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Novelo Rectangle

ECHOShe answered a phone call from her own number.At first, she thought it was a mistake. A glitch. But the moment she pressed “Accept,” she heard breathing. Slow. Familiar.“Lena,” a whisper said. Her name. But not her voice. Not exactly. It was hers — but from a time long gone.“Who is this?” she asked, her voice trembling.“You know,” the whisper replied. “I was born two minutes after you.”Her breath caught in her chest. No one ever said that. No one alive. Not since her sister died.“Eloise?”A pause. Static like soft rain.“You left me behind.”Lena’s knees buckled, and she sank to the floor, clutching the phone like a lifeline.“I didn’t want to,” she whispered. “I was a child. We both were.”“You forgot the promise,” Eloise said. Her voice sounded like wind in a memory. “That we’d never be apart. That we’d finish the story.”Lena blinked. The old story. The one they started writing when they were eight — a fairy tale about two girls who entered a world of mirrors and shadows.“I stopped writing when you...” She couldn’t finish the sentence.“I didn’t,” said Eloise. “I kept going. I’m still here. In the in-between.”Lena pressed her hand to her chest. Was this grief? Hallucination? A breakdown in the middle of a quiet Tuesday?“Why now?” she asked. “Why call me now?”The voice grew softer. “Because you’re forgetting me. And once you forget, I vanish.”A cold wind blew through the room though no windows were open. Lena’s fingers tightened around the phone.“What do I do?” she asked.“Finish it,” Eloise said. “The story. Our story.”Then: click. The call ended.Lena didn’t sleep that night. She dug out the old notebooks from under her bed — frayed, yellowed pages inked with dreams and monsters. She flipped through them like sacred relics.She found the last sentence they’d written together: “And then the youngest twin stepped into the Mirror of Memory.”That had been Eloise’s idea. Lena had never liked mirrors since.Now, she stared at her reflection — the same eyes, the same scar on her chin they both got falling off the garden wall. And she said, “Let’s finish it, El.”She wrote. For days. Nights. The world outside faded. No phone calls, no emails. Just ink and paper. She added endings and beginnings, bridges and falls.She wrote until the twins were reunited inside the mirror, until they faced the shadow queen, until one of them sacrificed herself so the other could wake up in the real world. And when it was done, the last sentence whispered itself onto the page: “But the echo never fades, not when it was once a song.”Lena exhaled, the story complete. The lights flickered. The phone rang again.She answered.Silence.Then a single word: “Thank you.”Click.She didn’t expect to cry. But she did. Soft, quiet tears that washed the dust off old memories.That night, she dreamed of the forest they used to play in, back when life was all bark and roots and fairy wings made of string. Eloise was there, laughing — not the sick, tired girl she’d become near the end, but the wild one. The storyteller. The twin who believed in magic.They sat on a mossy log and watched their imaginary kingdom unfold before them.“Did you like it?” Lena asked.Eloise beamed. “You remembered the part with the silver fox. He was my favorite.”“I almost forgot him,” Lena said. “I almost forgot you.”Eloise shook her head gently. “You never could. I live in your bones, Lena. And now that the story’s done, I can rest.”She stood, her outline softening. A breeze carried her words like dandelion seeds.“Keep writing. Your stories are doors.”Lena reached out, but the dream dissolved like fog at dawn.The next morning, Lena wandered through the attic, drawn to the dusty corner where childhood memories were packed away. She opened a small wooden chest and found an old leather-bound notebook — the one Eloise always carried.Inside, a pressed flower fell out — a silver foxglove they once picked during a spring walk. Next to it, in Eloise’s neat handwriting: “For when you feel lost. I’m here.”Tears welled up again, but Lena smiled. She knew now that finishing the story wasn’t just for Eloise — but for herself, too. To remember. To heal.In the weeks that followed, Lena kept writing. New stories. New beginnings. Every morning, she sat by the window with the notebook open and whispered, “Good morning, El.” It became a ritual — one that made her feel grounded and whole.One afternoon, as Lena walked through the garden, she noticed a small bird with silver plumage perched on the old fence. It sang a melody she had almost forgotten — the lullaby Eloise used to hum. Lena froze, her breath caught, and then the bird flew off, leaving a single silver feather behind.Lena picked it up, tracing its edges. A calmness washed over her. She tucked the feather between the pages of the notebook. Somehow, she knew — Eloise was at peace, and so was she.That evening, Lena looked at the mirror again, her reflection softer, more alive. She whispered, “Thank you,” and for the first time, her own echo felt like a friend.In the months that followed, Lena shared the story of the twins with others. She read it aloud at a local writers’ group, her voice steady and clear. The listeners were moved, some wiping away tears. Lena realised that sharing the story didn’t just keep Eloise alive — it made her own heart feel lighter.One day, while organising her notes, Lena decided to write a new story based on her journey with Eloise. A story not just of loss, but of love, memory, and the power of unfinished stories. She typed the title: “Echoes of Us.”She knew it wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be real — a tribute to her sister and the stories they had yet to tell.She walked to the mirror. Looked into it.For the first time in years, she didn’t look alone.

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Echo

M.T

M.T. Fielding

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Echo

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