The house stood at the end of a narrow street, surrounded by a quiet that wasn’t present anywhere else in the city - except, perhaps, the cemetery. Its marble walls, once spotless and pristine, now sat dull and cracked. Vines crept up like cold, lifeless veins on pale skin. Several emerald tiles were missing from the roof, the gaps exposing the bones of the house underneath. The windows faced outward, shuttered by thick wooden boards that barricaded the interior as though they kept something horrible from getting out.

  Circe stood motionless on the street. The black tangle of hair clung still to her back, not daring to move out of place. No other house remained in the culdesac, the remnants of their foundations sitting plain and uncared for. The abandoned building before her would have surely been dismantled as well, had the property not been eternally secured by a long bloodline of elven aristocracy. The city couldn’t touch it, no matter how much decay it wrought in the midst of the housing district.

  She approached the porch, a jolt of something horrid shooting through her spine as her bare feet touched the overgrown walkway. As she stepped up to the door, her fingers moved habitually beneath one of the dead potted plants to her right. The spare key was still there, tarnished and cold. She turned it over in her bony hand before sliding it into the lock. The door groaned open, the rust of the hinges growling like a hungry animal. The house itself almost seemed to exhale, as though it knew who had returned.

  Inside, the air was stale and heavy. Dust coated the floors like a rug, and cobwebs obscured the once marvelous portraits that hung on the walls. The furniture, covered in white sheets, stood silently like ghosts that were frozen mid-step. A faint smell of decay hung in the air - not that of death, but of neglect.

  Circe moved through the front hall, the creak of wood beneath her feet echoing slightly. Her eyes flicked to a portrait-style mirror near the door, the golden frame tarnished and speckled. She hesitated before stepping in front to greet her reflection. The face that gazed back at her was one the mirror had never seen before, and was yet familiar all the same.

  She entered the sitting room, pulling off the sheet from the couch. Slowly, she lowered herself onto the faded blue upholstery, sinking into the old cushion. On the low table in front of her sat an old book and a glass figurine of an owl. She cracked open the pages of the book, tracing over the annotations of it with her finger. The handwriting swirled and looped with an effortless precision - one that had spent so many hours attempting to emulate herself. She never could get her ‘Z’s to look exactly right.

  The piano in the corner stood silent, its keys dust-covered and yellowed. Circe stood and allowed herself to run her hands across their surfaces. She remembered the way his hands created music that would mask the sounds of storms and soothe her when she was frightened. She pulled her hands away before she was tempted to press the keys. The silence was too fragile to break.

  She left the room and climbed the staircase, trailing her fingers along the banister. The wood was rough and splintered, not smooth and well-kept like it should have been. The upstairs hallway stretched on for an eternity, lined with closed doors.

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  The first door she entered was the study. A heavy oak desk was cluttered with papers that never got signed. Orders for logging camps and the emerald mines. Some docking waivers. An order for graduation robes. A casket. The inkwell had been turned over, the black ink staining the wood like spilled blood. The chair was tipped onto its side, one leg splintered.

  On the wall behind the desk was a portrait that took up most of the area. A handsome elven man with brown hair, greying at the temples, wore a tan suit that was elaborately embroidered with family sigils and runes. Beside him was an elven woman with gently curled blonde hair, the color of melted gold. She wore the most beautiful blue dress and a silver circlet around her forehead. A gemstone locket rested along her collarbone. In between the two of them was a young elf girl, maybe twelve. Her hair was blonde like the woman’s, but her eyes were green like the man’s had once been. She wore a simple white dress that was tied with a silk ribbon around her waist. Her smile was bright. Her face was kind. The glass overtop the painting was cracked, splintering the three of them right down the middle - right across the girl.

  Circe left the room, keeping the knob turned as she closed the door so as to not disturb the memory inside. She walked to the end of the hallway and stood in front of the final door of many she couldn’t bring herself to open. She placed a trembling hand on the curved door handle and left it there a moment, as though she were still deciding whether or not to go in. She knew she would; it was why she came here.

  The door opened with a whimper. The bed was made, a pale green quilt folded neatly at the foot of it. Shelves buttressed the closet door, lined with books that had been well-loved. Circe approached the bedside table, pulling open the drawer. She took out a quaint journal and flipped it open. Adhered to each page was a different pressed flower accompanied by doodles of an elven girl and a menagerie of wondrous creatures. She placed the book back in the drawer and shut it, permitting herself to sit on the bed.

  The sheets shifted and the pillows turned, sending a stuffed owl falling to its side. Circe picked up the toy, brushing the plush feathers with her hands and staring down at the dark glass beads in its eyes. A hot tear splashed down onto its face.

  Circe collapsed to her knees on the floor, pulling the owl close to her chest. Her fingers dug into it as her breaths became ragged gasps, breaking free after years of demanded silence. It all came to her, the grief channeling through yells that no one could hear. She sobbed.

  She mourned.

  A gust of wind surged through the room, swirling the dust into choking clouds around her. She screamed, a sound so raw and guttural that the magic around her fled. The house became electric with immense power. Every glass artifact, chandelier, and frame in the house shattered, their crystals falling like rain in a storm. The marble of the foundation cracked, sending splinters striking like trails of lightning across the floors and up the walls. The table in the dining room shattered, the chairs in the living room tore apart, and the long-decayed wood of the fireplace simply dissolved into ash.

  When the screams subsided, the storm ceased. Circe was trembling, the stuffed owl molded to her iron grip. The wind was gone and the magic had turned away, leaving only the silence that had been there to begin with.

  She let herself cry. Not in the rage or vengeance that she expected her tears would bring, but in grief.

  For her father and his music. For her mother and her stories. For the girl who once lived in this house, who had a family, a future, and a name.

  For Elizabeth. For herself.

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