The silence welcomed her home.
Not with sound.
Not with words.
But with presence.
The girl sat in Mira's chair for a long time without speaking.
Her name was Nessa .
She didn't say much at first—just watched. Listened. Traced the pencil marks on the armrest with quiet curiosity.
Eli studied her carefully.
There was something familiar about the way she moved. The tilt of her head when she listened. The way she reached for her sketchpad without hesitation, like it was an extension of herself.
Luka stood beside her, arms crossed, eyes soft.
"She started drawing them before she could write," he said quietly.
Eli raised an eyebrow.
Luka nodded toward Nessa's open sketchpad.
Eli leaned over.
And there it was.
A spiral.
Drawn in soft charcoal.
Smudged just enough to feel like memory.
He looked up at Luka.
Then signed:
How long have you known?
Luka hesitated.
Then signed back:
Since the echoes stopped listening to me. That's when I realized… someone else had started hearing them instead.
Eli exhaled slowly.
Then turned his gaze to Nessa.
She looked up at him.
Then flipped the page.
And began to draw.
It started with a house.
One neither Eli nor Luka recognized.
Tall windows. A broken porch swing. A tree leaning against the roof like it had grown there by accident.
Then came the figures.
A boy standing in the doorway.
A woman kneeling in the hallway.
A shadow curling beneath the floorboards.
Eli felt his breath catch.
Because this wasn't just a drawing.
It was a memory.
One that hadn't been spoken in years.
He looked at Nessa.
Then signed:
Where did you see this?
She tilted her head.
Then tapped her chest twice.
Eli swallowed hard.
"You remember things you never lived," he whispered.
She nodded once.
Then pointed to the spiral at the bottom of the page.
And signed—not with fingers, but with ink on paper:
I hear them too.
That night, Eli lit the lantern above the workbench and pulled out Mira's old sketchpad.
He flipped through the pages one by one, tracing the lines of her memories with careful fingers.
Then he placed it beside Nessa's.
Side by side.
Two silent languages.
Separated by time.
Connected by echo.
Luka watched him closely. "You're not surprised."
Eli shook his head.
Then signed:
Silence doesn't end. It just finds new voices.
Luka smiled faintly. "Do you think she knew this would happen?"
Eli looked at the chair by the window.
At the wind stirring the curtain.
At the weight of silence settling around them like an old friend.
Then he signed again:
I think she was waiting for it.
Outside, Hollowbrook slept beneath a sky heavy with stars.
Somewhere in the distance, the wind shifted.
And if you were listening closely—
You might have heard it.
The whisper of something waking up.
Again.