Charlotte stepped off the bus with a suitcase too small to carry everything she remembered, yet heavy enough to feel like a burden. Grey Hollow spread before her, quiet and wet from the rain that had fallen overnight. Puddles reflected houses that seemed familiar, though none aligned exactly with memory. The air was dense with damp wood and something faintly acrid, like smoke that had been here longer than anyone could recall.
She moved down the main street, heels clicking softly against cobblestones that looked worn in ways both natural and deliberate. The town smelled of wet stone and rain-drenched leaves, a mixture that pulled at a fragment of memory she could not place. For a moment, she thought she saw a child on a bicycle pause and stare, then vanish behind a corner where the shadows clung too closely.
A woman watched her from across the street. Their eyes met, and Charlotte felt a weight, a silent recognition, though she could not name why. The woman turned, and the movement seemed both fluid and rehearsed, leaving Charlotte uncertain if she had been real at all.
She touched the railing of the bus stop, fingers brushing the cold metal. The sensation sparked a memory—or a memory of a memory: a laugh echoing in a classroom, a faint whisper of a name she had long forgotten. Eliza. The name hovered on the edge of thought, teasing and distant.
The streets seemed right, yet wrong. A mailbox bent slightly as if to whisper a secret. A door opened, then closed, though no one appeared behind it. Each minor inconsistency amplified her unease, threading tension through the mundane.
Objects shifted subtly in her perception. A scarf hung on a railing that she was sure had been absent moments ago. Footsteps echoed, but not in time with anyone nearby. The town itself felt alive, watching, calculating.
A whisper brushed against her ear. Barely audible, so faint she almost doubted it had come from the air itself: "She's back." No one turned, no one acknowledged the sound, yet the words embedded themselves in Charlotte's mind.
She walked past the general store, the familiar creak of its door slicing through silence. Mr. Alden's gaze followed her, steady and knowing. He said nothing, yet Charlotte felt the weight of unspoken things pressing against the wet morning air.
Every step drew her closer to her old home. The house waited, unchanged yet altered, like a dream she had almost remembered. Inside, familiar objects were just slightly out of place: a lamp shifted a hair's breadth, a chair angled differently than her memory insisted. The subtle distortions gnawed at her sense of certainty.
Charlotte paused at the threshold, hand on the doorknob. She sensed a presence, a pattern she could not identify, a rhythm of absence and attention. Nothing about the house, the town, or even herself felt entirely stable.
She breathed in, the damp and earthy air filling her lungs. Something had happened here, she realized. Or perhaps, it hadn't. Either way, the thought was sharp, precise, and inescapable.
"She remembered it wrong. Or maybe, the town had remembered it wrong. Either way, nothing happened here."
The door creaked open under her hand. Inside, silence awaited. And with it, the first stirrings of memory that would refuse to be ignored.