Morning never truly arrived. Not in the way Clara had hoped it would. There was light, yes a pale, indifferent kind that seeped through the blinds like fog through graveyard gates but it brought no peace.
Clara sat in the hallway, knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around herself. Her gaze was locked on Ivy's bedroom door. Closed now. But it hadn't been.
She remembered the blackness in her daughter's eyes. That smile. The voice. Daniel's voice.
She could still hear it echoing in her skull.
Down the hall, Ivy laughed softly. A giggle. Sweet. Innocent. But it clawed at Clara's nerves like nails on glass.
She stood. Moved like a woman in a dream. One hand braced against the wall for balance. The other clutched the rosary that hadn't left her palm since the night before. Her fingers ached from how tightly she'd been gripping it.
The bedroom door opened without a sound.
Ivy sat up in bed, the blankets bunched around her waist. Sunlight glinted off her hair, making it gleam like gold. She looked like any other child waking up from sleep. But her hands rested on her lap still stained red.
Clara stepped inside. Her voice cracked.
"Ivy... what did you do last night?"
Ivy looked up, her big eyes shining. Blue again. But Clara had seen them black.
"I had a dream, Mommy."
Clara knelt. "What kind of dream?"
Ivy leaned forward. "I was in the dark. And he was there with me. But he said not to be scared. He said it was almost time."
Clara's heart thudded. "Who said that?"
Ivy shrugged. Her eyes sparkled with amusement. "The man in the dirt."
Clara's fingers closed over the edge of the bed. She could barely breathe.
"Do you remember what happened after that?"
Ivy tilted her head. Thought for a moment. Then whispered, "He told me a secret."
"What kind of secret, baby?"
Ivy's smile returned.
"How to make people quiet. Forever."
Clara reeled back, hand to her mouth. Ivy only hummed that same soft lullaby Daniel used to sing. She flopped back onto her pillow and closed her eyes as if the conversation had never happened.
Outside, the wind picked up. The trees groaned.
Inside, the house felt colder than it ever had before.
And in that quiet room, Clara understood:
Her daughter had brought something back with her.
Ravenswood remained cloaked in unnatural silence, like the town had inhaled but forgotten how to exhale. Even the morning birds refused to sing.
But not every neighbor slept through it.
Mrs. Bellamy, Clara’s closest neighbor on the east side a widow who had once babysat Ivy during Clara’s long shifts had always been a light sleeper. She awoke to the sound of knocking. Not at her door. At Clara’s.
Followed by laughter.
Children’s laughter, but wrong.
She got up, peered through her lace curtains. Clara’s porch light flickered, casting sickly yellow flashes over her yard. The fog hugged the ground like a moving carpet, and in its center, the shadow of a man stood on the Monroe porch.
But Mrs. Bellamy saw no one open the door. The man simply vanished.
She stepped back from the window, heart racing. And just before she turned away, she saw something else.
Ivy.
Standing in the upstairs window, facing her. Motionless.
No expression.
As if she had been watching the entire time.
Inside, Clara had collapsed to the floor. Daniel’s form remained just a few feet away, unmoving now, like a statue waiting to be acknowledged. Ivy stood at the bottom of the stairs, one hand still holding the eyeless doll, the other outstretched as if she had conducted it all.
And then, it shifted.
Daniel blinked once. Twice.
And then began to dissolve.
Not in a cinematic fade, but in flickers. Choppy, jarring vanishes, like an old VHS tape eating itself. His smile froze. His mouth twitched. Then, frame by frame, his figure blinked out of existence.
Until only Ivy remained.
She looked at Clara, stepping closer.
"You thought he was the storm," she said, her voice still sweet, high-pitched. "But he was just the thunder. I’m the fire."
Clara tried to crawl away, but Ivy stopped her with a single gesture.
The hallway doors slammed shut. The house groaned.
Somewhere beneath the floorboards, a low rumble rolled upward, like chanting underwater.
"You let me in, Mommy," Ivy whispered. "Every time you said you loved me, every time you let your guard down. You opened the door a little wider."
Outside, Mrs. Bellamy heard the crash.
Something had shattered inside Clara’s home. Glass? A mirror? Then the lights in the upstairs window flared a short, blinding burst and went out.
She stepped away from the window, her breath fogging the glass.
Her cat hissed at nothing and fled under the couch.
Mrs. Bellamy didn’t sleep again that night.
Back inside, Clara clung to the stair railing, dragging herself upward, trying to escape the girl with her daughter’s face.
But Ivy didn’t follow.
She just watched.
And the doll in her hand slowly twisted its head around though Ivy never moved it.
"You picked the wrong one to save," Ivy said calmly.
And with that, the front door blew open.
Ravenswood remained cloaked in unnatural silence, like the town had inhaled but forgotten how to exhale. Even the morning birds refused to sing.
But not every neighbor slept through it.
Mrs. Bellamy, Clara’s closest neighbor on the east side a widow who had once babysat Ivy during Clara’s long shifts had always been a light sleeper. She awoke to the sound of knocking. Not at her door. At Clara’s.
Followed by laughter.
Children’s laughter, but wrong.
She got up, peered through her lace curtains. Clara’s porch light flickered, casting sickly yellow flashes over her yard. The fog hugged the ground like a moving carpet, and in its center, the shadow of a man stood on the Monroe porch.
But Mrs. Bellamy saw no one open the door. The man simply vanished.
She stepped back from the window, heart racing. And just before she turned away, she saw something else.
Ivy.
Standing in the upstairs window, facing her. Motionless.
No expression.
As if she had been watching the entire time.
Inside, Clara had collapsed to the floor. Daniel’s form remained just a few feet away, unmoving now, like a statue waiting to be acknowledged. Ivy stood at the bottom of the stairs, one hand still holding the eyeless doll, the other outstretched as if she had conducted it all.
And then, it shifted.
Daniel blinked once. Twice.
And then began to dissolve.
Not in a cinematic fade, but in flickers. Choppy, jarring vanishes, like an old VHS tape eating itself. His smile froze. His mouth twitched. Then, frame by frame, his figure blinked out of existence.
Until only Ivy remained.
She looked at Clara, stepping closer.
"You thought he was the storm," she said, her voice still sweet, high-pitched. "But he was just the thunder. I’m the fire."
Clara tried to crawl away, but Ivy stopped her with a single gesture.
The hallway doors slammed shut. The house groaned.
Somewhere beneath the floorboards, a low rumble rolled upward, like chanting underwater.
"You let me in, Mommy," Ivy whispered. "Every time you said you loved me, every time you let your guard down. You opened the door a little wider."
Outside, Mrs. Bellamy heard the crash.
Something had shattered inside Clara’s home. Glass? A mirror? Then the lights in the upstairs window flared a short, blinding burst and went out.
She stepped away from the window, her breath fogging the glass.
Her cat hissed at nothing and fled under the couch.
Mrs. Bellamy didn’t sleep again that night.
Back inside, Clara clung to the stair railing, dragging herself upward, trying to escape the girl with her daughter’s face.
But Ivy didn’t follow.
She just watched.
And the doll in her hand slowly twisted its head around though Ivy never moved it.
"You picked the wrong one to save," Ivy said calmly.
And with that, the front door blew open.
The fog poured in.
The whispers followed.
Morning pressed in through the windows, dim and gray. Clara sat at the kitchen table with her wounded arm resting in a dish towel soaked through. Ivy sat across from her, eating a bowl of cereal with quiet focus. She chewed slowly, spoon clinking gently against porcelain.
No one would have guessed what had happened hours before.
The child’s eyes were bright. Her pigtails were uneven. Her lips stained with milk. She looked like any other little girl. But Clara knew.
She knew.
“I want to go outside today,” Ivy said between bites.
Clara didn’t answer. Her eyes burned. Her fingers trembled on the table. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d slept, since she’d eaten, since her mind had felt her own.
Ivy pushed the bowl away and tilted her head. “You’re not going to stop me, are you?”
Clara blinked. “No,” she whispered. “Of course not.”
Ivy smiled. “Good.”
The floorboards creaked overhead. No one else was home.
A knock came at the door. Three slow taps.
Clara flinched.
Ivy didn’t.
Clara peeked through the curtains. Mrs. Bellamy.
She wiped her face quickly, smoothed her hair, unlocked the door and stepped outside closing it behind her.
Mrs. Bellamy stood on the porch, arms folded tightly over her chest. “Is everything alright?”
Clara nodded. Too quickly. “Just... tired. Ivy hasn’t been sleeping well.”
“I heard something. A crash. Then all the lights upstairs went out.”
Clara swallowed. “Just a mirror. I broke it. Clumsy.”
Mrs. Bellamy glanced toward the window. “She was watching me. From the attic.”
Clara stiffened.
“Ivy,” Mrs. Bellamy continued. “But... she wasn’t blinking.”
Neither woman spoke for a moment.
Then Ivy’s voice drifted through the door. Sweet. Innocent.
“Mommy? Can I come say hi?”
Clara turned, startled. She hadn’t left the door unlocked.
The knob twisted slowly on its own.
Mrs. Bellamy’s face changed. “She can wait,” she said quietly. “You... you need rest.”
Clara nodded, eyes wide.
Mrs. Bellamy stepped down from the porch, pausing only to add, “That attic window? I boarded mine years ago. Too many things you don’t want looking back.”
The door behind Clara creaked wider.
When she turned, Ivy was standing there barefoot, her smile bright and unshaken.
“I made her nervous,” she whispered. “I like her.”
Clara said nothing.
The hallway lights flickered above them. The walls... flexed. Only for a second. As if the house had breathed in and forgotten how to exhale.
And Ivy reached for her mother’s hand.
“Let’s not be afraid anymore, Mommy,” she said, softly. “We’re already home.”
Clara didn’t move.
Ivy stood at the threshold, barefoot, eyes shimmering beneath the ceiling light that buzzed and dimmed.
Then, the child stepped forward and the air changed.
A pulse beat through the floor. It wasn’t sound. It wasn’t vibration. It was pressure, low and rising, like a hidden heart buried in the foundation of the house had begun to stir.
Clara backed away.
“Ivy, please. Let’s just sit down. We’ll talk. I know you’re still in there.”
Ivy tilted her head.
The lights flared once. Then went out.
Darkness swallowed the hallway.
When they flickered back on, Ivy was no longer standing. She was hovering—only inches off the floor, arms limp at her sides, eyes black and empty.
Clara screamed and turned to run.
But Ivy was already there.
The girl moved with inhuman speed, slamming Clara into the wall. Her body felt like marble. Solid. Unmoving.
Clara gasped, her breath crushed in her lungs.
Tiny hands wrapped around her throat.
Not tiny anymore.
Fingers expanded, grew tight like iron bands. Clara kicked, clawed, her feet scrambling against the floorboards.
Ivy snarled. Not a child’s sound. A multitude.
Voices layered inside her chest, screaming, moaning, weeping in ancient dialects.
Clara smashed her elbow upward. Connected. Ivy fell back but did not cry out.
She grinned.
Clara ran to the kitchen, slammed open a drawer, fumbled for the carving knife
Ivy crashed through the hallway mirror. Glass rained. She rose with streaks down her face, cuts already knitting shut.
Clara turned, swung the knife.
Ivy caught her wrist mid-air. The blade fell.
Clara tried to scream, but Ivy lifted her.
One hand. Off the floor.
“We were never your baby,” the thing in Ivy’s mouth said.
Clara clawed for the counter.
Her fingers wrapped around the salt shaker.
She smashed it into Ivy’s face.
The girl shrieked. A high, metallic wail that shook the cupboards.
Clara dropped to the ground, coughing, dragging herself toward the stairs.
Behind her, Ivy shrieked again, and the tiles under her feet cracked.
Clara reached the landing.
A cupboard door flung open by itself. Dishes spilled.
The hallway groaned. The walls began to breathe again.
And as Ivy stepped over the shards of glass, black veins spreading through her skin like ink in water
Clara whispered through her blood and tears:
"I won't let you take her."
But Ivy only laughed.
"You already did."
Clara didn’t look back.
Her feet slapped the hallway floor, one foot over the other, past broken glass, shattered dishes, and the trail of her own blood. But the house no longer made sense. Corners led to the same rooms. The walls bent. The hallway shifted like a slow-turning jaw.
Behind her, Ivy walked without sound. Without breath.
Clara turned a corner.
And found herself in the kitchen.
Again.
The knife drawer was closed.
The salt shaker gone.
She screamed and slammed her hands into the wall.
The plaster pulsed. Beneath her palms, the wallpaper moved suirming like it was alive, like it was breathing beneath the skin of the house.
"Please..."
She staggered backward. A door appeared behind her.
She didn’t remember a door there.
It opened slowly on its own.
Inside: darkness. No floor. No stairs. Just the sound of water. Deep. Bubbling. Chanting.
She slammed it shut. It disappeared.
The windows pulsed with blinding light. Then darkness. The floor stretched again beneath her, growing longer with each step.
She turned toward the stairwell and stopped.
A figure stood halfway up.
Not Ivy.
Daniel.
But not the illusion.
He was skeletal now, drenched, eyes missing. Jaw broken sideways, like a doll that had been torn in two and pieced back wrong.
His hand stretched toward her.
“You should’ve chosen me.”
Clara screamed.
Ivy appeared behind her, standing in the mirror but only in the reflection.
Clara turned.
Nothing.
She turned back.
In the glass, Ivy grinned.
The mirror cracked.
And from it, a hand began to reach.
Clara ran.
This time the floor didn’t stretch. It opened.
The boards beneath her feet bent, groaned, and then snapped, revealing a crawlspace below black, wet, and filled with whispering air.
Clara dropped, hitting the ground with a breathless thud.
She looked up.
The floor above sealed shut.
And Ivy’s face peered through the boards one last time.
"I just want to be held, Mommy."
The lights in the crawlspace flickered.
And the whispering became screaming.
How to Submit Content to the University of Minnesota Law School Scholarship Repository
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