The House at the End of Wren Hollow

I. Arrival

The road into Wren Hollow had always been wrong. Evelyn noticed it the way you notice a lie—something slightly off in the way it bent through the trees, something crooked about its silence.

She’d been driving for hours when the last gas station disappeared behind her. Her uncle’s lawyer had said the house would be easy to find: Follow County Road 16 until you see the gate. It’ll be waiting.

Waiting. The word had stuck.

By the time she pulled up, dusk had spread its bruises across the sky. The gate leaned on rusted hinges, one post split down the middle like a snapped bone. Beyond it, the gravel drive crawled through choked weeds to a house that sagged against the horizon.

Evelyn killed the engine. The silence swallowed her at once. No cars, no wind, no insects. The stillness was so complete she swore she could hear her own blood moving.

The will had been unexpected. She’d never met her uncle. Family gatherings were not her thing—she’d perfected the art of excuses long ago. Yet here she was, deed in hand, inheritor of something she hadn’t asked for.

She thought about driving away. But where would she go? Back to the city she’d abandoned, where bills stacked like dirty plates and her ex still occupied the apartment across the hall? Back to the job where she typed other people’s words until her fingers cramped, drowning her own voice in cheap copy?

No. She pushed the gate open. The hinges screamed like something waking from sleep.

II. The House

The front door swung open before she touched it. Evelyn froze, hand hovering. Had someone left it ajar? Or had it known she was coming?

Inside, the air was stale with lavender and burnt paper. The floorboards sighed under her weight as she stepped into a hallway that smelled faintly of dust and something older—like damp stone.

The walls were lined with photographs. Evelyn stopped short.

They were faces—rows and rows of them in tarnished frames. Her stomach knotted. They were her.

Not exactly, but close enough. One with longer hair, one with sharper cheekbones, one smiling with a mouth too wide. Some younger, some older, all variations of her own reflection.

The last frame at the end of the wall was empty. Waiting.

The silence deepened. That was when she heard it: a whisper, thin as thread, crawling out of the walls. At first it sounded like the rustle of insects, but then words began to form.

She’s here. She’s come back.

Evelyn’s heart lurched. The floor shifted beneath her feet. She stumbled back, but the hallway seemed to stretch, pulling her farther from the door. The photographs rattled in their frames.

And then one spoke. The version of her with the too-wide grin leaned forward inside its glass, lips moving in sync with the whispers.

“You are the last piece.”

Her scream died in her throat. The hallway snapped back to silence.

III. The Dark Within

That night, Evelyn sat in the parlor with her suitcase unopened. She should have left. She should have bolted to her car and driven until the road forgot her. But she stayed.

Because part of her liked it.

The photographs, the voices, the wrongness of the place—it was terrifying, yes, but it was also familiar. Like a song she half-remembered from childhood, something she used to hum in secret.

She had always carried darkness. She knew that. As a child she’d lied just to watch people believe her. At fifteen she’d stolen money from her mother’s purse not because she needed it, but to see if she could. At twenty she’d ended a friendship by whispering rumors into the right ears.

She’d told herself it was survival. She told herself everyone had shadows. But deep down, she feared she was made of them.

The house seemed to know.

That night, she dreamed of the photographs. They stepped out of their frames and circled her bed, whispering, “We are you. You are us.” One leaned close, her own face distorted with hunger. “You’ve always belonged here.”

She woke drenched in sweat. The whispers didn’t fade. They hummed in her bones.

IV. The Descent

Days bled together. Evelyn explored the house because she had no choice.

The kitchen counters were dusted with flour that never spoiled. The study shelves sagged with books whose words shifted when she blinked. In the cellar she found scratches on the walls, tally marks carved by desperate hands. Some were fresh.

Each discovery twisted something deeper inside her. She began to recognize herself in the house’s decay. Its peeling wallpaper matched the peeling in her own life—the masks she wore, the cracks she hid.

At night the whispers grew bolder. They told her secrets about neighbors she hadn’t met, about the lawyer who had handed her the keys, about the people who had lived here before. They told her what they’d done, and what she could do.

The photographs changed too. The empty frame now held a faint outline on her face. The others smiled knowingly.

She tried to leave once. She dragged her suitcase to the door, hand on the knob. But when she pulled it open, the driveway stretched on forever, twisting into darkness with no end. She slammed it shut, breath ragged.

The house had closed around her.

V. The Mirror

It happened on the seventh night.

The whispers woke her at 3:13 a.m., sharp as a blade. She followed them to the parlor, where the photographs pulsed with dim light. Her own faces stared back, hundreds of them.

The empty frame glowed.

Her body moved without her permission, feet carrying her forward until she stood in front of it. She raised her hand. The glass was warm, almost alive.

“Do you see?” the voices asked.

She saw herself—tired, bitter, furious at the world. She saw every slight she’d carried like a jewel: every rejection, every betrayal, every moment someone else’s success felt like her failure. She saw the nights she’d wished harm on people who had never wronged her.

The glass rippled. A hand—her hand—reached through and gripped her wrist.

“You are the last piece,” it said again.

She didn’t fight. She couldn’t. Because the truth was, she wanted it. The darkness inside her had been waiting for a home.

The mirror pulled. She stepped through.

VI. Becoming

When Evelyn opened her eyes, she was still in the parlor. But the photographs were gone. The walls were bare.

She looked down. Her hands were not her own anymore—they shimmered, pale and sharp, like light bent through water. Her reflection in the glass door showed a smile stretched too wide.

The whispers had stopped. Because they no longer needed to. They were inside her now.

Outside, the night pressed heavy against the windows. She felt it welcome her. The house was no longer a cage. It was her skin.

Evelyn walked to the front door and opened it. The driveway was short again, the gate visible in the moonlight. Beyond it, the road waited, leading back into the world.

She stepped out, barefoot, smiling. She was free. And she was hungry.