With his parents away, Nicodemus and Lena sneak toward the house next door, where strange lights and noises have begun to break the night open.
Nicodemus sat on the windowsill in his room, one knee drawn up, staring across the narrow strip of garden at the house opposite. It had stood empty for months, all blind windows and peeling paint, the sort of place people mentioned only to lower their voices. Then, a few nights ago, light had begun to move behind the dirty panes. Not steady light. Jerking flashes, as if someone were walking from room to room with a lamp in their hand.
After that came the sounds.
A drag of something heavy across the floor. A thud that made the glass in his own window tremble. Once, close to midnight, a burst of clattering so loud it had jolted him upright in bed, heart hammering, while the house next door sat dark and still again as if nothing had happened at all.
He should have stopped watching it. Instead, he found himself waiting for the lights to appear.
That night his parents were away, and Lena was with him. She had been coming around since they were small, and even now she had the same habit of acting fearless first and thinking later. She leaned beside him on the sill, her shoulder brushing his, both of them staring out into the black garden.
“There,” she whispered.
Nicodemus followed her gaze. On the upper floor, a shape crossed the window. Not clearly, not enough to make out a person, but enough to turn his stomach over once.
“It could be anything,” he murmured.
Lena gave him a sidelong look. “That’s not what you’re thinking.”
He hated that she was right. Every nerve in him was saying stay here, keep watching from the safety of his room, let the mystery remain a mystery. But another part of him was already leaning forward, toward the dark house and the answers hiding inside it. The feeling was worse than fear. It was sharper, hotter, almost painful, like standing too close to a live wire.
“Come on,” Lena said. “Let’s find out.”
They moved through the garden in silence, stepping carefully between the overgrown shrubs and the cracked stone path. The night air smelled of wet leaves and earth. The fence at the back had a loose section, just as Nicodemus remembered, and they slipped through one after the other into the untidy stretch of weeds that bordered the neighbour’s yard.
Up close, the house looked even less abandoned. A thin line of yellow light leaked from somewhere inside. Not much. Just enough to prove someone was there.
Lena caught his hand for a second, then let go before he could say anything. Nicodemus crossed the last few steps to the front door and reached for the handle.
It gave under his fingers.
The door opened with a long, complaining creak, and a breath of colder air spilled out into the night. The corridor beyond was dim, but not empty. Something moved at the far end, quick and low, like a shadow shifting just out of sight.
Nicodemus froze.
Then a whisper slipped through the house, so soft he could barely hear it, as if someone inside had just spoken his name.