Rose quietly slipped her sketchbook under her pillow, making sure no one would find it. The drawings inside were too strange, too real – no one had believed her the first time, and she didn't want the questions again. She stepped outside into the fading light, the air thick with the scent of damp grass. As she wandered toward the edge of the yard, she froze.
There he was.
Mr. Whitlock.
He stood by the fence that separated his crumbling old house from theirs, unmoving, his pale eyes locked on nothing – or maybe on her. No one ever went near Mr. Whitlock. Children whispered about the shadows behind his curtains and the locks on every window. Some said he used to be a mortician. Others claimed he never slept.
Rose didn't speak. She never did. But her heart thudded like it wanted to scream.
Mr. Whitlock gave her the faintest crooked smile, the kind of smile that made her feel he knew something. Something she shouldn't.
Mr. Whitlock didn't move from his spot by the fence. The crooked smile still tugged at the corner of his mouth as his eyes narrowed ever so slightly, studying Rose like a puzzle he was close to solving.
"You draw, don't you?" he said suddenly, his voice raspy like leaves dragging on concrete.
Rose stiffened. She hadn't brought her sketchbook. Hadn't even shown it to anyone but Aunt Marian, and even then, Marian had just brushed it off as childish nonsense.
But he couldn't know. Could he?
Mr. Whitlock tilted his head, eyes glinting under the heavy shade of his porch. "Funny thing, what people see from there window," he muttered, more to himself than to her. "Sometimes.... wrong eyes sees the right thing."
Rose's fingers curled at her side, her throat tight. She took a step back, her gaze locked with his.
He just smiled again. "Best keep your art safe, little one", he added tapping his forehead with yellowed finger. "Some pictures don't want to be remembered."
And just like that, he turned and disappeared behind his gate with a creak.
Rose stood there, frozen. The breeze tugged at her hair.
He knew.. or maybe he didn't.
But his words lingerered like the smell of smoke after a fire.