's go.””
Marcus stood, but when he reached for the front door, he stopped.
Nia watched him grip the handle.
“What is it?””
He turned it.
The door opened an inch.
Beyond it was the front porch, washed in cool evening light.
Then the view changed.
The porch stretched into a long hallway with faded wallpaper. At the far end stood a little girl in a yellow dress.
Nia recognized the ribbon in the girl's hair.
She recognized the shape of her own face.
The child looked no older than six.
“Nia,” Marcus said sharply.
“Don't look at her.””
But Nia couldn't tear her eyes away.
The little girl lifted her hand.
“Mommy says you forgot me,” she whispered.
Nia stumbled backward.
Marcus slammed the door.
The candle flame jumped.
For several seconds, neither of them moved.
Then Nia whispered, “That was me.””
Marcus didn't answer.
“That was me when I was little.””
“Yes.””
“Why would I be standing outside my own house?””
“Because the house knows what you miss.””
She stared at him.
“That didn't look like something I miss. It looked like a child.””
“It can make memories feel real.””
Nia looked down at the journal again.
Her mother's handwriting seemed suddenly less like a collection of old thoughts and more like instructions left by someone who had known exactly what was coming.
She turned the page.
A handwritten heading filled the top.
*THE RULES OF THE HOUSE.*
Underneath were seven numbered lines.
1. Never answer a voice calling from an empty room. 2. Never open a door after seeing someone you recognize on the other side if they are already inside the house.
3. Never let the same person cross the threshold twice in one night. 4. If two people wear the same face, ask each what they remember about the first winter.
5. Never give the house your full name. 6.
If the lights go out, do not follow the voice that cries. 7. If the red eyes appear, the debt has come due.
Nia read the last line twice.
“The debt?””
Marcus looked at the journal.
“Your mother believed that bringing someone back from the dead always left something unfinished.””
“Someone?””
He didn't respond.
Nia turned toward him.
“Marcus. What did you bring back?””
His face crumpled for an instant before he regained control.
“You.””
The word was barely audible.
She gripped the journal so tightly that the cover bent.
“How?””
He sat down again, his shoulders sagging.
“Three years ago, you fell down the stairs. You were carrying a box of your mother's things. I heard you call my name, and then I heard the fall.””
Nia remembered a staircase.
A box slipping from her hands.
The sharp smell of dust.
But the rest remained out of reach.
“I found you at the bottom,” Marcus continued.
“You weren't breathing. I called an ambulance. I tried CPR. I did everything they tell you to do.””
His voice shook.
“The paramedics worked on you for nearly forty minutes. They couldn't bring you back.””
Nia's eyes filled with tears.
“No.””
“I sat beside you at the hospital until they asked me to leave. Then I came home.””
He stared at the candle.
“And I heard your voice upstairs.””
Nia couldn't move.
“I thought I was losing my mind,” he said.
“But your mother had left a letter in the journal. She told me that if I ever heard a loved one's voice calling from an empty room after their death, I had to leave the house immediately.””
“Did you?””
“No.””
“Why?””
“Because I thought it was you.””
The candle crackled.
Marcus rubbed his palms together.
“I went upstairs. The bedroom door was open. You were standing beside the bed, wearing the clothes you died in. You looked at me and asked why I was crying.””
Nia pressed a hand over her mouth.
“I knew it wasn't possible,” he whispered.
“But you smiled at me. You said you were cold. You asked me to come closer.””
His eyes glistened.
“And I did.””
Nia looked toward the staircase.
“What happened?””
Marcus closed his eyes.
“I touched your hand.””
The candle flame bent sharply toward him.
“And then?””
“Then I woke up in the hospital.””
Nia stared.
“What hospital?””
“The same one. Three years earlier. You were alive, sitting in a bed with a bandage around your head, asking why I looked so old.””
She shook her head.
“No. That's not how time works.””
“I know.””
“You can't just wake up three years in the past.””
“I know.””
“Then what happened?””
He looked at her.
“I think the house gave me a chance to change what happened. But it wanted something in return.””
“What?””
He opened his mouth.
Before he could answer, a soft sob came from the dark hallway.
Nia froze.
It was a woman's voice.
Her mother's voice.
“Oh, baby,” it whispered.
“Please help me.””
Nia's heart seemed to stop.
She turned toward the hallway.
“Mom?””
Marcus seized her wrist.
“No!””
The voice sobbed again.
“I'm so cold, Nia. Please. I can't find the door.””
Tears streamed down Nia's cheeks.
Her mother had been gone for three years. There had been no last conversation, no final chance to say all the things Nia had wanted to say.
The voice sounded exactly as Denise had sounded when she was tired and trying not to let anyone know she was in pain.
“Baby,” the voice called.
“I made a mistake.””
Nia pulled against Marcus's grip.
“Let me go!””
“No.””
“That's my mother!””
“No, Nia. It's not.””
“You don't know that!””
“I heard her, too!””
The voice moved closer.
Footsteps shuffled through the dark hallway.
Then came a small, frightened whisper.
“Nia, he lied to you.””
Marcus went pale.
The voice continued.
“He didn't bring you back because he loved you.””
Nia stopped struggling.
“He brought you back because he was afraid of what would happen if you stayed dead.””
Marcus released her wrist.
The silence that followed was worse than the sobbing.
Nia turned toward him slowly.
“What does that mean?””
He stared at the floor.
“Marcus?””
He said nothing.
The voice in the hallway began to laugh softly.
Then Denise's voice whispered the words that shattered whatever trust Nia had left.
“Ask him who died in your place.””
Nia looked down at the journal.
A folded piece of paper had slipped from the back cover.
She picked it up with trembling fingers and unfolded it.
It was a handwritten letter addressed to her.
My dearest Nia,
If you are reading this, Marcus has already opened the door.
And if he has opened the door, there is one thing you must understand.
The person who returns is never the person who left.
Nia stared at the final line.
Below it, in a different ink, her mother had added a warning.
Whatever you do, do not let Marcus tell you which one he saved.
Behind them, the front door clicked.
Someone inserted a key into the lock.
And from the other side came Marcus's voice.
“Nia? Baby, open up. I'm home.””
The man standing beside her went white.
May you like
Because neither of them had moved.
And the voice outside was coming from the real front porch.