The Third Call

The first time I saw the ambulance, I was thirteen, standing at the window of my aunt’s house in the town of Duskhollow. The town was a cluster of old timber houses strung along a river that ran thick and dark, like molasses. It was a place where people knew each other’s secrets but never spoke them aloud. My family had moved there the year before, after my father’s job transferred, and I was still the new girl, the one with the strange eyes. My grandmother, Nana Pearl, had raised me on stories of our bloodline, of the ‘gift’ that ran through the women in our family, a gift she called ‘the sight’. But I liked to think of it as a curse.

I was sitting in the parlor, reading a book by the dusty light, when the air turned cold. It was summer, but the cold swept over me like a wave, raising goosebumps on my arms. And then I saw it: an ambulance, but not a modern one. It was an old, boxy model, the kind from the 1960s, with a red light on top that was dark, not lit. It rolled past the house, silent, no siren, no flashing lights. And in the back, through the small window, I saw a figure—a woman with white hair, her face hidden. I blinked, and it was gone. But the image stayed with me, like a photograph seared into my mind. That night, the phone rang. It was my mother’s voice, trembling, telling my aunt that old Mrs. Kettle from three streets over had passed. I hadn’t known Mrs. Kettle, but I knew I had seen her death. I had seen the ambulance.

After that, the visions came sporadically, like flickers of a faulty lightbulb. A funeral procession of black cars on a rainy day, and then a neighbor’s son would die in a car accident. A white butterfly trapped in a jar, and then a school friend would lose her grandmother. I tried to dismiss them, to tell myself it was coincidence, but the guilt clung to me like a second skin. People in Duskhollow started to avoid me. They called me ‘the crow’ behind my back, a girl who brought omens of death. I felt like a walking plague, even though I knew I wasn’t causing these deaths. But the guilt was heavy, and I often lay awake at night, my heart pounding, waiting for the next vision.

It was on a night like that, when I was seventeen, that I first heard the voice. I was in that half-asleep, half-awake state, my thoughts drifting, when a woman’s voice, low and melodic, called my name: ‘Anya.’ I stirred, not fully awake. ‘Anya.’ The voice came again, closer, as if the speaker was standing at the foot of my bed. I tried to open my eyes, but my lids were heavy. ‘Anya.’ The third call was a whisper, almost sibilant, and I felt a breath of cold air on my face. My eyes snapped open, and I was alone in my room, the moonlight casting long shadows on the walls. But the lingering feeling of presence, of something watching, was so strong that I could taste it, like copper at the back of my throat. I told my parents the next morning, and they exchanged that knowing look, the one they always did when I spoke of ‘vision’. Mother said, ‘It was a dream, hun. You were just still half asleep.’ But I knew the difference. I had never dreamt of that voice before.

As the months passed, the episodes grew more frequent. I would see her—a tall, gaunt figure in a grey dress, always at the edge of my vision, disappearing when I turned to look fully. She was always the same: white hair, pale skin, and eyes that were too dark, like bottomless wells. I began to carry a small mirror to catch her reflection, but she never appeared in it. I tried to rationalize, telling myself it was a shadow, a trick of the light. But one day, I was alone in the kitchen, washing dishes, when I felt a hand brush my shoulder. I spun around, and there she was, close enough that I could see the fine lines around her lips, the faint smudge of a bruise on her temple. She opened her mouth, and the scream that came out was not a sound, but a pressure in my skull, a thrumming that made my ears ring. I fell to the floor, and when I scrambled up, she was gone.

I couldn’t keep silent anymore. I went to the town’s records office, the one place in Duskhollow that preserved birth and death certificates from decades past. I rifled through old ledgers, looking for names that matched the woman I had seen. Eventually, I found a photograph in an old newspaper clipping from 1962. It showed a group of nurses at the local sanatorium, and among them was a woman who looked exactly like the specter. Her name was Mary Whitfield. She had disappeared from the sanatorium in 1962, and the article noted that she had been ‘found unresponsive’ a week later, having drowned in the river. The official cause of death was suicide. But the clipping was stained with something that looked like tar, and the edges were burned, as if someone had tried to destroy it.

I felt a chill that went deeper than cold. I went to find my grandmother, but Nana Pearl was in the nursing home, her mind slipping into dementia. She clutched my hand and said, in a voice that was surprisingly clear, ‘You must break the circle, child. The three calls. When you answer, she will take your place.’ I didn’t understand then, but I knew ‘the three calls’ referred to what I had heard that night. Three times my name, and I had not answered—at least not with words. I had just lain there, frozen, my heart racing. But the fourth time, would she speak? What would happen then?

That night, I lay in bed, waiting. The moon was full, high over the pines. The house creaked, the wind howled. I felt the familiar cold seep under the door. And then her voice came, like a bell rung underwater: ‘Anya.’ My name echoed in the darkness. I pressed my lips together, refusing to speak. ‘Anya.’ The voice was closer, almost at my ear. I felt a cold hand caress my cheek. I shook, my teeth chattering. ‘Anya.’ The third call, and this time, the voice was different—it was mine. The same intonation, the same pitch. It was as if she had stolen my voice and was using it to call me. I couldn’t stop it. Without thinking, I whispered, ‘Who are you?’ The room seemed to shatter, a high-pitched ringing in my ears. The woman materialized at the foot of my bed, her face inches from mine, her mouth open in a silent scream. And then she lunged at me, and everything went black.

I woke up on the floor of my bedroom, the morning light streaming through the window. The house was quiet. I felt different, lighter, as if a weight had been lifted. But when I looked into the mirror, my reflection showed a woman with white hair, a gaunt face, and the dark, bottomless eyes of Mary Whitfield. I blinked, and she blinked. And then I realized: I was the woman now, trapped in my own reflection, while my body went about its day, smiling at my parents, going to school, living a life that was not mine. I was the ghost in the mirror, and the specter that had haunted me now wore my face. I have spent years looking out from this glass prison, watching her live my life, and I know that someday, she will call another girl’s name in the dark, and that girl will see me in the corners of her vision. And the cycle will continue.