THE HOUSE STOOD just as I had remembered, its pale blue wooden siding still clinging to its small-town charm despite the wear of time. Once vibrant, the paint had now faded, flaked away by years of wind and rain, with patches of bare, pale wood peeking beneath. The dark shingles of the steeply pitched roof curved ever so slightly at the edges, looming over the front porch, where wooden columns—once bright and clean—had faded to a weary shade of grey, supporting the overhanging eaves. A brick chimney jutted upward, the same one that my older sister and I had once believed Santa squeezed through.

  Encircling the property was a white picket fence, though the years had dulled its brilliance. Some slats leaned with age, while thorny vines and wild roses wove and twisted themselves through the uneven gaps. The flower beds that had once been bursting with my grandma’s careful and loving tending had now grown wild, spilling over with untamed blooms and grassy weeds.

  Yet despite its fading beauty, the house still breathed familiarity and remained steeped in aching memories. Gazing at the old house, I could almost hear the echo of my childhood laughter drifting across the yard and the rhythmic plunk of onyx-coloured stones skipping across the beach’s surface. Myself and my sister had spent countless summers here, our bare feet pressing into the soft earth, our hands sticky with wild blackberries plucked from the bright, green bushes near the back fence. The dog and cat would bound through the grass, chasing each other in wild circles before collapsing contently in a panting, tired heap. Warm nights were spent curled up beneath the porch. We would listen intently to Grandma’s stories and trace constellations in the night sky while tiny fireflies fluttered around us, bathing us in an otherworldly glow. Our Summers here had felt quite magical.

  My best friend broke me out of my reverie.

  “It still looks the same,” Anastasia murmured, brushing a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

  “Yeah,” I agreed dryly, meeting her brown eyes. “Just… more abandoned.”

  She nudged my arm with a pitying smile. “It’s not abandoned. It’s yours now.”

  I swallowed, my eyes drifting to the porch where Ophelia and I used to sit, where Grandma used to hum as she rocked back and forth in her oak chair.

  Mine now.

  That thought didn’t sit right.

  My sister, Ophelia, had been the one to inherit Grandma’s house, her name written in bold lettering on the will. It hadn’t been much of a surprise. After all, she had been the primary caretaker for Grandma during the last five years of her life. Ophelia had always been family-oriented and selfless to a fault.

  But then, only a year later, she was gone too.

  They had discovered her in the woods up the road in the national forest only a few weeks ago. Her car had been locked, her phone inside. There had been no signs of struggle at the vehicle itself. The authorities had found her lifeless body, what was left of it anyway, cold beneath the towering trees. The damage had been extensive, torn apart as if by something wild. The official report cited a large predator and the mortuary, after conducting a thorough examination, confirmed the remains as belonging to Ophelia, matching her dental records precisely. It was her. It had to be.

  The urn sat in the car, waiting. Something about this all felt wrong. Too fast. Too neat. Like the truth had been burned away with her. I had promised myself I’d take her ashes to the water, and let the lapping tide carry her across the place she loved most, where her spirit had felt most free. The ache of loss still felt too raw, and I feared that no matter how much time passed, I might never find the strength to truly say goodbye.

  And now, after her funeral, here I was, dressed in black, hands shaking as I clutched the keys to the house. The deed had named me as the second recipient as if Grandma had foreseen this happening. That thought alone made me feel sick, as did the unopened letter located in the front pocket of my dress.

  “Should we head in?” Anastasia suggested. “The sun is starting to irritate my skin.”

  My attention returned to Ana who is currently shielding her face with her forearm, the midnight fabric of her sleeve a barrier between her sensitive skin and the afternoon sunshine.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Much to popular belief, vampires do not, in fact, go up in flames under the sun’s harsh glare. That kind of dramatic demise belonged in movies, not reality. Ana had explained it to me once, saying that it didn’t kill them right away, but it made them wish it would. The UV rays irritated their skin, like a relentless itch that couldn’t be scratched. Prolonged exposure caused the skin to sear, scorching itself from the inside out.

  She’d been living with this for three years now, ever since that fateful night when she appeared on our dorm room doorstep, covered in blood and with no recollection of what had happened.

  I exhaled sharply and pressed the cool metal of the keys into her palm. “You go ahead.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked quietly, hesitant eyes glancing toward the forest.

  I forced a smile. “I’m sure. I just need a moment.”

  She nodded, fingers closing around the keys. “Don’t take too long.” As she turned, my eyes caught the slight gleam of her fangs, a silent reminder of what made her different from me. Even after all this time, it still never failed to catch me off guard. “Staring is rude, Eden,” she teased, her voice low but playful.

  I blinked at her, caught. “I wasn’t staring.”

  Her lips twitched upward, just enough to flash the tips of her sharp canines. “You were.” She sent a wink in my direction and brushed past, her tall frame ascending effortlessly up the porch steps, pausing to unlock the door before disappearing inside.

  Alone now, my eyes drifted across the landscape. Saltgrove had always felt like the world's edge because it remained isolated and untouched from the outside world, a secret folded away between the sea and land. The house stood near the shore. If I walked for five minutes, I’d be standing at the water’s edge, the foam floating around my ankles in a cool embrace, the salty scent of the ocean thick in the air.

  Ophelia.

  I wrapped my arms around myself to offer a semblance of comfort. Her name had been lingering on my mind a lot recently. Suffocatingly so. People said that time dulled grief, but I’m not sure how much time I will need before I can stand here without feeling the heavy weight of her absence.

  Dad never liked this house. Or maybe it was just the person who lived in it. He never said much about his mother, only that they didn’t see eye to eye. All I knew was that she had left him and his father when he was young, and by the time she tried to mend things, the damage had already been done. He never forgave her for it, not fully.

  But he still let her be in our lives.

  I never asked why he gave her that chance. Maybe because, despite everything, he knew what it felt like to live with an absence, to be haunted by someone who should’ve been there but wasn’t.

  On the contrary, Grandma and Ophelia had both loved it here, and in many ways, I did too. When Ophelia had inherited the house, she had embraced it and refused to change much, clinging to the comfort of the past that I hadn’t fully understood at the time. But it belonged to me now and I didn’t have a clue what to do with it. A part of me wanted to keep it—to hold onto it as a way to preserve them, to keep a piece of them alive. But the other part of me wondered if it was time to let go, unsure if I could ever truly make this place mine without the memories attached to it being too much. It wasn’t an easy choice to make, and I knew it would take time. But for now, having Ana alongside me made the heaviness a little easier to bear.

  The sudden roar of an engine shattered the quiet. My body jolted in surprise, my head snapping toward the road just in time to see an unfamiliar motorbike barrel past. It kicked up dust and gravel from the cracked asphalt and its broad-shouldered rider was hunkered low as he vanished up the bend, swallowed by the winding mountain road that twisted alongside the forested coast.

  It was quite late for someone to be heading that way.

  The road didn’t lead to much, just miles of dense wilderness, a handful of homes, and an old crumbling hunting cabin left to rot.

  Maybe I had been away for far too long.

  Saltgrove was the kind of place where everyone knew each other, where new faces stood out like a drop of ink in clear water. If someone had moved in while I was gone, I would have heard about it. But I hadn’t.

  It was getting late now, the orange hue of the sun bleeding into the purple-blue horizon, and those roads weren’t ones people took for a leisurely ride, especially at this hour.

  I put it down to a new neighbour. That was the most logical explanation.

  And then came an afterthought I didn’t want to entertain at all— the one that had been lurking ever since I arrived here. Maybe if I hadn’t been away for so long and had visited Ophelia more, and made more of an effort to be here, things wouldn’t have happened the way they did. Maybe she’d still be here.

  But that was a dangerous line of thought to go down. I exhaled loudly, forcing myself to let it go with a shake of my head. It wouldn’t change anything.

  “Well, then,” I sighed aloud softly, my fingers brushing against the letter still tucked deeply in my pocket. The weight of it pressed against me as I took a step forward.

  It was time to go inside.