CHAPTER 3: THE LAND AND THE BLOOD

The knock was sharp. Precise. Like a gavel.

Yvette froze mid-step. Cara looked up from the kitchen table, eyes wide, lips already trembling. The knock came again—two rapid strikes followed by silence. A rhythm that didn’t ask permission. It demanded entry.

Yvette’s stomach turned.

She opened the door.

Delilah.

As polished and pristine as ever. Designer coat. Impeccably styled hair. Lips the color of dried roses. And behind her, the faint scent of expensive perfume and something sharper—like decay hiding beneath a velvet glove.

“Yvette,” she said, her voice silk over glass.

Yvette didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

“I’m here to speak with you,” Delilah continued, stepping inside without being invited.

Cara scrambled behind Yvette, gripping the back of her sister’s shirt.

“I’d rather you leave,” Yvette said, voice hard.

“I’m sure you would.” Delilah’s heels clicked on the warped floorboards as she surveyed the apartment with a tight smile. “But the law doesn’t care much for preference.”

Yvette followed her warily, shutting the door behind her. “Why are you here?”

Delilah turned slowly, her expression unreadable. “Because this little charade has gone on long enough. You’re not fit to be raising a child, Yvette. Especially not this one.”

Yvette stepped between her and Cara. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“I do, actually.” Delilah reached into her handbag and pulled out a cream-colored envelope. She laid it on the kitchen counter like a final move in a well-played game. “Filed yesterday. Emergency injunction. You’ll be hearing from a judge within the week.”

Yvette didn’t touch it. “You already took everything. The house. The land. My father’s name.”

Delilah raised an eyebrow. “You think that land belongs to you? To her?” She nodded toward Cara with something like disgust. “That land is cursed. Your mother never understood that. She thought she could bury blood deep enough that it wouldn’t rise.”

Yvette’s voice cracked. “Leave.”

But Delilah didn’t move. She reached into her coat again, this time pulling out a small black velvet box.

She opened it.

Inside was a ring.

Silver. Engraved.

“I believe this belonged to your father,” she said coldly. “I kept it. For when you grew up. And learned what people like us do to survive.”

Yvette stared at the ring like it might bite her.

“Keep your curses,” she whispered.

Delilah smiled. “They’re not mine, sweetheart. They’re yours now.”

She turned and walked to the door, calm as ever. But before she opened it, she looked over her shoulder.

“Cara doesn’t belong to you, Yvette. She never did.”

Then she was gone.

---

The apartment felt colder after she left.

Yvette stood in the center of the room, shaking. Her hands itched with the need to break something—anything. She looked at the envelope. Still unopened.

“Who was she?” Cara asked quietly.

Yvette knelt beside her. “No one you ever have to talk to again.”

Cara reached for her drawing pad.

She drew a woman.

And then she scribbled out the face.

---

That night, Yvette couldn’t sleep.

Delilah’s words echoed in her head. The ring. The papers. The smug certainty. She felt like a child again—helpless, voiceless. The night her father died played over in her mind, scenes she’d buried clawing their way back.

She had been fourteen.

He had called her downstairs late that night, told her to keep Cara in her room, that Delilah was “acting strange.”

Then there was shouting.

Glass breaking.

A scream she never forgot.

The next morning, he was dead.

The police said it was natural. Heart failure.

But Yvette had always known better.

---

At 3:12 a.m., she woke up with a start.

The hallway light was on.

And Cara was gone.

Yvette ran.

She checked the bathroom. The kitchen. The stairwell.

Nothing.

Her heart pounded as she threw on a coat and slippers, rushing down all three flights of stairs. The front door was ajar.

Outside, the rain had finally stopped. The silence was suffocating.

Then she saw it.

Across the street. In the narrow alley beside the laundromat.

Cara.

Standing alone.

Staring at the brick wall.

Yvette ran across the street barefoot.

“Cara!” she shouted.

The little girl didn’t move.

Yvette grabbed her shoulders, kneeling down. “Cara, what are you doing? You scared me—”

“She was talking to me,” Cara whispered.

Yvette felt ice crawl up her spine. “Who?”

Cara’s lip quivered. “The boy with the silver eyes.”

Yvette looked around. No one. Nothing.

“He told me,” Cara went on, “that the land used to be his. But someone buried his name. And now it’s hungry.”

Yvette scooped her up, shielding her face from the cold.

They didn’t speak as they walked back home.

---

Tristan arrived the next morning.

He didn’t knock.

This time, Yvette let him in.

“She came here,” she said flatly. “Delilah.”

Tristan didn’t look surprised. “What did she want?”

“She served me.”

He sat down slowly. “Then it’s already begun.”

“She brought a ring,” Yvette added. “My father’s. Or… what’s left of him.”

Tristan closed his eyes.

“She knows about Cara’s dreams.”

“She’s probably the one triggering them.”

Yvette stiffened. “What do you mean?”

Tristan hesitated. “There are ways. Frequencies. Tones that unlock parts of a mind we’re not meant to access. I used to… never mind.”

“No,” Yvette said. “Finish that.”

“I used to be trained in it. Cara’s not hallucinating. She’s being tuned.”

Yvette’s voice cracked. “She’s seven.”

“And they don’t care.”

---

That night, Yvette lit a candle and burned the legal documents.

She didn’t care if it was illegal.

She didn’t care if it made things worse.

She needed something to feel human again.

Cara watched from the couch, quiet.

When Yvette blew out the flame, Cara walked over and took her hand.

“She said something else,” Cara murmured.

“Who?”

“The silver-eyed boy.”

“What did he say?”

Cara looked up.

“He said the blood in our house was never cleaned right. And that’s why she’s coming back.”

Yvette didn’t ask who “she” was.

Because she already knew.

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