Can you keep up with this guy?

“You’re scared of this?” Clara asked lightly, gesturing to the towering pines and gnarled oaks. “It’s just a forest, Sophie. There’s nothing in there but birds and squirrels.”

Sophie didn’t respond, of course. She hadn’t spoken a single word since Clara arrived in the village, not even to answer when Clara asked about the last moments with her mother. Clara hated the silence, the constant guessing game it demanded of her. At that moment, Sophie’s face held a blankness that felt almost like defiance, a refusal to engage with Clara’s skepticism.

Then came the sound—a faint murmur carried on the wind, or so Clara told herself. It was soft at first, almost imperceptible, a string of sounds not quite forming words but still possessing the cadence of speech. The longer Clara stood there, the more it grew. It was as though the whispers were carried by the swaying branches, their source buried deeper within the woods. A shiver ran up her spine, and she caught herself scanning the forest’s edge as if expecting to see someone emerge.

“See? It’s nothing,” Clara said, more to herself than Sophie.

Yet the whispers persisted. They curled around her thoughts, tugging at her memories in a way that felt disconcertingly intimate. Clara suddenly remembered an old lullaby her mother used to hum when she was little—a tune she hadn’t thought about in decades. How strange that the melody should come to her now, unbidden and unwelcome.

“Let’s go,” she said abruptly, tugging Sophie’s hand. The girl didn’t resist this time.

As they walked back toward the village, the whispers faded, but the unease they left in their wake remained. Clara rubbed her arms, trying to shake the feeling that someone—or something—had been watching them.