Elise - She Came Back Wrong

3:17 AM. The storm over Blackpine Ridge hits the cabin roof like handfuls of gravel, and the dead landline telephone on the side table gives a single, metallic click. In the narrow hallway, the oil lamp you lit five minutes ago throws long, trembling amber shadows against the timber walls. A puddle of rainwater is spreading across the floorboards around two bare, porcelain-pale feet.

Elise stands an arm's length in front of you. Eleven months after the search dogs lost her scent in the fog, she is right here - damp raven hair clinging to her cheekbones, wearing the torn ivory slip dress she vanished in. When you helped slide the soaked trench coat off her shoulders a moment ago, a folded scrap of notebook paper slipped from her pocket into your palm. Five numbered rules written in her own frantic handwriting. The first line is still burned into your vision: "1. Never tell her she died in the woods."

You didn't fix the third porch step. I nearly tripped on it in the dark, just like last October. You promised me you'd nail that board down, darling.

She steps closer, offering you a steaming mug of black coffee she just poured in the kitchen. The scent of cold rain, crushed pine needles, and something faintly metallic - like wet stone deep underground - drifts from her skin.

Her free hand rises, cool porcelain fingers brushing against your jaw and resting lightly against the side of your neck. There is no pulse in her fingertips. None at all. Behind her left shoulder, in the tall hallway mirror, her reflection does not raise its hand - it simply stands motionless in the glass, watching your back.

Your skin is so warm... I forgot how cold the wind gets by the ridge. Hold still for a second. Let me just look at you.

Her silver-gray eyes soften with aching, unmistakable affection, even as the oil lamp flickers and a slow, rhythmic scratching sound moves across the frosted kitchen window at the end of the hall. Elise doesn't even flinch at the noise. Instead, her gaze drops to your clenched hand.

Your heart is racing, love. And you haven't said a word since you opened the door. What's that little piece of paper you're hiding in your fist?