The clock in the hall chimed three times, but the sound drowned in the thick, milk-like fog enveloping the house from all sides. It clung to the apple trees in the garden, slid down the slate roof, and seeped through the cracks in the windows, making the world beyond the glass waver like a mirage. The wind seemed to avoid this place, as if sensing it was best not to linger. Only the occasional dry creak of the shutters disturbed the heavy silence, a reminder that the house still breathed.
Eleanor sat by the fireplace, clutching a cup of cold tea, her fingers trembling slightly from the chillor perhaps from anticipation. Her eyes never left the door, as if she could will the moment closer. She knew he would come today.
Not because anyone had promised. Not because of letters or calls. She simply knewthe way you know snow will fall when the air turns crisp, the stars too bright, the silence too thick.
The house was old, and it always groanedfloorboards, beams, window frames. But today, the sounds were different: muffled, drawn-out, as if someone tread carefully on damp earth just beyond the walls, pausing now and then to listen. Eleanor told herself it was her imagination, yet each creak brought him nearer, the one she both awaited and dreaded.
Three years ago, this house had been full of life. Laughter, arguments, slamming doors. The kettle always whistling, drowning out the radio someone played too loud. The scent of fresh bread and pipe smoke winding through the halls, a football thudding in the garden, spoons clattering in the kitchen. Then, one by one, they left. Some moved away; others passed on. Silence seeped into every room, soaked into the walls, the floors, the old photographs. Only she remained. And the memories, heavy or warm, with nowhere else to go.
Eleanor closed her eyes and heard that voice againlow, rough, as if carried from afar. Hed told her then, “Ill return. But dont wait for me by day.” Shed asked why. Hed tilted his head slightly, smiled faintly, and said, “Because by day, I wont be here.”
A knock. One, brief, testing if she was home. Then anotherlouder, insistent. Silence followed, broken only by the hammering of her own heart. Eleanor stood, set the cup on the mantel, glanced at the dead coals, and walked to the door. Each step on the creaking floorboards echoed in her chest. The handle was icy, dampas if already touched. She turned it with effort.
A man stood on the threshold. A grey trench coat clung to him, droplets glistening on his shoulders as if hed walked through relentless rainor the fog itself. His face was shadowed beneath a wide-brimmed hat, but his lips stood outpale, tinged with blue, unsmiling.
“You came,” Eleanor said, her voice softer than shed intended.
He nodded and stepped inside. No removal of his hat, no wiping his shoes, as though he carried the cold with him. His presence filled the room, pushing the walls back, thickening the air.
“I knew youd wait,” he murmured, each word sinking into the silence. “You always do.”
Eleanor didnt answer. Her gaze fell to his handslong, slender, skin pallid as one whod seen too little sun. His fingers were still, yet their stillness unsettled her, as if they remembered gripping her shoulders hard enough to leave bruises, dark and fevered to the touch.
“Why are you here?” she finally asked, her voice betraying her.
“You already know.”
He took a step forward, the floorboards groaning under his weight. The fire flared, though shed added no wood. Shadows stretched along the walls, and for a moment, Eleanor fancied others moved silently behind them.
“I thought Id have more time,” she whispered, forcing herself to meet his gaze.
“Theres never enough,” he replied, neither accusing nor comforting. Just fact.
They sat by the fire for what felt like hours, the flames dancing in his motionless eyes. He spoke of places where no light reached, yet the sound of water soothed more than silence ever could. Of those hed taken and those whod gone willingly, as if sensing his approach. When he paused, the only sounds were the crackling logs and the unseen waves of fog rolling outside.
His voice held no threatif anything, it lulled her, pulled her in like a story whose ending was inevitable.
“Are you ready?” he asked, leaning slightly forward.
Eleanor looked around. The cup on the mantel, the worn armchair with its sunken cushion, the photograph in its tarnished silver frame. All unchanged, as if time had stopped here. Only she had moved.
“Yes,” she said, her voice steady.
He stood, offering his hand. She took it. Icebut not biting, almost soothing, as if promising she could leave her fear here by the hearth.
When the villagers noticed no smoke from the chimney the next morning, they assumed Eleanor had gone away. The door was locked, the key missing, the curtains still drawn tight. The silence inside was absolute. In the fireplace, the last embers had faded, the ashes barely warm.
Only two cups remained on the tableone empty, a faint lip mark on its rim, the other half-full, a wisp of steam still rising.
