She who sees

The air was sharp with frost the following afternoon, each breath burning Aisha's lungs as she crossed the field that edged the school grounds. Students spilled onto the pavement in chattering clusters, their laughter rising like steam into the pale sky. But Aisha barley noticed them. Her gaze was fixed on the tree line at the far edge, where the woods stretched in dark, skeletal rows.

The pendant at her chest had been restless all day, pulsing hot and cold in fits and starts, as though reaching to something unseen. Each thrum pulled her attention back to the same thought, the same place.

The Cottage.

She hadn't meant to go.  But by the last bell, her decision was made for her. Whatever lay behind those ivy-choked walls, Ms. Thorne's cool stare, and the whispers that seemed to curl around  her words — she needed to know.

By the time she reached the path, the light was already thinning. Branches clawed at the sky, their shadows stretched across the frozen earth. Aisha pulled her coat tighter around her.

The cottage appeared as it had before: slumped into the roots of the trees, roof bowed under years of neglect, the windows black and blind. Yet smoke rose faintly from the crooked chimney, curling pale against the darkening sky.

Someone was inside.

Aisha crept closer, boos crunching lightly over frost. She kept to the edge of the clearing, her breath shallow. Through a gap in the warped shutters, she caught a silver of movement— Ms. Thorne, her sharp silhouette unmistakable even in shadow.

Aisha froze.

The teacher stood before a low table, her hands moving slowly across its surface. Faint light flickered there — not from candles, but from something stranger, softer, almost alive. The symbols Aisha had drawn in her notebook shimmered across the wood in delicate arcs. Ms. Thorne traced them as though reading a map.

The air seemed to tighten around Aisha, the pendant burning hot against her skin. She pressed a hand to her chest, afraid the glow might betray her.

A voice murmured inside. Not Ms. Thorne's. Deeper. Older.

Aisha strained to hear, edging closer. Worlds bled through the walls like smoke:

"...not ready... the veil thins too fast..."

Ms. Thorne's reply was sharp, urgent. "She doesn't understand yet. If she moves too soon—"

"She must. The choice cannot wait forever."

Aisha's pulse thundered in her ears. They were talking about her.

A chair scraped. Footsteps shifted. Panicked, she backed away, nearly tripping on a root. For a second, she thought she saw a shadow pass across the window, too large and twisted to be human.

She ran.

By the time she burst through the edge of the trees, the sky had deepened to indigo. Her breath clouded in the cold air, and her legs trembled beneath her.

She didn't stop until the school grounds were behind her and the town's yellow streetlamps blinked into view.

Only then did she slow, pressing herself against a brick wall to steady her breathing. Her pendant was still warm, thrumming with a steady rhythm like a heartbeat not her own.

Her thoughts tangled.

Ms. Thorne wasn't just a strict teacher with sharp words and watchful eyes. She had been waiting for Aisha's project, had reacted with too much recognition, and now — now she was speaking to shadows in the woods, tracing the same glowing symbols Aisha had drawn in secret.

And worse, she had spoken of Aisha as though she were a piece on a game board neither of them controlled.

That night, lying in bed, Aisha couldn't shake the images from her mind: Ms. Thorne's hands moving across the glowing table, the deep voice curling out of the dark, the twisted shape that had loomed just beyond the window.

She pressed her palms to her eyes, fighting the memory. But one thought cut through the tangle of fear and confusion, sharp and clear as glass.

If Ms. Thorne was preparing something — or someone — in that cottage, then Aisha was already a part of it.

And there was no turning back.

But even as she told herself that, another truth unsettled her: a part of her didn't want to turn back. The pendant's pull had grown too strong, the whispers of history too sharp to ignore. Something inside her — curiosity, destiny, or madness — urged her forward, whispering that the answers she needed were close, just out of reach.

The shadows in her room shifted with every car that passed outside, but she found herself staring at them too long, half-expecting one of them to move on its own. At her desk, the notebook lay open, sketches of the spiral sigil glowing faintly in the moonlight. She thought she saw them ripple, like water stirred by an invisible hand.

Aisha shivered and hugged her knees beneath the blanket. Questions pressed against her ribs, too many to untangle: Who had Ms. Thorne been speaking to? Was it even human? What role was Aisha meant to play? And why did the thought of "choice" keep surfacing, as if everyone else knew the rules of a game she hadn't agreed to play?

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. A message from Nathan: You okay? You seemed distant today.

She typed back, Just tired, then switched the phone face down before she could add more. How could she even begin to explain?

As sleep finally tugged at her, she dreamed of the cottage again. But this time, she wasn't outside peering though the shutters. She was standing in the middle of the room, the table glowing before her, symbols swirling like smoke into the air. Ms. Thorne stood opposite her, but her eyes weren't cold. They were filled with something else — urgency, sorrow, and the weight of expectation.

Behind her, the shadow loomed larger than ever.

When she woke, gasping, the pendant was warm against her skin, as though it had been waiting for her to open her eyes.