Kendra's obsession may have started innocently enough, perhaps as a passing interest or a casual fascination. However, over time, it has grown into an all-encompassing force that dominates her thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
No answer. But the crack pulsed once, twice. And then it grew a full centimeter before her eyes.
That’s the thing about obsession. It doesn’t want to be found. It wants to do the finding.
But the door to the wrong room was closing. The seam was sealing itself. The warm plaster pressed against Kendra’s back, pushing her forward, into the room where the other her waited with open arms.
The walls were the same color, but the posters were different—bands she’d never heard of, movies that hadn’t been made yet. The bed was unmade in the shape of her body, but she was standing here, wasn’t she? So who had been sleeping there? And on the nightstand, a notebook. Just like hers. But the cover said The House on Hemlock Lane: Volume Two.
The next morning, the crack in the ceiling was gone. So was Kendra’s notebook. So was the third stair’s creak, the smell of cigarettes, the faucet’s seven drips. The house was quiet. The house was patient. The house was full.
But it wasn’t fine. Kendra was twelve, and she had the kind of mind that took a thread and pulled until the whole sweater unraveled. That crack became a question. The question became a theory. And the theory became a hunt.
Because the house had already learned her voice. And it had no intention of giving it back.
“Who’s there?” she whispered.
The other Kendra stood in the doorway of the wrong room. She was older—maybe fifteen, maybe sixteen. Her hair was longer, unwashed. Her eyes were the same shade of brown, but empty. Hollow. Like someone had scooped out the inside and left only the shell.