Dear Athan,

  I don't know if these will ever reach you. I don't even know if you'd care to read them, but something about writing to you feels like breathing again.

  We made it out.

  Dallas was right about the back road through the orchard. Quinn was scared — kept glancing over his shoulder like Father's eyes were in the trees. But we ran until the lights disappeared. Until the fences became shadows. Until the stone turned into dirt.

  I was shaking the whole way. I'd never been past the gates like that before. Not without permission. Not without someone waiting to drag me back.

  But no one came.

  Now we're here, in some quiet town by a dried-up river. Dallas found an old house at the end of a gravel road. It's empty, mostly. Floorboards that creak and wallpaper that's falling apart like molting skin. But it's shelter.

  Quinn sleeps curled up by the stove. He doesn't talk much, just hums sometimes when he thinks no one hears him. His skin's pale, like the wax candles Mother used to keep in the parlor. I don't know what's wrong with him, but he walks slower than us, and sometimes his breath comes out sharp, like it cuts his throat to breathe.

  I think about the east wing a lot. About that little hole in the wall where we used to whisper. Remember? You'd pass me buttons and I'd pass back pebbles or notes. I still have one. You drew a horse and signed it "Your brother, your twin, your better half." I believed you.

  I still do, maybe.

  It's quiet here. Too quiet. At night, I hear whispers in the walls, or under the floorboards. Dallas says it's rats. Quinn says it's wind. But I think it's something else. I think the place knows me — knows what I brought with me.

  I've started smoking. Dallas rolled one for me and said, "Welcome to the real world." It burns the first few times, but now it calms the part of me that never sleeps. The part that still waits for footsteps down the hall.

  I miss the piano. My hands twitch for it. I keep tapping out notes on the windowsill. Maybe we'll find one in town.

  There's more I want to tell you, but the oil lamp's getting low and the shadows are looking too long.

  I'll write again tomorrow. If I can.

  Yours,

  Lou

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  Dear Athan,

  We found a piano.

  It's broken, missing half the keys and sounds like it's crying when I play it. But it's mine now. Dallas pried open the rusted door of a chapel no one uses anymore. The whole place smells like forgotten prayers and old wax, but in the back was the piano, covered in dust.

  I played until my fingers bled a little. Didn't even notice until Quinn pointed it out. He tried to hum along. He's got a voice like a reed flute, thin and kind of wobbly. He sits beside me every time I go there now, just listening. Sometimes he leans against me, like that makes the music better. Or safer.

  He's sick, Athan. I know it. He says he's just tired but… he hides the way he coughs. Sometimes there's red on his sleeve. Dallas won't say anything either, just smokes more and tells me to let the kid rest.

  The town's not much — all peeling shutters and silent doors. People here look through us, like they know we don't belong. Dallas says we've got maybe a month here before someone asks too many questions. He's got plans, though. Always does. He keeps talking about heading west, to some city with "a real piano" and people who won't ask about papers or names.

  But I'm scared to leave. I like the chapel, even if I think something else lives in there when the lights go out.

  The whispers are getting worse. I thought they'd go away after we left the school, but now they follow me. They crawl behind my eyes and curl into the corners of rooms. Sometimes I hear someone call my name, soft like a breath. But when I look — nothing.

  Last night, I heard scratching under the bed. Dallas checked and said it was nothing. Quinn won't sleep near me anymore. I think I mutter in my dreams. I think I scare him.

  But the piano helps. For a while, when I'm playing, everything feels... clearer. Like the noise quiets. Like maybe I'm real again.

  Do you still play, Athan? Or did you stop after I left?

  I hope you still play that soft melody I used to love.

  Write me, if you ever think of me.

  Yours always,

  Lou

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  Dear Athan,

  Do you remember that game we played where we'd make up stories about the portraits in the hallway? The tall one with the green eyes and the fox pelt — you said he used to hunt ghosts, and I told you he married a spirit and they had see-through babies. That made you laugh until your nose wrinkled.

  I try to remember things like that now. It helps when the nights get loud.

  We've been here twelve days, I think. I lost track after Dallas took my watch. He said time only matters to people with somewhere to be. He's funny like that — always chewing on a matchstick or leaning against things like they might collapse without him.

  Quinn's worse.

  He fainted yesterday, and it took both of us to carry him back from the river. He said he just got dizzy, but I saw the blood on his collar. Dallas says it's probably his lungs. He talks about illness like it's weather — something that just passes if you wait long enough. But Quinn doesn't look like he's waiting for anything. He stares out windows too much. Like he's already halfway gone.

  I want to help him. But I'm scared I'll break him if I try.

  Dallas gave me a pipe last night. Said it's better than the rolled ones — smoother, less bite. I took it because I didn't want to disappoint him, but the moment I breathed in, my head felt like it turned inside out. Not in a bad way, though. Like the static went quiet. Like the corners of the room stopped twitching.

  Everything was soft for a while. The floor. My skin. The way Dallas laughed when I almost dropped it.

  I think I like it.

  But I don't want Quinn to see. He's already so fragile — I don't want him to think I'm changing. Even if I am.

  Sometimes I talk out loud when I think I'm alone. I say your name. Or just "brother." I wonder what your voice sounds like now. If it's still warm. If it still has that little hitch in it when you're nervous.

  I used to pretend your voice answered me. That you were listening through the wall like before.

  It's harder to pretend now.

  Yours,

  Lou

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  Dear Athan,

  Something strange happened yesterday.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I was walking back from the chapel alone — the sky was turning that color like bruised fruit, and I swear I saw a man watching me from the treeline. He was tall, in a long coat, and didn't move. Not even when I stopped and stared. I called out. Nothing.

  I blinked, and he was gone.

  Dallas said I imagined it. Quinn said maybe it was a ghost. But I'm starting to think I can't tell the difference anymore.

  There's a mirror in the house that's warped, and when I pass it sometimes my reflection doesn't match. I know how that sounds. I do. But it's like it's slower. Like it's thinking on its own.

  I try not to look at it.

  I've started sleeping on the floor by Quinn. He gets cold at night and mumbles in his sleep. Last night he said, "Don't open the red door." I asked him what he meant, and he didn't remember saying anything.

  There is no red door. Not here. Not yet.

  But I keep dreaming of one.

  Sometimes I wake up and my mouth tastes like salt and iron, and my hands shake like I've been holding something heavy.

  Dallas says it's just nerves. "You've been through hell, kid," he says. "Your brain's catching up."

  But what if it isn't catching up? What if it's running ahead?

  Still yours,

  Lou

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  Dear Athan,

  I had another dream about the red door last night.

  It was in a hallway that looked like the east wing of the manor — only longer, deeper, like it never ended. I heard someone calling me, soft like whispers through cracked wood. The door was at the end, glowing faint, pulsing like a slow heartbeat. When I reached for the handle, I woke up. My hand was outstretched in real life too. Dallas saw. He asked me what I was reaching for, and I didn't know what to say. How do you explain that a dream feels more real than your own skin?

  I haven't told Quinn. He's been coughing more.

  His color comes and goes, like a candle in wind. Some mornings he's bright, almost glowing with energy, talking about books he remembers from home or silly stories from his old school. Other times, it's like he folds into himself. Like he's fading. I caught him sitting on the roof yesterday, legs dangling. When I shouted, he just looked at me and said, "I wanted to feel higher than the world."

  Dallas has been different lately. Sharper.

  He keeps checking this little notebook he carries around, with names and times written in codes I can't understand. He's been talking to someone on the phone late at night when he thinks I'm asleep. I only caught one name: Emile. That and the word "Paris."

  I asked him about it today. He didn't lie, which was worse somehow.

  He told me he has friends in the city. Connections. Said we can't stay here forever, not with Quinn's health and the neighbors starting to notice the strange boys hiding in the cottage up the hill. Dallas said it like a plan, but it felt like a warning.

  He wants to go soon.

  He says we could work at a bar he used to know, somewhere tucked off Rue de Lappe. He says I'll love the noise, the energy, the piano. Paris has more pianos than stars, he said. And in the right kind of bar, no one asks where you came from. Only if you know how to pour whiskey without spilling.

  I don't know how I feel.

  Part of me wants to run again. Keep running. Another part wants to find something solid and stay there. Quinn looks excited, though. The idea of the city lights made his eyes dance for the first time in days. Maybe that's enough.

  We leave next week.

  Still yours,

  Lou

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  Dear Athan,

  We leave tomorrow. Dallas got us tickets from a man with half a thumb and a crooked smile who kept spitting when he talked. He laughed too much and too loud, but he handed over the tickets and told Dallas to be careful.

  Quinn packed his things three days ago. He has only a little bag—some books, one photograph, and his sketchpad. He draws at night. Sometimes I watch him while he does it. He draws faces he remembers, places he's never seen. I think it helps him remember who he is.

  I tried packing, too. But all I have is this notebook, a cracked comb, and the little tin mirror I stole from the dorms before we left. I don't use it. I just keep it.

  I've been smoking more.

  It helps me breathe, in a way. Helps me forget the way the walls bend when I'm tired, or the way shadows lean in when I'm not looking. Sometimes I hear footsteps in the woods behind the cottage. Dallas says it's nothing. Just foxes.

  But I saw something last night.

  I was out on the porch, alone, when I saw a figure across the road. Not moving. Just standing. Watching. The same one from before, I think. My hands started shaking so hard I dropped the pipe and burned my leg. It left a mark.

  I told Dallas, and he said nothing at first. Then he said, "That's another reason we need to leave."

  He didn't ask me to explain. He didn't look surprised.

  I wonder what he sees when he looks at me.

  Maybe Paris will be different. Maybe the ghosts don't follow you when the streets are loud and the lights never turn off.

  Yours,

  Lou

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  Dear Athan,

  The train ride was long.

  Quinn sat by the window the whole time, eyes wide like a child seeing the world for the first time. He pressed his hand against the glass when we passed through tunnels, watching his own reflection flicker like a ghost. He smiled at every station name like it was poetry.

  Dallas was quiet. Focused. His eyes scanned every person who walked past our compartment, every announcement from the speaker. He told me once that people like us don't get to relax. We either watch, or we disappear.

  Paris hit me like thunder.

  The sound, the smell, the colors—everything alive and loud and impossible to describe. The bar is tucked into a crooked street behind a rust-colored awning. It smells like smoke, old beer, and cloves. It's perfect.

  We sleep upstairs now, above the bar. Quinn gets the smallest room because he said he likes the quiet. I don't believe him, but I didn't argue.

  They gave me a mop and a tray and told me to work my way up. I clean after the late drinkers and play the piano after hours, when everyone else is too tired to notice. Sometimes Dallas sits by the door and listens. He never claps. But he smiles, and that's enough.

  I think I could stay here for a while. I think maybe this is the start of something.

  Don't worry, Athan. I still remember your face. Even when the noise gets too loud, I remember.

  Yours always,

  Lou