HUSH

CW: Mental health, physical violence, abuse

Amanda drifts through the parlor wall—or is it the kitchen? The rooms shift when she's not looking. Not the rooms. Her. She's the one shifting.

Today she knows her name. That's good. That's a clear day.

Amanda. She died in 1324. Plague. Or was it childbirth? The memories scatter. She can't hold them any more than she can hold her own hand.

She knows she's been here a long time. The house wasn't this house when she died. It was a smaller dwelling. Wooden beams. Thatched roof. The current structure grew up around her like a shell around a hermit crab. 1780s, maybe. Georgian architecture. She remembers someone saying that once.

Or was it yesterday?

Time is soup.

Laughter echoes from upstairs. The children.

Three of them. She thinks three.

They've been here much less time than Amanda. Decades, not centuries. They died in the 1950s. A fire. Or maybe separate incidents. Amanda can't hold the information.

But she knows they're loud. Always running. Always giggling. Always hiding her things.

What things? Ghosts don't have things.

But they hide... something. Her memories, perhaps. Take them and scatter them through the walls like marbles.

The tallest boy—maybe ten years old—zooms past making airplane noises.

"Neeeeeeooowwww!"

He flies through her middle. Cold shock. Her form ripples.

"Stop that," she says. Her voice sounds far away. Underwater.

The boy loops back. Grins. "Make me, grandma!"

Grandma. She was a grandmother once. Had a daughter. What was her name?

Gone. The memory slides away.

The boy does another pass. Through her chest this time. Her essence scatters like dandelion seeds. Takes her a moment to pull back together.

By the time she's solid again, he's vanished into the ceiling.

More laughter. The other children somewhere above. Always moving. Always playing.

Amanda was never this energetic. Even when she was alive. Even when she was young.

Was she young? She must have been. Everyone starts young.

But she can't remember it.

The house has been empty since 2000. Twenty-four years of silence broken only by ghosts.

Before that: families. Tenants. Owners. Coming and going. The living with their noise and their warmth and their solid footsteps.

Amanda liked the living. They reminded her of something. Of being real. Of mattering.

But the children scared them away. Knocked on walls. Moved objects. Appeared in mirrors. Laughing the whole time.

By 2000, no one would stay. The house was condemned. Structural issues, they said. But really: too many ghosts.

Amanda tried to stop the children. Tried to explain: The living are precious. Let them stay. Let them bring life to this place.

But the children just laughed. "They're boring! They don't play with us! They just scream and run!"

So the house emptied.

And Amanda has been alone with the children for twenty-four years.

Twenty-four years of games she doesn't understand. Of hiding and seeking and running and noise.

Twenty-four years of watching her memories scatter like leaves in wind.

Today is a clear day. Amanda knows this.

She drifts to the second floor. The children are in what used to be a nursery. Now just rotting wallpaper and broken floorboards.

Three of them. She's certain this time.

The tall boy—Timothy. That's his name. She remembers.

The twin girls—Sarah and Susan. Six years old. Died in 1952. Carbon monoxide. They were sleeping. Didn't suffer.

Amanda remembers this. Clings to it. Proof that she can still remember something.

"Hello, dears," she says.

They stop playing. Look at her with wide eyes.

"It's a clear day for Amanda," Timothy whispers.

"Be nice," Sarah says. Or Susan. Amanda can't tell them apart.

"We're always nice," the other twin says.

They're lying. They're never nice. They play tricks. Hide things. Push her memories into corners where she can't find them.

But Amanda smiles. Because today she remembers she loved children once. Had children. Or maybe she was a teacher? The details blur, but the feeling remains.

Love. She loved children.

These children are not hers. But she loves them anyway.

She remembers—yes, she remembers—when they first arrived. The 1950s. She was clearer then. Had more good days than bad.

Timothy had been frightened at first. Confused. "Am I dead?" he'd asked, looking at his translucent hands.

"Yes, dear," Amanda had said gently. "But you're not alone."

She'd shown him how to drift through walls. How to ride the feeling of being untethered. The twins arrived later—together, thank goodness, so they had each other—and Amanda had taught them too.

They'd played games. Hide and seek through the centuries-old bones of the house. I spy with objects only ghosts could see—the residue of lives lived and lost. Timothy teaching the twins how to make themselves invisible. Sarah and Susan showing Amanda they could appear in two places at once if they concentrated.

Amanda had laughed then. She's certain of it. The sound had surprised her—laughter from a throat that hadn't drawn breath in six hundred years.

"Again!" the children had cried. "Make the funny sound again!"

When had it changed? When had the games become torment instead of play?

She can't pinpoint it. Maybe when her clear days became less frequent. When she started forgetting their names, forgetting they were trying to include her, not mock her. When their "Come play with us, Amanda!" started sounding like "Come play with us, grandma!" in that teasing, cruel way.

Or maybe they'd never been cruel. Maybe she just couldn't tell the difference anymore.

"Would you like to hear a story?" she asks.

The children exchange glances.

"What story?" Timothy asks.

"About the plague. About 1324. About when I died."

"We've heard it," Susan says. Or Sarah.

"Eighty-seven times," her twin adds.

"You tell it every clear day."

Amanda's smile fades. "Oh."

Silence.

Then Timothy zooms past her. "Neeeeeoooowwww! Can't catch me, grandma!"

The twins giggle. Join him. Three children zooming through walls and ceiling and floor. Through Amanda herself. Scattering her. Laughing.

Amanda tries to hold her form together. Tries to stay present. But the children are relentless. Through her chest. Through her head. Through her memories.

And just like that—

The clear day ends.

Amanda doesn't know where she is.

Darkness. Not the darkness of night. The darkness of forgetting.

She drifts. Untethered.

Noise somewhere. Children? No—demons. Little demons with teeth and claws. Chasing her. Always chasing.

She moans. The sound fills the house. Deep and hollow. The sound of something ancient and afraid.

The demons scatter. Good. They should fear her.

She is... she is...

Who is she?

The woman in the walls. The thing that haunts. The shadow that screams.

Yes. That's who she is.

Timothy huddles in the attic with the twins.

"She's bad today," he whispers.

"Really bad," Sarah agrees.

"Should we hide?" Susan asks.

A wail echoes through the house. Long and terrible. The sound of someone who's forgotten how to be human.

"Yes," Timothy says. "Hide."

They sink into the walls. Become part of the house. Still. Silent. Invisible.

Below, Amanda drifts. Searching for something. What is she searching for?

The noise. She's searching for the noise.

There was noise. Always noise. Little things running. Little things laughing. Making it so she couldn't think. Couldn't remember.

Where are they?

She pulls the house around her like a coat. Sinks into the foundation. Into the beams. Into the wallpaper and floorboards and crumbling plaster.

Where are you?

No answer.

But she can feel them. Three small presences. Hiding. Afraid.

Good. They should be afraid.

She is the woman in the walls. She is the shadow. She is what remains when everything else is forgotten.

And she's so tired of the noise.

Timothy feels her searching. Feels her attention like cold fingers pressing into his hiding place.

"She's looking for us," he whispers.

"She won't find us," Sarah says. But her voice shakes.

They've hidden before. Lots of times. When Amanda has bad days—when she forgets who she is and becomes the wailing thing—they hide until she forgets what she was angry about.

Usually takes a few hours.

But this time feels different.

This time Amanda isn't just wandering. She's hunting.

Amanda finds the first one in the walls.

Not by sight. By feeling. A small warmth. A tiny presence. A ghost so young it still remembers what it's like to have a heartbeat.

She reaches for it.

The ghost—the boy, she doesn't remember his name but she remembers there's a name—tries to flee. Slips through the walls.

But Amanda is the walls. Amanda is the house. She's been here so long she's become part of the structure. And the house holds him like a fist.

Please, the boy whispers. I'm sorry. We'll be quiet. I promise.

Sorry for what? Amanda doesn't remember.

She only knows: he makes noise. They all make noise. And she needs quiet.

She pulls him closer.

Ghosts can't eat. Ghosts don't have mouths. But Amanda finds she can... absorb. Can take him into herself. Can make him part of her.

The boy struggles. Screams.

But the scream becomes part of Amanda too. Becomes another memory she'll forget. Another piece of scattered glass.

And then—

Silence.

One voice gone.

Amanda drifts for a moment. Confused. What was she doing?

There was noise. Now there's less noise.

That's good.

But there's still noise somewhere. Still small things hiding. Still disturbances in the house.

She keeps searching.

Sarah and Susan feel Timothy disappear.

Not die—he's already dead. But... cease. His presence in the house simply ends.

"What happened?" Susan whispers.

"I don't know."

They cling to each other. The way they did when the carbon monoxide filled their bedroom seventy-two years ago. The way they did when they realized they weren't alive anymore. The way they've done every time they're frightened.

Below them, Amanda wails again.

Searching.

"We have to run," Sarah says.

"Where?"

"Outside. Out of the house."

They've never left the house. Didn't know they could. They died here. This is where they belong.

But Timothy is gone. And Amanda is hunting.

They flee toward the front door. Two small ghosts racing through walls and floors. Heading for freedom.

Amanda feels them moving. Feels their panic. The house tells her everything.

She moves faster.

Catches Sarah first. Or Susan. She can't tell which. Doesn't matter.

The girl screams. "Susan! Run!"

So it's Sarah. Amanda absorbs this information without understanding it. Absorbs Sarah too. Pulls her in. Makes her part of the woman in the walls. Part of the shadow. Part of the forgetting.

Another voice silenced.

The second twin makes it to the door. Pushes through. Emerges into the yard.

Freedom. Grass and sky and moonlight. Things she hasn't seen since 1952.

But Amanda follows. The house extends beyond walls. The land remembers. The foundation reaches into earth.

And Amanda has been here so long she's become the land too.

She rises from the ground like mist. Surrounds the small ghost. The girl tries to flee but there's nowhere to go. Amanda is the air. Amanda is the earth. Amanda is everything.

I'm sorry, Amanda whispers. Or thinks she whispers. I just need quiet.

The girl stops struggling. Looks at her with wide eyes.

"I forgive you," the girl says.

And then she's gone. Absorbed. Silenced. Part of Amanda now.

The house is quiet.

Amanda drifts through empty rooms. Searching for the thing she was searching for.

What was it?

There was noise. She remembers that. Constant noise. Children playing. Running. Laughing. Scattering her thoughts like leaves.

But now—

Silence.

Perfect, complete silence.

Amanda reaches for the memory. What happened? Where are the children?

Gone. They're gone. She made them gone.

She consumed them. Absorbed them. Made them part of herself.

The memory clicks into place. Clear. Sharp. Terrible.

Amanda screams.

The sound echoes through the empty house. Through the condemned building with its rotting floors and crumbling walls. Through seven hundred years of haunting.

Timothy. Sarah. Susan.

She knows their names now. Can feel their memories mixed with her own. Their lives. Their deaths. Their decades of play and laughter and tricks.

They were just children. Just lonely children. Wanting attention. Wanting play. Wanting someone to remember them.

And she destroyed them.

For quiet.

The house is quiet now.

Perfectly quiet.

Amanda drifts alone. Through rooms that echo with absence. Through walls that remember children's laughter but will never hear it again.

She has what she wanted. Peace. Stillness. No more noise to disturb her. No more tricks to confuse her. No more memories scattered through the walls.

Just silence.

And in the silence, Amanda remembers everything.

Remembers being alive in 1324. Remembers the plague. Remembers dying alone while her family fled. Remembers becoming a ghost. Remembers seven hundred years of drifting. Of forgetting. Of losing pieces of herself decade by decade.

Remembers the children arriving. How much they annoyed her at first. How much noise they made.

But also: how they brought life to the house. How their laughter filled empty spaces. How they reminded her—in brief moments of clarity—what it was like to feel something other than confusion.

They were loud. They were mischievous. They drove her mad.

But they were company.

And now they're gone.

And she's alone.

Truly alone for the first time in seventy-two years.

Amanda sinks into the foundation. Into the oldest part of the house. The part that's been here as long as she has.

She can feel the children inside her. Three small lights. Three memories that aren't hers but are part of her now.

She could release them, but she doesn't know how. And even if she did—they're consumed. Changed. What would emerge wouldn't be the children anymore. Just pieces. Fragments. Ghosts of ghosts.

So she keeps them. Holds them. Carries them in her endless drift.

I'm sorry, she whispers. To them. To herself. To the empty rooms.

But sorry doesn't stop her from forgetting—even now, even in this moment of clarity—what she's done.

The house stands empty on the edge of town. Condemned since 2000. Rotting. Crumbling.

No one goes near it. Locals tell stories—the shadow-woman in the walls, the thing that wails.

They don't know about Timothy, Sarah, and Susan.

No one remembers them anymore except Amanda.

And Amanda forgets.

Inside the quiet house, a ghost drifts.

She doesn't remember her name today. Doesn't remember much of anything.

Just that she's alone. Has been alone for... how long? Forever, maybe.

And somewhere deep inside her, three small lights flicker.

Memories she doesn't recognize. Voices she can't hear.

Children who will never play again.

She drifts through empty rooms. Searching for something. What was she searching for?

The noise, maybe. There used to be noise.

Didn't there?

She can't remember.

Just knows the house is quiet now.

Finally, blessedly quiet.

And in the silence, the woman in the walls forgets she ever wanted anything else.