The next morning, Mike found the Polaroid back on the mantel, face-up, the red writing now dripping like fresh blood. He didn’t tell Sarah. Instead, he started prying off the 1970s wood paneling in the dining room—anything to make the house feel like theirs. Underneath was plaster so old it looked like dried skin. When his crowbar punched through, dust poured out, thick and sweet-smelling, like talcum powder mixed with copper. Something inside the wall sighed. Not wind. A real exhale. Sarah walked in, froze, and pointed: in the gray dust on the floorboards, five perfect barefoot prints led straight to where Mike stood—then vanished. The footprints were small. Child-sized. But the heel of each print was crushed inward, as if the feet had been turned backward. (
