The Charred Visitor

I was nine the summer we moved to Cedar Hollow, a town so small the grocery store clerk knew your name by your second visit. Our house sat at the end of a dead-end street, backing onto a thicket of pines that always seemed to swallow the sunlight. It was quiet, the kind of quiet that settles on a place like dust, and for a while, I loved it.

My best friend there was Naomi. She lived three doors down, a girl with a laugh like wind chimes and a habit of collecting smooth stones from the creek behind our houses. We’d spend hours building little dams and pretending they were fortresses. Her mother always had fresh lemonade, and my mother called Naomi ‘the sunshine of the block.’

Then came the fire. It happened in late August, a dry spell that turned the woods to tinder. The blaze started near the old Barnwell property, the abandoned farmhouse everyone said was cursed. It jumped the road, and by the time the volunteer firefighters arrived, Naomi’s house was an inferno. They found her in what was left of her bedroom, her collection of stones melted into glass pebbles. The funeral was small, and I didn’t go. I couldn’t.

The night after the funeral, I had the dream. I was standing in our living room, the one with the big bay window, and I saw her outside. She was pressed against the glass, her face smudged with soot, her hair singed and missing in patches. Her eyes were too white, like boiled eggs. She gestured for me to open the door. I shook my head, shouting, ‘No, Naomi, you’re dead!’ But she just smiled, a grin that split her cracked lips. ‘Oh, no,’ she said, her voice a dry rasp. ‘I’m not dead. But you are.’ I remember my own voice, high and trembling, ‘That’s stupid, you’re the one who burned!’ She pressed her palm against the window, leaving a black print. ‘I know you’re alive, but you’ll be with me soon.’ Then I woke up screaming, my mother’s arms around me, her voice shushing me back to sleep.

And so it went, night after night. The dream would come, always the same. I would see her at the window, or sometimes at the sliding glass door, or once, she was standing in the hallway, just outside my room. Every time, the same words, ‘You’ll be with me soon.’ I would wake up drenched in sweat, and my parents would take turns sitting with me until I fell asleep again. My father tried to reason with me. ‘It’s just a dream, Lily. She’s not really there.’ But I knew better. The dream felt too real, too specific. And on the sixth night, I noticed something new.

In the dream, before she spoke, she looked down at her hands. They were red and blistered, like melted wax. And then she looked at me with those terrible white eyes and said, ‘The fire is coming for you too. It’s already burning inside you.’ I woke up choking, feeling as if my own throat was filled with smoke. That day, I refused to go outside. I hid in my room, and when my mother brought me lunch, I noticed a strange smell, like burnt toast. She didn’t smell it. But I did.

I started to see her in the waking world, too. Not clearly, but at the edges of my vision. A glimpse of a charred hand in the corner of my eye when I turned the hallway. A streak of ash on the mirror that vanished when I blinked. The smell of smoke would come and go, sometimes so strong I’d run to the window to check for flames, but outside was always clear. I told my parents, but they exchanged worried glances and whispered to each other about ‘grief’ and ‘imagination.’ They took me to the doctor, who said it was post-traumatic stress, that my mind was playing tricks on me. But it wasn’t a trick. I knew something was wrong.

One evening, about two weeks after the fire, my mother had to work late. My father was reading in his study, and I was in the kitchen finishing my dinner. The back door rattled softly. I looked up, and there she was, on the other side of the screen. She was more solid now, her skin peeling, her clothes hanging in tatters. She pressed her face against the mesh, and I could see her teeth, blackened and cracked. ‘Let me in, Lily,’ she whispered. I wanted to scream, but no sound came out. ‘I’m not dead,’ she hissed. ‘You are. But you can be with me soon.’ I grabbed the kitchen knife, my hand shaking, and pointed it at her. ‘Go away!’ I yelled. She tilted her head, a gesture that was almost sad. ‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘The fire is inside you. It’s been inside you since the day I died.’ And then she was gone, leaving only the smell of smoke.

I dropped the knife and ran to my father’s study. ‘Dad, please, you have to believe me, she’s real, she’s outside,’ I sobbed. He held me, but I could feel his doubt. He said, ‘Lily, maybe we should move. Get a fresh start.’ But I knew moving wouldn’t help. The fire was inside me, whatever that meant.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I sat on my bed, hugging my knees, staring at the door. At around 3 a.m., the smell of smoke became overwhelming. I heard a faint crackling, like the sound of a campfire, coming from my closet. I got up, my legs trembling, and opened the closet door. Inside, on the floor, was a small pile of ashes. And in the ashes, I saw one of Naomi’s stones, perfectly round and black. I reached for it, and as my fingers touched it, a jolt went through me. I heard her voice in my head, clear as day, ‘You’re ready now.’

I screamed and woke up, this time not in my bedroom but in my bed, gasping for air. My parents burst in, their faces pale. ‘Lily, you were screaming so loud,’ my mother said, clutching me. I sobbed, ‘I touched the stone, I touched the stone.’ They looked at each other, and my father finally said, ‘We’re leaving tomorrow. We’ll go to Grandma’s house.’ But even as they packed our bags, I could feel it, a warmth spreading from my chest, growing. I looked at my hands and I swear, for a second, I saw a flicker of orange in my reflection in the window.

We moved away the next morning, but it didn’t stop. The dreams followed me. The smell of smoke followed me. And sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I see her standing behind me, her charred face smiling that smile. She never says anything now. She doesn’t have to. I know she was right. I am dead, or I’m becoming dead, or something in between. The fire is inside me, and I can’t put it out. It’s just a matter of time before I join her, in whatever place she waits. I’m not afraid anymore. I’m just waiting for the day when I’ll look into the mirror and see my own face, burned beyond recognition, smiling back. That will be the day I finally understand what she meant. And I think that day is coming soon.