👁House Of Witnesses Free preview | Chapter Two

 

You made it past the first door.

Continue with Chapter Two of House Of Witnesses, available here to read for free.

Continue the witnessing.

Chapter Two | Silent Words

By the time I returned from school, the house had already settled into its afternoon quiet, which felt different from the mornings in a way I could not explain. It was not emptier, only softer, as though whatever held it together had loosened slightly once the day had begun. The light that came through the windows was thinner now, stretching across the floor in pale strips that did not quite reach the walls.

I closed the front door behind me carefully, the same way I always did, easing it into place so it would not make a sound. For a moment, I stood there, my hand still resting against the wood, listening without meaning to.

Nothing moved.

That was normal.

I stepped out of my shoes and placed them neatly beside the others, aligning them so they faced the same direction, then adjusted them again when they didn’t feel quite right. The small corrections mattered. They always mattered.

“Clara.”

The sound of my name came from behind me, soft and even, as though it had been waiting for me to arrive.

I turned.

Rosalie stood at the end of the hallway, half in shadow, half in the light that fell through one of the narrow windows. She had not been there when I entered, or at least I had not seen her. For a moment, I tried to remember if I had heard her move, but I couldn’t recall anything.

“You’re back,” she said.

“Yes.”

She nodded slightly, as though that confirmed something for her, though I wasn’t sure what.

Rosalie always looked composed, even when there was no reason for her to be. Her posture was straight, her movements smooth in a way that never seemed forced but never felt entirely natural either. Her hair fell neatly over her shoulders, not a strand out of place, and her clothes sat perfectly against her frame, as though they had been adjusted just before I saw her.

There was nothing wrong with the way she looked. There was just something finished about it.

“How was school?” she asked.

The question sounded ordinary, but the way she said it felt rehearsed, like something she had learned to ask rather than something she wanted to know.

“It was fine,” I said.

She held my gaze for a moment longer than necessary, then nodded again, as if my answer had been expected.

“That’s good,” she said.

There was a pause after that, though it did not feel like the kind that invited more conversation. Rosalie did not move closer. She did not ask anything else. She only stood there, her hands resting lightly at her sides, her expression calm in a way that felt carefully maintained.

I realized then that I did not know what she did during the day when she was home. I had never thought to ask.

“You finished early,” I said, though I wasn’t sure why I said it.

She tilted her head slightly, just enough to acknowledge the statement. “I’ve been here.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant either, but I nodded as though I understood.

Rosalie had always been like that, even when we were younger, though I remembered a time when it had been different. I could not place when it changed, or what had caused it. I only knew that there had been a time when speaking to her did not feel like trying to follow something I could not see.

I watched her for a moment, trying to find something familiar in the way she stood, the way she looked at me, but everything about her felt settled into place in a way that left no room for anything else.

“I should start my work,” I said.

“Yes,” she replied immediately, as though she had been waiting for me to say it. “You don’t want to fall behind.”

I nodded.

She stepped aside slightly, giving me space to pass, though she had not been blocking the hallway to begin with. As I walked past her, I felt her presence linger for a moment longer than it should have, like something that stayed even after I had moved beyond it.

“Clara,” she said again, just before I reached the end of the hall.

I stopped and turned.

Her expression had not changed, but there was something quieter in it now, something that made me wait.

“You should be careful,” she said.

The words were soft, almost gentle, but they did not feel like the kind of warning I was used to.

“Of what?” I asked.

She looked at me for a moment, then shook her head slightly, the movement small and controlled.

“It’s just better,” she said, “to be careful.”

I waited for her to explain, but she didn’t.

After a moment, she turned away, moving down the hallway without looking back, her steps quiet against the floor. I watched her go, noticing the way her posture remained unchanged, the way nothing in her movement suggested hesitation or thought.

She disappeared around the corner without a sound.

I stood there for a moment longer, unsure of what I had been meant to understand.

Then I turned and continued down the hall. The house felt quiet again.

But not empty.

I did not go to my room right away.

I told myself I would, that I only needed a moment before starting my work, but I found myself slowing as I moved further into the hallway, my attention shifting to the house in a way that felt slightly misplaced, as though I had turned my focus onto something that was not meant to be noticed directly.

The air felt different deeper inside the house. It was not colder, not warmer, only uneven, like something moving through it that I could not see. I paused near the narrow part of the hall where the walls seemed to draw closer together, the space tightening just enough to change the way sound carried. I had always known that it echoed there, though I had never thought about it.

Now I did. I stood still for a moment, listening. At first, there was nothing.

Then, faintly, I heard the pipes.

They ran somewhere behind the walls, low and distant, the sound of water moving through them in a way that should have been steady but wasn’t. It shifted slightly, rising and falling in a rhythm that did not quite settle. I had heard it before, I knew I had, but I could not remember ever paying attention to it like this.

I took a step forward, then another, my movements quieter than before without meaning to be.

The sound followed.

Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe I only noticed it more as I moved.

I stopped again, this time closer to one of the vents set low along the wall. It was older than the others, I realized, though I wasn’t sure how I knew that. The metal looked slightly darker, the pattern more intricate, as though it had been made differently.

I leaned down just slightly, not enough to make it obvious if someone were to see me, and listened.

The air coming through it was faint, barely there, but it carried something with it, something like movement, or maybe just the absence of stillness. For a moment, I thought I heard something beneath the sound of the pipes, something softer, but when I focused on it, it disappeared.

I straightened. It was just the house. That was all it could be.

I moved on.

The hallway opened into the main part of the house again, the space widening, the light shifting slightly as it reached the floor in uneven patterns. I passed the staircase, my hand brushing lightly against the railing as I went, and felt a faint draft move upward from somewhere beneath it. It was subtle, easy to ignore, but I noticed it anyway.

I had never thought about the way the house moved before.

Now I did.

I turned into another corridor, one that led past rooms we did not use often, their doors closed, their handles untouched for long enough that they seemed separate from the rest of the house. As I walked past them, I felt the temperature change again, one wall cooler than the other, though there was no reason for it.

I slowed.

There was a sound.

It was small, almost nothing, the kind of thing that could be dismissed before it was fully heard. A faint shift, like something brushing lightly against a surface, followed by a soft, uneven knock that did not come again. I stopped completely this time.

The silence that followed felt heavier than before, as though it had settled over the sound rather than replacing it.

I waited.

Nothing happened.

I looked at the door nearest to me, though I knew it had not come from there. It felt wrong to open it, though I could not explain why. There was no rule against it that I knew of, nothing that had ever been said.

Still, I did not reach for the handle.mInstead, I turned slightly, my gaze moving to the wall itself, tracing the line where it met the floor, the way the light touched it unevenly. For a moment, I thought I felt something there, not a movement, not exactly, but a difference, like standing near something I could not see.

I stepped back.

The feeling faded immediately.

I exhaled slowly, though I had not realized I had been holding my breath.

It was nothing.

The house made sounds. It always had. Pipes shifted, wood settled, air moved where it needed to move. There was no reason to think it was anything else.

I knew that.

I continued down the hall, my steps returning to their usual rhythm, though something about it felt slightly off now, as if I had already noticed too much and could not fully return to not noticing.

When I reached the end, I paused again, just for a moment, and listened. The house was quiet. But the quiet did not feel the same.

I told myself I would go to my room after that.

Instead, I kept walking. It was not a decision I made fully. It felt more like something I allowed, a small shift in direction that I did not correct quickly enough. My steps slowed as I moved through the house, quieter than they had been before, as though I did not want to interrupt anything that might already be happening.

I passed the living room and paused briefly at the doorway, my hand resting lightly against the frame. The space looked exactly as it always did; clean, arranged, untouched in a way that suggested it was used carefully rather than often. The furniture sat in its proper places, the light falling across it in soft, even lines, nothing disturbed, nothing out of order.

There was no reason to stop. Still, I stood there for a moment longer, listening. The house did not respond.

I moved on.

The kitchen was empty when I entered, the air still carrying the faint warmth from earlier, though nothing was cooking now. The counters were clean, every surface wiped down to a smooth, uninterrupted finish. I stepped further inside, my gaze moving across the room slowly, taking in details I had never needed to look at before, the arrangement of the jars, the placement of the cloths, the way everything seemed not just clean, but preserved.

I was not sure why I noticed it. Near the sink, I paused again.

The vent above it was slightly larger than the others, its metal dulled with age, the pattern worn in places where it must have been cleaned over and over again. I had stood in front of it countless times without thinking about it. Now, I found myself looking at it more closely, as though it might look different if I did.

I stepped closer.

The air coming through it was warmer than I expected, though there was no reason it should have been. I lifted my hand slightly, feeling the faint movement against my skin, then lowered it again.

For a moment, I thought I heard something. Not a word. Not even a sound I could name.

Just something that didn’t belong to the quiet.

I waited.

The pipes shifted somewhere behind the walls, the same uneven rhythm as before, rising and falling without settling. I listened more carefully this time, focusing on the space between the sounds rather than the sounds themselves.

There.

Something softer. Quieter.

I leaned in slightly, my head tilting just enough to catch it better, though I wasn’t sure what I was trying to hear.

It disappeared.

I straightened immediately, my heart moving a little faster than it should have, though I did not understand why. It was nothing. It had to be nothing.

I stepped back from the sink, my hands still at my sides, resisting the urge to reach toward the vent again. There was no reason to stand there. No reason to listen like that.

The house made sounds.

That was all.

I turned and left the kitchen, moving more quickly now, though I kept my steps quiet, controlled. The hallway felt narrower when I returned to it, the air heavier in a way that did not quite make sense. I told myself it was the same as before, that nothing had changed.

I did not stop walking this time.

When I reached my room, I closed the door behind me carefully, the same way I always did, easing it into place until the latch settled without a sound. I stood there for a moment, my back to the door, listening again without meaning to.

Nothing followed me.

The silence in my room felt more complete, more contained, as though it belonged only to me. I crossed the space slowly and sat at my desk, pulling my work in front of me, aligning the pages the way I had been taught.

I tried to focus. The words in front of me stayed where they were, but my attention did not. After a moment, I realized I was listening again.

Not for anything specific. Just listening.

The house was quiet. But it did not feel like the kind of quiet that meant nothing was there. It felt like the kind that meant something was being kept.

THE WITNESSING HAS ONLY BEGUN.

House Of Witnesses
Book One of the House Of Witnesses series

The witnessing doesn't end here.

House Of Witnesses is the first book in the House Of Witnesses series.

Continue Clara's story in the full novel here: House Of Witnesses

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