In 1983, 10 children vanished without a trace after a Halloween party in a quiet Pennsylvania suburb.

An event that haunted the town for decades.

But 22 years later, a worn, handstitched mask was discovered buried beneath a rusting garden angel in a neighbor’s backyard, and with it, the tightly sealed horror that had festered just beneath the surface.

Now 45, Norah Harrove kneels in the wet grass of her childhood home, fingertips trembling as she brushes away the last layer of soil.

The late autumn air is sharp, the sun weak against the gray sky.

The mask, faded but unmistakable, stares back at her with stitched button eyes, and in an instant, the past shatters the present.

Norah hasn’t set foot on this lawn since she was 23.

She never planned to return, but when her aunt passed away last month, the house legally became hers.

She came only to sign papers, maybe throw away some of the old furniture.

She didn’t expect to feel anything.

And yet, standing in the same backyard where she played Red Rover with her brother and neighbors, memories come back like a slow, cruel tide.

She had almost made it to the back steps when she noticed it.

The angel statue, rusted, tilted, forgotten in the corner beneath the twisted remains of an elm tree that died the same year the children vanished.

She’d only meant to clean the soil around its base.

Instead, she found it, the mask.

Now her breath fogs in the cold air.

Her knees ache against the frozen ground.

Her fingers are numb, not from the temperature, but from something far older, deeper.

A terror she hasn’t felt since she was a teenager.

Since the night of October 31st, 1983.

That night still lives inside her.

10 children were there.

10.

Norah was one of them, but she was the only one who came home.

The media called it the Holloway Vanishing, named after the neighborhood Holloway Lane, where all 10 kids had gathered for a Halloween sleepover.

The story was front page for weeks.

National coverage, candle light vigils, FBI involvement, but no trace was ever found.

No bodies, no blood, no leads.

Just Nora, silent, dazed, sitting alone on the front steps of the Witmore residence when the sun came up, still in costume, clutching a pumpkin pale full of uneaten candy.

She couldn’t remember anything, or so she claimed.

Now 22 years later, that mask, the same one worn by Owen Brantley, lies in the dirt of her backyard.

Owen, age nine, the class clown, always making fart noises with his armpit during math.

He wore that mask as part of his homemade scarecrow costume.

The mask no one ever found.

The mask that should have vanished along with him.

And yet, here it is, tattered, dirt caked, but unmistakable.

Norah leans back on her heels, heart thudding in her chest.

Something is wrong.

deeply wrong.

She’s not the kind of person who panics.

She spent decades building walls of logic, of therapy, of practical denial.

But this this breaks through all of it.

Her first instinct is to call the police.

But then she hesitates.

What will she say? Hi, I found a decades old Halloween mask buried under a statue.

Can you come investigate a 22-year-old mystery? They’ll think she’s unstable.

Some already do.

Instead, she wraps the mask in an old towel from the back porch.

Her fingers tremble as she places it in the passenger seat of her rental car.

For a long time, she just sits there watching the empty yard through the windshield.

The bare trees, the rusted swing set, the cracked bird bath.

This house holds too much.

The party was held two doors down.

the Wit Moors.

All the neighborhood kids were invited, ages 7 to 11.

Nora had just turned 11 two weeks before.

She was the oldest.

She remembers the orange streamers, the smell of candy corn and root beer, the music, the laughter, the basement games, then nothing.

Not a single image between midnight and sunrise.

The doctors called it trauma-induced dissociative amnesia.

The internet called it guilt.

Norah called it mercy.

Until now, because the mask shouldn’t be here.

Not unless someone brought it here, buried it here, hid it in the yard of the girl who survived.

She opens her glove compartment and removes a faded manila folder.

The one she’s kept hidden from even her therapist.

Inside are the photos, the names, the newspaper clippings, all 10 children, their last known images, their costumes, their smiles frozen in time.

Owen Brantley, nine, scarecrow costume.

Last seen laughing near the snack table.

Norah looks from the photo to the mask on her seat.

The stitching, the faded plaid, the crooked smile.

It’s the same.

Her hands begin to sweat even in the cold.

There’s something buried in this town.

Not just the mask.

Something worse.

She can feel it now in her bones, in her blood.

And she’s going to find it.

Even if it means remembering everything.

Even if it means tearing open the one night she spent her whole life trying to forget.

This time she won’t be the only one who survives.

The town of Fair Haven hadn’t changed much.

Same cracked sidewalks, same faded storefronts, same holloweyed stairs from locals who had long ago stopped hoping for answers.

The Halloween vanishing, as the newspapers called it, had turned Fair Haven into a ghost town.

Not because people left, but because something in them died and stayed.

Norah drove down Main Street in silence.

It was strange seeing the town like this through the eyes of an adult.

Everything felt smaller, duller, except the weight in her chest, which only grew heavier with every block.

She passed the lantern diner boarded up since 1998.

The barber shop that still boasted walk-ins, welcome, in red, peeling letters.

And of course, the elementary school, Holloway Creek Elementary, where eight of the 10 missing kids were enrolled.

where she had once been a student, too.

Where the grief had lingered in the halls long after the cameras left.

She parked across the street, engine ticking as it cooled.

For a while, she didn’t move, just watched the building through the windshield like it might blink.

It looked exactly the same.

Red brick, pale green doors, a rusted flag pole.

She didn’t know what she was hoping to find here.

Maybe a feeling, maybe a memory.

She wasn’t ready to visit the Witmore house.

Not yet.

Instead, she climbed out of the car and walked toward the playground behind the school, or what was left of it.

The slide was gone, the monkey bars rusted and sagging.

But the merry-goround was still there, tilted slightly like it had never stopped spinning.

She stood there staring at it until the wind carried a sound to her ears.

Children’s laughter.

Her breath hitched, but the school was empty.

It was Sunday.

No classes, no kids.

Still the sound had been clear, bright, close.

She turned around fast, scanning the yard.

Nothing.

Then footsteps behind her.

Soft, cautious.

She spun again, heart thumping.

It was a man, mid-40s, holding a thermos in one hand and a grocery bag in the other.

He stopped when he saw her.

Nora,” he said, his voice uncertain.

She squinted at him, tall, lean, shaggy brown hair, a faint scar above his left eyebrow.

“Darren,” she said, her voice catching.

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I’ll be damned.” “Norah Harrove, after all these years,” she didn’t know whether to hug him or run.

Darren Whitmore, her childhood neighbor, the boy whose parents hosted the Halloween party, the boy whose little sister Ellie had been among the missing.

You’re still here, she said, voice soft.

Could say the same about you, he replied, approaching slowly.

Didn’t think I’d ever see you back in Fair Haven.

I didn’t think I’d come back, she admitted.

They stood in silence for a moment, the wind moving through the brittle leaves at their feet.

“I heard about your aunt,” he finally said.

“Sorry.” “Thanks.” He looked down, then back up, studying her face like it might offer clues.

“Why now, Nora?” he asked.

“Why come back after all this time?” she hesitated.

The mask flashed in her mind.

the dirt, the statue.

Owen’s name echoing like a whisper.

I found something, she said, his brow furrowed.

In the backyard, she continued.

Under the old garden angel, Darren’s face pald.

What kind of something? She looked around.

The empty yard, the quiet street.

She leaned in, her voice barely above a breath.

A mask.

Owen Brantley’s mask.

He froze.

No, he said.

No, that’s not possible.

It was his, Darren.

I remember the plaid, the stitches.

It was buried in our yard.

Your house wasn’t even, he stopped.

Why would it be there? I don’t know.

He stared at her, jaw clenched.

I never forgot that mask, she said.

Or that night, even if I couldn’t remember it.

He looked like he wanted to argue or scream, but instead he sat down on the edge of the merrygoround, running a hand through his hair.

“I thought I’d buried all this,” he muttered.

“Figured if I stayed long enough, I’d forget too.” “But you didn’t,” she said gently.

He looked up at her.

“Do you remember anything, Nora?” “Anything at all?” she swallowed.

“No, just flashes.

The smell of apples.

A scream then.

Nothing.

He nodded slowly.

I kept something too, he said after a moment.

Not the mask, but something from that night.

Her heart skipped.

He reached into the grocery bag and pulled out a small plastic container.

Inside was a candy necklace.

Faded, cracked, colors barely distinguishable.

Ellie’s, he said.

I found it in our backyard a week after the party.

buried like someone tried to hide it.

Why didn’t you tell anyone? He looked away.

Because by then everyone already had their answers and no one wanted new ones.

Norah sat beside him.

Maybe it’s time we start asking questions again.

Darren was quiet.

Then you still talk to anyone from back then? She shook her head.

No, not since you know.

He nodded.

There’s one more thing.

She said the mask wasn’t just buried.

It was folded.

Like someone placed it there on purpose.

Like a message.

Darren’s face darkened.

A warning or a confession.

They sat in silence again, the wind louder now, more urgent.

Then Darren stood.

You want answers? He said.

There’s someone you need to see.

Who? My uncle.

He was the first cop on the scene that night.

He’s not well now, but he remembers everything.

Norah stood too, heart racing.

Can you take me to him? Darren nodded.

But be careful, he said.

This town has a way of punishing people who remember too much.

The Whitmore pickup rumbled along the two-lane back road just beyond the edge of town, its headlights slicing through the mist that clung low to the asphalt.

Norah sat stiffly in the passenger seat, her fingers curled tightly in her lap, eyes fixed on the darkness ahead.

Trees blurred past like ghosts.

Every few seconds, Darren glanced her way, but he didn’t speak.

Neither of them did.

There was too much waiting between the words.

They turned off onto a gravel path, tires crunching underfoot as the truck dipped into a secluded clearing surrounded by pine.

The house that emerged from the gloom was modest and crumbling.

A cabin really.

Oh, with warped wooden siding and a porch light that flickered weakly against the fog.

He’s not well, Darren warned quietly, cutting the engine.

But if anyone remembers what happened that night, it’s Uncle Ray.

Norah nodded, swallowing hard.

As they approached the porch, the sound of windchimes greeted them.

A hollow off-key tune that only deepened the eerie stillness of the woods.

Darren knocked once, twice, then opened the screen door.

“Uncle Ray,” he called into the darkened interior.

A voice answered from deeper inside.

raspy, sharp.

Took your damn time.

Darren led the way in.

The air smelled like old wood, tobacco, and something faintly metallic.

Norah followed slowly, her eyes adjusting to the dim interior.

A single lamp cast a weak pool of light over the living room, where a thin, wiry man sat in a recliner that looked older than she was.

His eyes were sunken, skin weathered, and pale, but his gaze was sharp.

too sharp for someone supposedly slipping.

“Uncle Ray,” Darren said.

“This is Norah Harrove.” The old man didn’t move.

He just stared at her.

“Daughter of the Hargroves?” he asked finally, voice low.

Norah nodded.

“Yes, sir,” he squinted.

“You were the only one they found sitting on the porch in that pumpkin dress.” The room went still.

Norah’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.

That detail, the pumpkin dress, hadn’t been public.

She’d barely remembered it herself.

Only her parents would have known, and they never spoke of it again.

“I remember all of it,” Rey muttered, reaching for a glass of something amber beside him.

“Every inch of that damn house, every footprint, every scrap of candy, every kid’s name.” He took a sip, then looked up.

eyes locking on hers.

You think you’re ready for the truth? Norah hesitated.

I found something, she said instead.

A mask in my backyard, Owen Brantley’s.

Ry blinked.

Once, then leaned forward slightly.

Folded? He asked.

Norah froze.

Yes.

The old man exhaled slowly like the air had been sitting in his lungs for decades.

Then it’s starting again.

She felt the floor shift beneath her.

What do you mean? He leaned back.

There was more than just a party that night.

More than decorations inside her.

Those kids didn’t just vanish.

I know that, Norah said, her voice trembling.

No, he said flatly.

You don’t.

Darren moved beside her tense.

Uncle Ray, what are you talking about? Rey ignored him.

He reached under the recliner and pulled out a tattered folder thick with old papers, yellowed photographs, and handwritten notes.

He dropped it on the coffee table between them.

They shut me down, he said.

Department said I was losing it.

Said there was no evidence, but I know what I saw.

He opened the folder.

Inside were photos, police snapshots from 1983, the Witmore basement, the yard, costumes scattered like empty husks.

Norah felt her throat tighten.

She recognized the room, the black and orange streamers, the bowl of punch, the overturned game of Monopoly.

Then Ry turned to the final photo.

It showed a wall in the basement scratched into the wood, barely visible unless the light hit just right, were 10 vertical lines, and beside them, an 11th, half scratched, like someone had been interrupted.

Norah’s voice was barely a whisper.

What is that? Ry looked at her deadeyed.

They were being counted.

The room dropped into silence.

Someone was keeping track, he said.

But that night, something went wrong.

The count didn’t finish.

Norah’s stomach twisted.

I was the 11th, she whispered.

Ry nodded slowly.

You weren’t supposed to make it out.

Darren stepped back, hands on his head.

Jesus.

Norah reached out and touched the photo, tracing the scratch marks with her fingertip.

Why? She asked.

Why would anyone do this? Ray took another sip, his hands shaking now.

There were stories, old ones, about a man who used to live on that land before the houses were built.

Said he practiced strange rituals, disappeared in the 40s.

No one ever found him, but every couple of decades weird things would happen.

He paused.

I found symbols carved under the floorboards.

Latin, some kind of sigil.

The department made me stop digging.

said it was unrelated.

“But what if it wasn’t?” Norah asked.

Ray’s eyes met hers again.

“You think the mask was the end?” he said softly.

“That was just the invitation.” Darren stepped closer.

“Invitation to what?” Ry turned to him, his voice dropping.

“To finish the count.

The chimes outside clattered violently, though the wind hadn’t changed.

Norah felt it then a pulse not in her body but in the air around her like something had just woken up.

She looked at Rey.

What do we do now? He stared out the window.

His voice was almost a whisper.

You pray it’s not too late.

The next morning, Norah woke drenched in sweat, her sheets tangled around her ankles, heart hammering in her chest.

For a moment, she didn’t know where she was.

The ceiling above her was cracked.

Faint water stains shaped like broken wings spread toward the corners.

The smell of cedar and mildew filled her nose.

Her aunt’s house, her childhood home.

She sat up slowly, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

The mask sat on the dresser across the room, wrapped in the same towel from the night before.

She had tried to sleep without thinking of it, but it pulled at her like a gravity well, silent and staring, even through layers of fabric.

Ray’s words echoed in her ears.

“You weren’t supposed to make it out.” She got up and walked toward the mask.

With a breath, she unwrapped it carefully.

The button eyes stared back, just as lifeless as they had in the dirt.

But something about them felt different now, heavier.

She turned it over in her hands, and that’s when she saw it.

Inside the mask, stitched into the inner lining with red thread, were letters, crude, uneven, almost hidden by the wear of time.

11.

Her breath caught.

It wasn’t just Owen’s mask.

It was hers.

Her knees gave out, and she dropped to the floor, back against the dresser, mask still clutched in her hands.

She had worn it, not Owen.

All this time, she had remembered it wrong.

Or someone had made her remember it wrong.

The pumpkin dress, the orange ribbons, the laughter in the basement.

None of it mattered now.

She was number 11.

The final one, the one that got away.

A knock startled her.

Three sharp wraps on the front door.

She stood slowly, dread curling in her stomach.

When she opened it, a woman stood there, late 40s, pale with thin blonde hair and sunken eyes.

She wore a nurse’s badge clipped to her sweater and held a paper bag in one hand.

“M Hargrove?” she asked.

Norah nodded.

The woman offered a sad smile.

“I’m Marlene Walker.

I work at the Shady Pines Care Center.

I take care of Raymond Whitmore.” Norah blinked, still clutching the mask.

Marlene’s smile faded.

“He’s gone.” “Gone?” Norah asked, voice barely audible.

“Passed away during the night,” Marlene said softly.

“Massive cardiac arrest.” “I’m sorry,” Norah felt the air leave her lungs.

She grabbed the door frame to stay upright.

“I found your name on his emergency contact list.

He must have added it recently.

I thought you’d want to know.” Norah nodded slowly.

Did he say anything before? Marlene looked down.

I probably shouldn’t say this, but he kept mumbling something over and over.

What? Norah asked, voice shaking.

Marlene met her eyes.

Finish the count.

Norah’s fingers curled around the edge of the door.

I brought this, Marlene said, holding out the paper bag.

He told me to give it to you.

Said you’d understand.

Norah took it with trembling hands.

Marlene stepped back again.

I’m so sorry.

He was a kind man, but haunted.

She walked away, her footsteps fading down the front steps, swallowed by the morning mist.

Norah shut the door slowly.

She stood there for a long time, paper bag in hand, mask clutched in the other.

Then she moved to the kitchen table, sat down, and opened the bag.

Inside was a small cassette tape wrapped in tissue and a key.

No note, just the items.

She stared at the tape, then at the key.

Her old stereo was still in the attic.

She remembered because her aunt never threw anything away.

10 minutes later, she had dusted it off, popped in fresh batteries, and inserted the tape.

The voice that played was Ray’s horse, low rushed.

If you’re hearing this, I’m probably gone.

I wish I could have told you more in person, but some truths push back when you try to speak them out loud.

You need to listen carefully.

The kids, the ones who vanished, they were taken.

Not by a person, not exactly, but by something through a person.

I’ve seen the signs before.

The same symbols, the same timing.

It always happens near Sam Hine.

That’s Halloween to most folks, but the old name matters more.

It’s a doorway, and someone always tries to open it.

The tape crackled.

In 1983, they did.

Norah felt her uh skin crawl.

I was first on the scene, Ray’s voice continued.

And I found the cellar door open, wide open, but it wasn’t broken into.

It was opened from the inside.

A long pause.

I never told anyone, not the feds, not even Darren.

But I went down there alone and I saw what was left behind.

The tape hissed.

Scratches not from kids, from something clawed, like bones scraping concrete and a sigil carved in a circle.

Deep, fresh.

It wasn’t part of the party.

More static.

I took a photo, hid the negatives.

I’ll leave them where the key leads.

The crawl space under the old tool shed.

Your shed.

They didn’t just vanish.

They were offered.

But someone stopped it.

Interrupted the ritual.

Another pause.

You.

Norah’s blood turned to ice.

You don’t remember because you weren’t supposed to.

But whatever you did, it wasn’t finished.

And now it’s waking up again.

You need to finish it or stop it.

whatever it is.” A click.

The tape ended.

Norah sat frozen, the static from the stereo buzzing in the silence.

Then slowly she reached for the key.

The shed outback had been locked for years.

She stood up, mask still lying on the table, and stepped toward the back door.

Beyond it, the yard stretched gray and lifeless, the wind moving gently through brittle leaves.

The shed stood like a hunched silhouette at the edge of the property, waiting.

She gripped the key tighter.

It’s time to remember.

The shed loomed like a memory no one had asked for.

Sunble bleached, weatherworn, and sagging slightly to one side.

It hadn’t been touched in decades.

Norah remembered her father once storing lawn equipment inside, back when the grass still grew thick and green, when the world had not yet turned cruel.

Now the path was overgrown.

Each step through the dead leaves felt like a slow descent into something ancient, something buried, but not forgotten.

She stood before the shed door and held up the key.

Her fingers trembled as she slid it into the rusted lock.

It resisted at first, then gave way with a reluctant click.

The door groaned open.

The interior was darker than she expected.

Dust floated in thick beams of weak morning light.

Broken tools lay scattered across the floor.

An old push mower leaned against the far wall, but it wasn’t what was above the ground that mattered.

Ray’s words came back to her.

The crawl space under the old tool shed.

She stepped inside, careful not to disturb anything.

The wooden floor creaked beneath her.

She knelt, brushing aside leaves and old newspaper fragments until she found it.

A square panel nearly flush with the floorboards.

A handle had long ago rusted off, but there was a groove.

Norah dug her fingers in.

The panel lifted with a brittle snap of wood.

A breath of cold, earthy air rushed up from below.

She stared into the darkness, a tight shallow cavity, maybe 3 ft deep, lined with dirt and splinters.

Inside was a small wooden box.

She reached in, heart pounding, and pulled it out.

The box was heavy, locked, but not with a key, just a simple metal latch.

It opened easily.

Inside were several items wrapped in faded cloth.

The first was a bundle of photos, old curling at the edges.

She unfolded them one by one.

The Witmore basement, but these were different from the official crime scene images.

These were taken at strange angles, close-ups of corners, of scratches, of symbols, and in the final photo, just barely visible beneath the streamers and spilled candy, a circle carved into the concrete floor.

Inside it, a sigil, interlocking lines, arrows pointing inward.

At the center, a crude shape that resembled an eye.

Norah’s breath caught.

She recognized it, not from memory, but from instinct.

She had seen this before.

She just didn’t know when.

She set the photos aside and reached for the next item.

A notebook, leatherbound, thin.

She opened it.

Ray’s handwriting.

Most of the pages were fragmented notes, drawings of symbols, references to old folklore, bits of Latin translated roughly, but one page was circled in red.

October 31st, 1983, 3:12 a.m.

The door was open when I arrived.

No signs of forced entry.

All 10 children unaccounted for.

No blood, no struggle, but one child.

Norah Harg Grove found on porch steps, sitting still, no shoes, mask on lap.

I didn’t mention the mask in my report.

I couldn’t because the mask was wet.

But there was no rain.

It smelled like earth, like it had just been pulled from underground.

And her hands her hands were filthy, caked with dirt.

Fingernails blackened like she had been digging.

Norah recoiled.

She didn’t remember that.

Not any of it.

Her stomach turned.

She flipped the page, hoping for more.

But the next entries grew unstable.

Rambling words like doorway, host, binding ritual, phrases like unfinished offering and cycle of 11.

She closed the notebook.

Then she noticed something else.

A cassette tape.

Another one labeled only play this last.

She stood slowly, her mind spinning, and walked back toward the house.

The cold air bit at her skin, but she barely felt it.

Inside, she placed the second tape into the stereo.

Pressed play.

Ray’s voice again.

Lower this time.

Slower.

Like he was speaking to someone sitting across from him in the dark.

If you’ve come this far, you know the truth or part of it.

But there’s something you still need to understand.

A pause.

You weren’t just spared, Nora.

Long silence.

You were chosen.

Norah’s breath hitched.

Whatever happened in that house, whatever thing reached through.

It didn’t pick 10 kids at random.

It picked 11.

10 for the offering, one for the bond.

Another pause.

I think you interrupted the ritual.

Maybe by accident.

Maybe not.

But something changed and now it’s looking to finish what it started.

Click.

The tape ended.

Nora sat frozen.

The mask lay beside her, eyes staring skyward, and for the first time, she wasn’t sure if she had survived that night or been claimed by it.

A knock at the door shattered the silence.

She jolted, heart hammering.

This time, she didn’t.

Wait, she stood, walked slowly to the front of the house, and opened the door.

Darren, pale, eyes wide, holding something in his hands.

A Polaroid.

You need to see this, he said, his voice shaking.

He handed it to her.

It was a photo of the Witmore basement.

Recent taken hours ago, maybe less.

The streamers were gone.

The floor was cracked, but in the center the circle was back, fresh, carved again, and beneath it, written in red, 11 must return.

They sat in silence at the kitchen table.

The polaroid between them like a landmine neither wanted to touch again.

Outside, the wind had picked up.

The branches of the elm tree scraped against the windows in slow rhythmic motions, like fingers against glass.

Nora stared at the photograph, heart pounding.

The circle was identical, same pattern, same symbols, same placement, only now it looked newer, as if someone or something had come back and retraced what was once there.

Darren rubbed his temples.

I didn’t go down there to stir anything up, he said.

I just I don’t know.

After we talked, something felt off.

I had to see it for myself and it was already there.

Norah asked.

He nodded.

I swear, Nora, I didn’t carve it.

I didn’t even touch it.

She believed him.

There was fear in his voice.

Real fear and something else.

Guilt.

Do you remember anything from that night? She asked, her voice low.

Darren hesitated.

Then slowly he nodded.

Not much, but something.

She leaned in.

After the party, I remember going down to the basement to get Ellie.

She had dropped her candy bag.

She was crying.

Something about the dark.

I told her I’d go with her to find it.

He paused, eyes distant.

I remember the lights going out.

Norah’s breath caught.

The lights? She whispered.

He nodded.

just for a second, maybe two, and then nothing.

I woke up in my room the next morning.

My parents didn’t even know I’d left the party early.

I never told anyone.

Nora felt the cold seep deeper into her skin.

That’s when it happened, she said.

When the lights went out, Darren stood abruptly and began pacing.

What does it mean? What do they want now? Norah looked at the Polaroid again.

The count wasn’t finished, she murmured.

Rey said it was interrupted.

That someone me stopped it.

Darren stopped walking.

Then why is it back now? Why now? She met his eyes.

Because I’m back.

The realization hit hard.

She hadn’t just returned to clean out her aunt’s house.

She had been pulled back like a thread being tugged.

Now the ritual, whatever it truly was, had resumed.

Darren sat back down, his face pale.

“There’s something else,” he said.

Norah tensed.

“What?” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded newspaper clipping.

“Yellowed, fragile.” He unfolded it slowly and slid it across the table.

Norah’s eyes scanned the headline.

“Missing girl reappears.” after 20 years claims no memory of time gone.

It was dated October 28th, 2003.

Just 2 days before she returned to Fair Haven.

Norah blinked.

What is this? Look at the location.

Darren said she did.

Cedar Hollow, West Virginia.

Then she saw the name Ava Whitmore.

Her heart stopped.

She was my cousin, Darren said quietly.

Disappeared in 1983, Halloween night, just like the others.

Only she wasn’t at the party.

She was visiting family out of state and she vanished from their backyard.

Norah’s mouth was dry.

But how is that possible? We thought it was just the 10 of us.

Darren shook his head.

It wasn’t.

He pulled out a second clipping.

Another child, same date, different state.

Samuel Beck, eight years old, disappeared on Halloween 1983.

Reappeared in 2004.

No memory.

Nora stared at the clippings, her mind racing.

This wasn’t just our neighborhood, she whispered.

It was wider.

Darren nodded.

I think Fair Haven was just one of many.

But something happened here that didn’t happen anywhere else.

You came back, you remembered, and you stopped it.

She felt the weight of it then.

The scope, the scale, the ritual wasn’t about one party.

It was about a pattern.

And she was the anomaly, the interruption.

What about the others? She asked.

These kids who came back, are they okay? Darren’s eyes darkened.

Most of them died within a year of reappearing.

Accidents, illness, some just vanished again.

Norah’s stomach turned.

So why am I still here? He met her gaze.

Because you were never fully taken.

She shivered.

There has to be a reason you found that mask.

He said that it was buried here.

That Rey left you the key.

It all points to one thing.

You’re not done.

She looked at him, her voice barely a whisper.

What do I have to do? Before Darren could answer, the lights flickered.

Then again, and then the house fell into silence as the power went out.

Darkness swallowed the kitchen.

The heater cut.

The refrigerator stopped humming.

Outside, the wind had died.

Norah stood slowly, her breath visible now in the cold air.

Then came the sound.

From beneath the floorboards, a low, dragging scratch, like fingernails against wood.

The sound beneath the floor was deliberate, slow, rhythmic.

Not the scurry of mice or the creek of old beams.

It was closer than that, intentional, like something was trying to be heard, but not yet seen.

Norah held her breath.

Darren stood frozen beside her, eyes locked on the hardwood floor beneath the kitchen table.

The faint moonlight seeping through the window turned everything a pale silver hue.

Every shadow seemed to shift to stretch slightly when she wasn’t looking.

Then the sound stopped.

Total silence so complete it made her ears ring.

Basement, Darren whispered.

She nodded slowly, pulse pounding.

We need to go down there.

He blinked.

Now it’s happening whether we want it to or not.

Norah grabbed a flashlight from the utility drawer.

The beam was weak.

The batteries old, but it cut through the dark just enough.

They stepped into the hallway.

The basement door waited at the end, closed tight, painting.

The brass knob dulled with age.

She reached for it and paused, her hand hovering.

Darren touched her arm gently.

“I’m right here,” he said.

She nodded, turned the knob, and opened the door.

The smell hit first, damp earth, mildew, and something fainter.

Metallic, the scent of rust or blood.

The stairs creaked under their weight.

Each step downward felt like a step backward in time.

The flashlight beam flickered across the cinder block walls, the exposed pipes, the shelves stacked with boxes her aunt never touched.

But it was the far corner they were moving toward.

The space once used for games and sleepovers.

The corner where years ago someone carved a circle into the concrete.

Now it was fresh, visible, undeniable.

The flashlight’s beam landed on the symbol.

Clean lines, deep grooves, impossibly perfect, like a machine had done it.

But worse was what lay at the center of it now.

10 objects, each small, personal, a broken bracelet, a matchbox car, a yellow ribbon, a cracked glasses frame.

Each one familiar, each one once belonging to a child who vanished that night.

Norah dropped to her knees.

breath caught in her throat.

“I remember these,” she whispered.

Darren crouched beside her.

“They weren’t here before.” “I swear, Nora.

That floor was empty when I found the carving earlier today.

Something had placed them there.” Recently, Norah’s eyes drifted to the empty spot in the center of the circle.

One space left, one object missing, her a part of her.

She rose slowly, her hand instinctively moving toward her coat pocket.

The mask still there, folded soft like old skin.

She pulled it out.

The air changed instantly.

A low vibration began, not in the floor, but in her bones.

Darren stumbled back.

Nora, don’t.

But she stepped forward into the circle.

The temperature dropped 10°.

The flashlight flickered once, twice, then died.

Darkness swallowed them, but Nora could still see the outlines, faint, flickering like the echo of a candle’s flame in a sealed room.

She saw the walls stretch, the shadows deepen, and then faint footsteps.

Not hers, not Darren’s.

Children’s footsteps soft shuffling dozens of them whispers followed unintelligible at first then layered overlapping until she could make out the words.

She opened the door but didn’t close it.

She saw us.

She forgot.

She must remember.

Darren’s voice cut through the dark.

Nora.

He was behind her but far.

Too far.

She turned.

The shadows moved with her and then a face small, pale, familiar.

Ellie, her pigtails undone, her eyes wide and black, not from malice, but something deeper.

Loss.

She stepped forward.

Nora reached for her instinctively, but the moment she did, Ellie’s face changed, mouth opened wide in a silent scream, and then gone.

The basement lights snapped on, harsh, blinding.

The circle was empty.

No objects, no symbols, no Ellie, just Nora.

Alone in the center of the floor, the mask still in her hand.

Darren stood at the top of the stairs, breathless.

I was yelling,” he said.

“You didn’t hear me.” She looked around, dazed.

“How long was I down here?” He blinked.

“5 seconds, maybe 10.” She shook her head.

It felt like minutes.

She stepped out of the circle.

“Whatever this is,” she said, her voice low.

“It’s not just trying to finish what it started.

It’s trying to pull me back in.” Darren helped her up the stairs in silence.

at the top.

She turned to him.

There’s someone we haven’t talked to.

Who? Father Delaney, she said.

He was at the party.

He blessed the house.

My parents trusted him.

Everyone did.

Darren’s brow furrowed.

He’s still alive.

Barely.

But yes, he retired up north.

I saw something about it last year.

a piece in the church bulletin said he was taking time for spiritual recovery.

Darren looked uneasy.

“You think he knows more than he let on?” “I think,” she said, gripping the mask tight.

“He never wanted us to remember.” She turned toward the hallway, toward the front door, toward what came next.

“We’re going to find him.” The road north was long, gray, and mostly silent.

Nora watched the pines blur past the windshield, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

The mask sat sealed inside a plastic storage container between her and Darren.

She didn’t want it loose in the car.

Not anymore.

Darren focused on the drive, knuckles tight around the steering wheel.

They had left Fair Haven before dawn.

By 7:40 a.m., they were 2 hours into the drive to St.

Ludik’s Monastery.

a secluded retirement cloister for aging clergy nestled along the hills outside Albany.

Father Delaney had retreated thereafter, his final sermon in 2002.

Back then, the town chocked it up to exhaustion.

Decades of service, they said, “A man in need of rest.” But Norah remembered something else.

His final words from the pulpit.

“Evil, wears the face we love.” At the time, it had meant nothing.

Now it echoed in her head like a riddle too terrifying to solve.

The monastery appeared just before noon.

Stone arches, weathered statues, ivy crawling up the walls like veins.

The air smelled of damp earth and incense.

The receptionist, a soft-spoken nun named Sister Grace, led them through a stone corridor that smelled faintly of candle smoke and pinewood polish.

He doesn’t receive many visitors,” she said kindly.

“But I told him your names.” He said, “Yes.” They found Father Delaney in a modest room lined with books and stained glass light.

He was thinner now, hair white, skin paper thin, but his eyes, they were still sharp.

He rose slowly from his chair when he saw them.

“Norah Hargrove,” he said, voice dry as parchment.

and Darren Whitmore.

Lord, help us.

Father, Norah said gently.

We need answers, he gestured for them to sit.

I was wondering when this day would come, he murmured, sinking into the chair across from them.

I prayed it wouldn’t.

Nora exchanged a glance with Darren.

You were at the party, she said.

I blessed the Witmore home that morning, he confirmed.

There had been signs What kind of signs? Darren asked.

Delaney hesitated, then leaned forward.

You’re both old enough to know the stories.

But what you may not know is that the land Holloway was built on had a long, brutal history.

Before the settlers, before the church, that ground was once part of a burial site, not for bodies, but for rituals.

Norah’s skin prickled.

old rights,” the priest continued.

“Things meant to bind spirits, to hold something at bay, but someone disturbed it,” Darren said.

Delaney nodded slowly.

The town grew, roads were paved, foundations dug.

One of the seals was broken, and when that happened, things crept back in.

He turned to Nora.

“You felt it, didn’t you, that night?” “I don’t remember,” she whispered.

Only pieces.

You do, he said.

Somewhere deep down.

That mask you found.

It’s not a toy.

It’s a vessel, a binding tool.

You wore it because you were chosen to carry the seal, to hold back what was trying to come through.

Norah stared at him, stunned.

I was 11.

Delaney’s voice softened.

Childhren have always been used for such things.

Their belief makes them powerful and vulnerable.

Darren shook his head.

So what was the circle? The symbols.

An offering gone wrong.

Delaney said the entity needed 11.

It got 10.

Norah interrupted the ritual.

Maybe by instinct, maybe guided by something else, but she became an anchor.

That’s why she lived.

Norah felt cold seep into her bones.

But why now? she asked.

Why has it started again? Delaney closed his eyes.

Because your return broke the stasis.

The moment you stepped back onto that ground, the seal began to fray.

He opened them again, tired and sad.

You’re not just part of the story, Nora.

You’re the hinge on which it turns.

A heavy silence filled the room.

Then Delaney reached into a drawer and retrieved a small cloth bundle.

He placed it carefully on the table and unwrapped it.

Inside was a pendant, dark stone, engraved with the same sigil from the basement floor.

This is what was buried beneath the Witmore house, he said.

The true seal.

I removed it after the party.

I thought if I hid it, it would weaken thee.

Bond and let the children go.

His hand trembled.

I was wrong.

Norah touched the stone gently.

It was warm.

alive.

“What happens if we return this?” she asked.

Delane’s eyes locked on hers.

“Then you finish what was started.” Darren frowned.

“You mean redo the ritual?” “No,” the priest said.

“You undo it, but it has to be done by the same person who interrupted it.” He looked at Nora.

“You,” she swallowed hard.

“And if I don’t,” Delane’s answer was almost a whisper.

Then it won’t stop at 11:00.

They left the monastery just before sunset.

The pendant lay in Norah’s lap, wrapped in the same cloth.

Father Delaney had used linen thin with age, its edges embroidered with symbols she couldn’t read, but somehow understood.

The weight of the stone felt unnatural, not heavy in a physical sense, but dense, like it carried years or souls.

Darren drove in silence.

The air inside the truck thick and unmoving.

Outside the sky had turned the color of rust.

Bruised clouds gathering above the pines like warning signs.

Neither of them spoke until they crossed back into Holloway Lane.

The road felt tighter now.

Trees leaned closer, shadows deeper, and the houses, even the empty ones, seemed to watch.

Norah clutched the pendant tighter as they pulled into her driveway.

“We do this tonight,” she said.

Darren glanced at her.

“Are you sure?” she nodded.

“If we wait, something worse will come through.” Inside the house, they moved quickly.

Norah laid the pendant on the dining table, unwrapping it carefully.

Darren found the flashlight, new batteries, and a small bag of salt, an old superstition, but neither questioned its use.

They returned to the basement.

The air was colder than before.

The circle had reappeared, faint this time, like it had sunken beneath the surface, but the grooves were still there, waiting.

The center still hollow, still hungry.

Norah stood at the edge and took a deep breath.

Delaney’s instructions echoed in her head.

The seal must return to its place.

The one who broke it must close it.

She stepped into the circle.

The moment her foot touched the center, the basement light blew out.

The darkness that followed wasn’t natural.

It wasn’t absence.

It was presence.

It felt felt like pressure, like watching.

Darren called her name, but it sounded far away.

Norah knelt and placed the pendant at the heart of the symbol.

The floor pulsed beneath her hands.

The stone throbbed like a second heartbeat.

Then came the voices, soft, familiar, calling her name.

Nora, she froze.

They weren’t frightening.

They were children.

Laughter, snippets of songs, the kinds of sounds heard at recess, at birthday parties, at Halloween sleepovers, and then, help us.

It came from all sides.

She opened her eyes.

The basement was no longer the basement.

It was them.

She stood in the center of a void filled with children’s silhouettes.

All faint, all flickering.

Owen, Ellie, the others she could barely remember.

They weren’t whole.

They shimmerred like reflections in moving water.

Stuck, Ellie stepped forward.

She was crying.

“You left us.” “I didn’t know,” Norah whispered.

“I didn’t remember.

You broke the chain.” Another voice said, “Owen, you stopped it, but you didn’t seal it.

We’ve been waiting.” Norah knelt again.

“I’m here now.” The pendant glowed softly.

A warmth spread from it.

Not fire, but memory.

Suddenly, images flooded her mind.

The night of the party, the games, the punch, the dare.

They had gone into the basement at midnight to summon something.

Just kids being kids.

A Halloween ritual from a book.

One of them had found.

They’d lit candles.

They’d spoken words.

And something had answered.

Something old, hungry.

When the lights blew out, she remembered hearing screams.

And in the chaos, she had grabbed the mask, “Not to wear, to bind.” She had placed it on the floor and stepped into the circle.

She’d screamed the words backwards, and everything had stopped.

The others were gone.

She was still there.

The sacrifice unsealed, but the gate still open.

The anchor, her back in the present, the pendant grew hotter, the light brighter, the children’s faces softened.

Owen smiled faintly.

Ellie reached for her.

The moment their hands touched, a sound like wind rushing through stone filled the air.

The basement walls cracked.

Not physically, but through a splitting.

The circle began to glow, lines flaring with golden light.

And then silence.

The children vanished.

The basement light flicked back on.

Norah sat alone.

The pendant lay in the center, dull now.

No pulse, no heat.

Darren ran to her, breathless.

What happened? She looked at him.

Tears on her cheeks.

They’re gone.

Gone? Free? He helped her up.

They stood together, silent, as the basement felt like just a basement again.

But as they climbed the stairs, Darren paused.

“There were 11 kids,” he said slowly.

“10 who vanished.” Norah turned to him.

“What about the 11th?” She didn’t answer because she knew the truth now.

The 11th was never meant to survive.

But something had changed the rules and it wasn’t over.

Not yet.

The next morning, the sun rose blood orange behind the trees.

Norah sat on the front steps of her aunt’s house, elbows resting on her knees, eyes distant.

She hadn’t slept.

She didn’t feel tired either.

What she felt couldn’t be named.

It lived in her chest now, a strange blend of calm and dread, like something had been lifted, only to make room for something heavier.

Darren joined her.

A few minutes later, two mugs of coffee in hand.

He passed one to her.

“You should sleep,” he said.

She shook her head.

“Can’t “Not yet,” they sipped in silence.

The town was waking up.

A dog barked down the street.

A garbage truck rumbled in the distance, the ordinary sounds of a world that had no idea how close it had come to cracking open.

Darren glanced at her.

“Do you think it’s really over?” Nora didn’t answer right away.

She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the mask, “Soft now, almost weightless.

The thread at the edges was beginning to unravel.

I think that door is closed,” she said finally.

But Darren asked.

She turned to him.

There’s more than one door.

He frowned.

What do you mean? She stared at the horizon, her voice low.

Last night in the circle, when I touched Ellie’s hand, it wasn’t just them I saw.

Darren waited.

I saw others.

Not from Holloway.

Not from 1983.

Different faces, different times, other vanishings.

Darren whispered.

She nodded.

Like threads, all connected, all pulled by the same force.

It’s bigger than us.

He looked away, jaw tight.

So what now? Norah took a breath.

The kind you take before stepping into deep water.

We find them.

The other survivors? No, she said standing.

The other seals.

Darren rose with her, unsure whether to feel terrified or relieved.

You really want to keep going? She looked down the street toward the past she’d buried and dug back up.

I don’t think I have a choice.

He nodded slowly.

Then I’m with you.

She looked at him.

Why? His answer was simple.

Because I think I’ve always been part of this, too.

She gave a faint sad smile.

They stood in silence as the wind picked up.

Leaves danced across the yard.

The elm tree creaked.

Somewhere down the block, wind chimes sang again.

The same off-key tune that had followed her for days now.

She turned to go inside, but stopped short at the mailbox.

Something stuck out of it.

A small envelope unmarked.

No stamp.

She opened it slowly.

Inside was a photo recent.

A girl maybe 9 10 years old wearing a Halloween costume.

Behind her barely visible in the woods was a shape.

Not a person.

Not quite.

The same empty eye sockets.

The same impossible height.

The same long limbs and crooked stance Norah had seen in dreams she hadn’t known were real.

The same thing she’d once bound.

A single line was scrolled beneath the photo.

Still one left.

The photo haunted her.

Even now, hours later, it lay on the table between them.

The girl smiling, oblivious to the shape behind her and that handwritten message in crude black ink.

Still one left.

Darren paced the room, fists clenched.

This wasn’t from some prankster, Nora.

That handwriting.

It looks like the same from the basement, like it was carved instead of written.

She nodded, arms folded, gaze fixed on the image.

I’ve seen that figure before, she said quietly.

In dreams in that in between place.

It’s the thing behind all of this.

The one pulling the strings.

Darren froze.

The same one that took the kids.

Not took, she said.

Used.

The words came out before she even fully understood them.

But they felt true.

Deeply true, like something buried in her blood had surfaced.

Darren sat down hard.

So, who’s the last one? The girl in the photo? Norah shook her head.

She’s bait, a placeholder.

The one that’s left is me.

He looked confused.

You sealed it.

I sealed a door, she corrected.

Not all of them.

not the original breach.

Ry thought it was under the Witmore house, but I don’t think it was.

She rose, walked to the window, and stared into the woods that bordered her aunt’s property.

“There was a place we used to go as kids,” she said slowly.

“Before the party, before the disappearances, we called it the hollow.” Darren’s eyes narrowed.

“The one near the reservoir?” She nodded.

It wasn’t on any map, no trails, just this sink in the woods where nothing ever grew right.

Trees twisted, the air always colder.

I thought that was just a story, Darren muttered.

It’s real, she said.

And I think it’s where it started.

Long before us, he stood his voice sharp with disbelief.

You want to go there now? Norah turned from the window.

Yes.

They reached the edge of the woods by dusk.

The path was barely visible, more memory than trail.

Branches tugged at their sleeves.

The air grew thicker, quieter, until even the birds seemed to vanish.

The hollow revealed itself slowly.

A depression in the forest floor.

Trees curved inward like ribs.

At the center stood a single petrified tree, blackened and dead, yet untouched by rot.

Norah stepped forward, flashlight beam bouncing across fallen leaves and mossy stones.

The earth felt wrong here, spongy, cold, almost hollow beneath her boots.

Darren stayed close.

What exactly are we looking for? She knelt beside the blackened tree, fingers brushing the soil.

There used to be a stone here, she said.

Flat like a lid.

She scraped back leaves and dirt and soon found it buried large cold to the touch.

Carved into its surface was the same sigil.

Only this one wasn’t fading.

It glowed faintly.

They stared in silence.

Norah placed the mask on the center of the stone.

The wind died.

Then the voices returned, faint at first, then rising like a tide.

children, whispers, screams, laughter, all swirling together in a chaotic melody.

And beneath it, a deeper hum.

Not human.

Not of this world.

Norah knelt, pulling the pendant from her jacket.

The stone pulsed faintly in her hand.

“I have to open it,” she whispered.

Darren’s eyes widened.

“Open what?” “This,” she said, gesturing to the sigil.

This is the true breach.

The one they sealed a century ago.

That’s what the rituals were for.

Not worship, not sacrifice.

Containment.

Darren stepped back.

And if you open it, I finish the binding, she said.

Not just for the kids from 1983, for all of them.

She placed the pendant in the center of the sigil.

The stone slab trembled.

The forest bent inward.

The petrified tree cracked and from the cracks light poured out, but not warm light.

This was something else.

Memories flooded Nora again.

the party, the circle, the basement.

But this time she saw it from outside her body like someone or something had watched through her eyes, had guided her hand when she reversed the words, had bound the mask to her soul, and now it was finishing the job.

Darren reached for her Nora.

But she was already glowing.

not her body, her presence.

The light from the sigil surged upward, spiraling into the sky like a beacon, and through it, a shape began to emerge, the same one from the photo, but incomplete, distorted, weakened, because it was missing her.

The final tether.

Norah looked into its eyes.

Empty, infinite.

She didn’t speak.

she felt.

And in that feeling, grief, rage, compassion, she pushed back.

The circle exploded in golden fire.

Lights slammed downward like judgment, and the figure shrieked, not in pain, but in failure.

Then everything went still.

Norah collapsed.

Darren caught her before she hit the stone.

The sigil burned itself out.

The hollow went quiet.

and above them stars blinked into existence, sharp and clear and real.

She woke to the smell of smoke and pine needles.

The first thing she saw was the sky, impossibly wide, stre with stars clearer than she ever remembered.

The second was Darren, kneeling beside her, his face pale, eyes full of something halfway between panic and awe.

Nora.

Her voice came out as a whisper.

Is it over? Darren nodded slowly.

I think so.

They sat in silence, the warmth of the petrified tree at their backs.

It pulsed gently like a heart at rest.

The sigil was gone, burned away.

Only scorched earth remained where the stone had cracked open, and something ancient had tried to crawl back through.

Norah sat up.

The mask was gone.

So was the pendant, but the weight of them had lifted from her chest, the hum in her bones.

Silenced.

For the first time since she’d returned to Fair Haven, she could breathe fully.

Darren helped her to her feet.

They didn’t speak on the walk back.

Words felt small now.

Fragile.

What they’d seen, what they’d done.

It lived in silence.

They reached the house just as the horizon began to warm.

She stepped onto the porch, shoes trailing soil from the hollow.

Darren lingered near the fence, waiting, maybe giving her space.

Maybe unsure of what came next.

She opened the front door slowly.

Something had changed.

The air smelled clean.

The house no longer felt haunted.

Not by spirits or memories or buried pain.

It just felt quiet.

She wandered through the rooms, touching picture frames, old furniture, curtains she hadn’t looked at since childhood.

Every corner now carried a soft finality like the place had been holding its breath for 22 years and could finally exhale.

When she reached the kitchen, something caught her eye.

On the table beneath a sliver of morning light lay a folded piece of paper unfamiliar.

She picked it up, hands steady now.

It was a letter written in fine looping handwriting.

Nora, if you’re reading this, it means you’ve done what I could not.

You’ve ended it.

I never had the strength to go as far as you did.

I tried to warn them.

I tried to understand, but in the end, I was just another man lost in a story too big to contain.

Know this.

The thing you faced wasn’t just an entity.

It was a wound.

a tear in something older than time.

And you stitched it shut.

But like all wounds, there will be scars, you’ll carry them.

The silence, the dreams, the faces you almost forgot.

That’s your gift and your burden.

Thank you, Nora, for saving them.

For saving yourself, Ray, she folded the letter slowly.

Then she walked outside.

The sun crested the trees, golden and soft, turning the leaves into stained glass.

Darren looked up as she stepped onto the porch.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

“No more nightmares,” she said.

“Not mine, not theirs,” he took a step closer.

“What now?” Norah looked down the road, then up to the horizon.

“Now,” she said, her voice strong.

We go find the others.

Darren raised an eyebrow.

There are more.

She nodded.

I saw them.

Not just children.

Adults.

Places where the same thing nearly happened.

Or did threads? Ray called them.

And you want to follow them? She looked at him.

I have to.

He smiled faintly.

Then I guess I’m still with you.

They stepped off the porch together, side by side, into the morning light.

Behind them, the house watched no more.

In front of them, the road stretched long and open, and somewhere in small towns, in forgotten places under old earth and cracked walls.

The rest of the story waited because evil didn’t end.

It just moved.

And this time, they were ready.