The girl’s name was Maren.


She liked the rain. It muffled the world, softened the edges, made her feel like the only one still awake.


No one noticed when the notebook changed.


At first, it was just a thrift store find—a red leather cover, weathered but untouched inside. But then the pages began to feel warmer. Softer. They hummed faintly when she touched them, like they were remembering something.


Or waiting to be remembered.


Maren wrote because she had to. The thoughts didn’t stop otherwise. But lately, the words didn’t always stay where she put them. Paragraphs shifted overnight. Entire sentences vanished, replaced by things she didn’t recall writing.


Things that knew her.


She told herself it was just stress.


But then the crow came back.


It tapped the window twice, like punctuation.


And on the first blank page of the notebook, a line appeared—without her hand ever moving:


“Do you remember the girls before you?”


Maren stared.


The ink was still wet.


And outside, the rain began to fall harder.

Maren didn’t answer the question on the page. Not out loud.


But it answered for her.


Ø “One forgot. One remembered.

And now it’s your turn.”




She snapped the notebook shut. The air in the room shifted with it—like closing a lid on something simmering.


Her mother called from downstairs. Dinner. Maren didn’t move.


Outside, the crow was still there. Watching. Waiting. She grabbed the red notebook and slid it into her backpack without thinking. Without knowing why.




Dinner was lasagna. Her mother talked about a coworker. Her father scrolled through his phone. Her younger brother hummed a song she didn’t recognize but couldn’t get out of her head.


Normal things.


Except Maren couldn’t stop thinking about the words. The notebook. The question.


She slipped away early and climbed the stairs two at a time, heart hammering for no reason she could name.


In her room, she opened the notebook again.


This time, a second line had joined the first:


Ø “Eastbridge still echoes. You just haven’t heard it yet.”




She frowned.


Eastbridge?


She didn’t know the name. Not really. But it felt familiar, like something half-remembered from a dream. Or a story someone once told in a whisper.


Maren touched the page.


Ink flared beneath her fingertips—warm, living.


She gasped, dropping the notebook.


It thudded to the floor, shut again.


But the words had already found her.


And far, far away, in a quiet house tucked behind a school with a rebuilt library and too many locked doors, the old Book stirred. Just once.


Just enough.