The Wooden Door

Julia had warned Ben not to go near that strange house. They had only just arrived in the quiet solitary village to have an escape from the noise of the city and the silence of their own grief. There was an enormous loss hung between them like endkess smoke. They couldn't forget and they couldn't speak of it; not yet.

That strange house stood at the edge of the woods half-collapsed, its tall wooden door strangely intact. Smooth oak etched with curling patterns neither of them could name.

That place isn’t empty, Julia said on their second day; staring at it through their cottage window.

Ben said; It’s just old, that door’s probably the only thing holding it upright.”

Later that night, when she awoke to find the bed empty and the front door opened; she knew where he’d gone.

She followed the overgrown trail barefoot, the grass wet with dew, the air thick with tension. Moonlight lit the house in pale silver. The wooden door stood open just slightly.

“Ben?” she called.

No answer.

She stepped in.

The air changed the moment she crossed the threshold of the house , it was warm; still time didn’t move here—it listened.

Ben? she tried again, but her voice came out softer.

The house was strange lit by an unseen source, the walls pulsed with faint color like breath beneath paint. She moved through the hall slowly seeing crawling across her skin.

Then she saw him.

He stood in a long room filled with floating dust and memories—pictures of children on the wall, toys scattered across the floor. A little boy’s room. Ben couldn't stand of shock.

“Julia...... he said, voice hollow. “It’s his room. It’s James’ room.”

She froze. Their son’s name. Neither had spoken it since the accident.

She looked around. Everything was exactly as they’d left it before they moved. The bookshelf, the toy fox. Even the tiny red shoes he never got to grow into.

“This can’t be real,” she whispered.

“It is,” Ben said. “or it was or it wants us to remember that.”

He reached for the music box on the shelf. It opened without resistance and the lullaby began to play—the same one James used to hum before sleep.

Julia's breath caught.

The room began to shift. Slowly, the floor fell away beneath them—not physically, but emotionally. They felt the weight of everything they had buried: the guilt, the anger, the unbearable ache of absence.

“I thought forgetting would be easier,” Ben said, sinking to his knees. “But it made it worse. It made it feel like he never existed.”

Julia sat beside him. The house pulsed gently around them, not cruelly—like it, too, remembered. Like it had been waiting for them to come back.

“I blamed you,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Not because I believed it. Just because I didn’t know what else to do.”

He nodded, eyes wet. “I know.”

And then they wept.

Not the quick, private sobs of polite grief but deep, aching cries that shook the floorboards. The house did not crumble beneath them—it held them. It gave them space to fall apart, and then room to begin again.

When the silence returned, it felt different; lighter.

The room faded slowly, like breath on glass and before them, the wooden door stood again. Waiting.

Julia stood first. She took Ben’s hand.

“Let’s go,” she said.

He nodded.

They stepped through together.

Outside, the sky had begun to change—just before dawn, the birds stirred in the trees . The door closed behind them with a soft click.

No words were spoken as they walked back to the cottage. They didn’t need to be.

That night, they lit a single candle in the window. Not in mourning.

But in memory.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, they held each other while the world moved gently on.