The Shadow Behind Her Veil

It was 1:43 a.m. when the knock came again. Soft. Hollow. Almost as if it came from within the walls. I sat up in bed, heart pounding, throat dry. My room was cloaked in darkness, save for the weak moonlight seeping through the old, dusty curtains.

This wasn’t the first night I had heard it. For the past two nights, the knock came at the same time. Always three knocks. Always at my bedroom door.

I had returned to my ancestral house in the village just a week ago—an old structure filled with family history, memories... and something else. Something that breathed beneath the floorboards.

I told myself it was rats. Or wood expanding. Anything but what it truly felt like.

But tonight was different. The air was heavier. The silence more... alive.

The third knock echoed.

I got up slowly, every step toward the door an act of defiance against my instincts screaming to run. I opened the door.

No one.

But down the hallway, she stood.

Tall. Motionless. Dressed in a flowing white gown, and a long black veil covered her head and face. Her hands were pale, long, unmoving. She stood under the antique lantern that never worked—yet tonight it flickered faintly above her.

She raised one hand and pointed directly at me.

I stepped back. The door slammed shut on its own. I turned to lock it—she was in my room.

Standing in the corner.

No sound. No warning. Just there.

I froze. My breath caught mid-throat. She didn’t move. I couldn’t see her face, only that heavy veil. Her head tilted slightly, and she took a single step forward.

The floor creaked beneath her. My mirror fogged up. A strange scent filled the room—burnt roses mixed with something old and decaying.

"Who are you?" I finally choked out.

She didn't speak. She raised a hand and pointed to the old wooden wardrobe in my room.

It creaked open on its own.

Inside was the book.

I had found it earlier in the attic—a strange leather-bound journal with symbols etched in gold. I had flipped through it absentmindedly... but I had read a line aloud. Just one.

She began whispering. Her voice sounded like hundreds of voices layered on top of each other, speaking in a language I didn’t know but somehow understood.

“You called me,” she said, “and I answered.”

I stumbled back, knocking over a chair. Her veil lifted slightly—not by her hand, but by a sudden gust of wind that had no source.

There was no face beneath. Only swirling black smoke... and two glowing silver-blue eyes, piercing, inhuman.

I tried to scream, but my voice died inside me.

"You gave me your name,” she whispered, “and I have given you mine. Now we are bound.”

The windows shattered. The lights exploded. A vortex of cold air spiraled around her as she rose slightly off the floor.

I collapsed. My body felt like it was burning from the inside out.

Then everything stopped.

She was gone.

I lay there in the dark for what felt like hours. Then I passed out.

---

I awoke in the hospital. My cousin was there, eyes wide, face pale.

“You were found unconscious on your bedroom floor,” he said. “There was something scratched into your walls.”

He showed me photos. Dozens of symbols. The same as the ones in the book. And one word, carved repeatedly: “RETURNED.”

I said nothing. I couldn’t.

When I returned home, I burned the book. I smashed the mirror. But nothing helped.

Because every night since then, at 1:43 a.m., she comes.

Sometimes just a whisper. Sometimes a shadow in the corner. Once, I saw her hand crawl out from under my bed.

I’ve tried to move. But she follows.

Wherever I go.

Because I said her name.

And now, she lives behind the veil…

…of my own shadow.