I didn’t wait to see who was climbing the stairs.
I scrambled out the window, sliding down the ivy trellis like a thief in my own home, tearing my palms on the rough bark. I ran to the car, keys jammed between my knuckles, and tore down the driveway before the headlights even flickered on. I didn’t look in the rearview mirror. I knew what I would see: a silhouette in the glass box, watching me run.
Now, two hours later, I was hiding in the only place in Oakhaven that felt safer than a moving vehicle: the basement of the public library.
The Oakhaven Gazette Archives were less of a historical record and more of a graveyard for bad news. The room smelled of vinegar syndrome—that sharp, acidic scent of decomposing film—and the damp wool smell of wet carpet. It was windowless, buried beneath the street, protected by three feet of concrete and the indifference of the town.
I sat at the microfiche reader, the blue light washing over my face, making me look like a drowned thing in the reflection of the screen.
Scroll. Click. Scroll.
I was looking for a ghost.
“You’re going to burn your retinas out, dear,” a voice rasped from the shadows.
I jumped, my knee hitting the underside of the metal desk with a hollow clang.
Mrs. Gable stood at the end of the aisle. She was a woman composed entirely of angles—sharp elbows, a pointed chin, and spectacles that magnified her eyes into owlish proportions. She had been the librarian since before I was born, and she looked exactly the same as she had when I was ten: ancient and timeless, like a dried flower pressed between pages.
“Mrs. Gable,” I breathed, pressing a hand to my chest. “I didn’t hear you come down.”
“The carpet absorbs sound,” she said, gliding closer. She wasn’t holding a book; she was holding a watering can, though there were no plants in the basement. “And you were very focused. What brings Elara Vance back to the underworld? I heard you were a big-city reporter now. Too good for paper and ink.”
“I’m doing some research,” I said, turning back to the screen to hide the tremor in my hands. “On local folklore.”
“Folklore,” she tasted the word, rolling it around her mouth. “We have plenty of that. The Weeping Woods. The Shroud. The Vanishing Hitchhiker of Route 9.”
“I’m looking for something specific,” I said. “The Sandman.”
The silence that followed was heavy. The hum of the microfiche machine seemed to grow louder, a high-pitched whine drilling into my skull.
Mrs. Gable set the watering can down on a stack of newspapers from 1984.
“That’s not folklore, Elara. That’s a bedtime story to frighten children into obedience.”
“Humor me.”
She adjusted her glasses. “The legend says he lives in the roots of the trees. That he was a boy once, but the woods swallowed him up because he was unloved. Now he comes out when the fog is thick to find playmates. If you’re good, he sprinkles dust in your eyes and you sleep. If you’re bad…” She smiled, and it wasn’t a nice smile. “Well, if you’re bad, he sews your eyes shut so you can never wake up.”
I shivered. The imagery was too close. Sarah Miller’s eyes hadn’t been sewn shut, but her hands had been bound. To keep her sleeping, the boy in my memory had said.
“I’m not interested in the fairy tale,” I said, my voice hardening. “I’m interested in the origin. Was there a real person? A runaway? A hermit?”
Mrs. Gable leaned against a shelf, her eyes gleaming behind the thick lenses. “There are always runays in Oakhaven. The forest is full of holes, and people are prone to falling in. But the Sandman… that name started popping up in the late nineties. Kids whispering it on the playground.”
“The late nineties,” I repeated. “When I was twelve.”
“Around then,” she agreed. “Why does it matter?”
“Because I think I saw him,” I said. The admission felt dangerous, like handing her a weapon. “When I was a kid. In the woods behind my house.”
Mrs. Gable stared at me for a long moment. Then she reached into the pocket of her cardigan and pulled out a key ring.
“Police blotters,” she said, pointing to a row of gray filing cabinets in the far corner. “1995 to 2005. If anyone saw anything, it’ll be in there. But be careful, Elara. Digging in the past is like digging in the dirt. You’re bound to find worms.”
She turned and walked away, the watering can left forgotten on the stack of papers.
I waited until her footsteps faded up the stairs before I moved.
The filing cabinet drawer screeched as I pulled it open. It was jammed with manila folders, smelling of old tobacco smoke and time. I started flipping through them. Drunk and disorderly. Domestic disturbance. Poaching.
I skipped to 1999. The year I turned twelve. The year the games stopped.
My fingers flew across the tabs. March. April. May.
I pulled a folder labeled Suspicious Persons / Trespassing.
I sat on the floor, the cold concrete seeping through my jeans, and opened it.
There were reports of vagrants near the river. A flasher near the high school.
And then, halfway through the stack, a report typed on official Oakhaven PD letterhead.
Date: June 14, 1999 Complainant: Catherine Vance Location: 440 Ridge Road (Vance Estate)
My mother.
I read the narrative, my breath hitching.
Complainant states that her daughter, Elara (age 12), has repeatedly claimed to see a “wild boy” on the perimeter of the property. Description provided: Male, approx. 13-15 years old, unkempt, wearing rags. Subject allegedly leaves “gifts” for the daughter (dead birds, smooth stones) near the rear patio.
I stared at the words. Dead birds.
I didn’t remember dead birds. I remembered the music box key. I remembered the ivy. But dead birds?
I read on.
Officer Miller responded. Perimeter check negative. No sign of forced entry or encampment. Advised Complainant that daughter may be seeking attention due to recent family restructuring (marriage to Richard Vance).
Officer’s Note: The daughter, Elara, was interviewed. She appeared agitated and claimed the boy “lives in the ground.” When asked to show the officer where, she led him to a patch of rhododendrons but refused to speak further.
I dropped the paper.
“I reported him,” I whispered to the empty room.
I had no memory of this. None.
I remembered the games. I remembered the feeling of safety I felt when the Sandman was near. I remembered him as my protector.
But this report… this described a stalker. A “wild boy” leaving dead things. And it described me as terrified enough to tell my mother.
Why was there such a disconnect?
I closed my eyes, trying to force the memory to surface. I tried to picture the officer. Miller. The Sheriff. He would have been a patrolman then.
Think, Elara.
I saw the garden. I saw the rhododendrons.
Dig deeper.
No. That was the doll memory.
I tried to find the memory of the police interview.
Blank. Just a wall of white fog.
“Dissociative amnesia,” my therapist in Seattle had called it. The brain’s eject button.
I grabbed the next paper in the file. It was a follow-up, dated two weeks later.
Date: July 1, 1999 Reporting Officer: Deputy Thorne (Sr.) Incident: Vandalism / Animal Cruelty
Julian’s father.
Complainant (Richard Vance) reports the family dog, a Doberman named ‘Rex,’ was found deceased in the rear garden. Cause of death appears to be blunt force trauma. A message was scratched into the dirt next to the animal: “HE HURT HER.”
I covered my mouth, a wave of nausea rolling over me.
Rex. I remembered Rex. I remembered him as a vicious, snarling beast that Richard used to patrol the grounds. I had been terrified of that dog. I remembered the day he disappeared. Richard had told me he ran away.
He lied.
“He hurt her,” I whispered.
The boy didn’t kill the dog for fun. He killed it because the dog hurt me. Or because Richard hurt me.
The timeline was clicking into place, terrified gears grinding against rust.
June: I see the boy. I’m scared. July: The boy kills the dog to protect me.
And then what?
I flipped through the rest of 1999. August. September.
Nothing. No more reports from the Vance Estate.
Whatever happened after the dog died, we stopped calling the police.
Why?
Because the games started? Or because Richard found out?
I looked at the date of the last report again. July 1st.
Mrs. Gable’s voice echoed in my head. There are always runaways in Oakhaven.
I stood up, my legs stiff. I needed to copy these. I needed to show Julian.
As I gathered the papers, a scrap of newsprint fluttered out from between the police reports. It wasn’t an official document. It was a clipping from the Gazette, yellowed and brittle.
BOY MISSING IN FLOOD WATERS August 15, 1999
Local authorities have called off the search for Elias Thorne, 14, who is believed to have been swept away by the rising currents of the Blackwood River during yesterday’s storm. Elias, the estranged son of…
Elias.
Julian’s brother.
The date was six weeks after the dog incident.
I looked at the grainy photo accompanying the article. It was a school portrait, clearly a few years old even then. The boy had messy dark hair and eyes that looked too big for his face. He looked like Julian, but sharper. Broken.
I stared at the eyes in the photo.
And for a split second, the static in my head cleared.
I saw those eyes staring at me through the slats of a vent. I saw them shining in the dark of the root cellar.
You’re safe now, Princess.
The voice wasn’t imaginary. It was him.
Elias Thorne wasn’t swept away by the river. He was in my garden. He was killing my monsters.
And I had forgotten him.
The basement lights flickered. A low hum vibrated through the stacks.
I shoved the papers into my bag, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm. The air in the archives suddenly felt very thin, as if the oxygen was being sucked out.
“Mrs. Gable?” I called out, just to hear a human voice.
Silence.
I walked quickly toward the stairs.
As I passed the row of filing cabinets, I saw it.
On top of the cabinet I had just closed.
A single, smooth river stone.
It wasn’t there five minutes ago.
I stopped, my hand hovering over it. It was dark gray, polished by water.
Subject leaves gifts… smooth stones.
I spun around, scanning the dark corners of the basement. The shadows stretched long and thin between the shelves.
“Who’s there?” I demanded.
Nothing but the hum of the microfiche reader.
I grabbed the stone. It was ice cold.
He wasn’t just in the house. He was following me. He was here, in the library, watching me read about him.
I ran for the stairs, taking them two at a time, bursting out into the main lobby of the library. The fluorescent lights of the upper floor were blindingly bright. Normal. Safe.
Mrs. Gable was at the checkout desk, stamping a book. She looked up, startled by my sudden entrance.
“Find what you were looking for, dear?” she asked.
I clutched my bag to my chest, feeling the stone heavy in my pocket.
“Yes,” I said, my voice breathless. “I found him.”