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- fantasyEveryone
The Lantern That Walked Home
By dawn the Lantern Festival was over. Wren walked the rows along the river, pinching out flame after flame. Every paper lantern died at her touch but one. It hung at the water's edge, glowing a steady gold no breeze could shake. When she reached for it, the little wick leaned away from her fingers and tugged its string, like it wanted her to follow.
5 writers - fantasy◐ Mature
What the Briar Remembers
Mirren had tended the Briar for nine winters. She knew which graves to leave alone. The whole forest had grown over an old war, with bone under the roots and rust under the moss. That morning the thorns wept sap the color of a bruise. Under a hawthorn she found a grey hand pushing up through the dirt. It twitched, then grabbed at the air, reaching for her.
5 writers - fantasy◐ Mature
The Debt of Hollow Bells
Maren had rung the hollow bells over six hundred graves. Each toll dragged a dead soul up just long enough for one last word. She'd done it so long it bored her. But tonight the bell rang before she touched the rope. One cold iron note rolled across the frozen yard. She opened her casebook to write it down, and the page was already full, in handwriting that was not hers.
5 writers - horror◐ Teen
The Tenants Below the Frost Line
The realtor called the staircase a "feature." It dropped past our new cellar, past a wine room nobody asked for, all the way down to a cold concrete floor. In Hollow Marsh, every house had one, each deeper than the last, like the town was competing. Our first night, Mrs. Edevane from next door knocked. "Whatever you do," she said, "don't go past the frost line."
5 writers - horrorEveryone
The Scarecrow Counts to Twelve
Every harvest, the scarecrow in the high field turns on its pole. It points one straw arm at a house, and before the snow that family packs up and leaves. They never write back. This year Wren counted the empty homes: eleven gone. Last week the scarecrow turned. Its arm now points straight at Wren's own front door. That makes them the twelfth. This morning the crows stopped singing all at once, and the field went dead quiet. Wren stands at the fence, heart pounding, and decides not to wait for the snow.
5 writers