Not Him. Not Now.

The wind howled through the firs that surrounded the remote lakeside cottage, dragging its cold fingers against the windows. Inside, Anna sat by the fireplace, her hands cupped around a half-drunk mug of tea gone cold. The cottage smelled of pine, old books, and something sweeter—lavender, maybe, or memory.

She hadn't spoken to anyone in weeks. Not since the funeral.

Outside, snow had begun to fall, muffling the world in silence. She liked it that way—quiet, still, undisturbed. The world moved too fast out there, too indifferent. But here, time didn’t move at all.

Until she saw him.

It was just past midnight when Anna first caught the shape of him—out by the tree line, standing as still as the trunks themselves. He wore the same gray jacket he'd died in, the collar upturned, the hem torn at the place where they'd pulled him from the river. She blinked hard. Her tea slipped from her hands, the porcelain shattering like brittle ice on the floor.

She didn't go to the window. Didn't run outside.

Instead, she whispered, "No. Not him. Not now."

But he returned the next night.

And the one after that.

Sometimes, he stood a little closer. Sometimes, he didn’t stand at all but moved—just enough to be noticed, a shift of the shoulder, a tilt of the head, a hand brushing bark. He never knocked. Never called her name. But he watched. And waited.

Anna began locking the doors. Then the windows. She told herself it was for the snow, not the thing that wore her dead lover’s face. But each night, when the darkness draped itself over the lake like a shroud, she’d sit by the fire again—waiting.

Hoping it was all in her head.

They had found Michael’s body tangled in reeds near the bend of the river, days after he vanished on that hiking trip. Search parties had combed the area for a week. His face was barely recognizable when they pulled him out, swollen and water-blurred.

But this thing... this presence... outside the cottage?

It looked like the Michael she remembered.

Whole. Unchanged. Smiling.

One night, the power flickered and died. Anna lit candles with trembling fingers, the shadows on the walls dancing with flame. She tried to sleep in the bedroom, but the cold pressed against the windows like breath. And then—she heard it.

Three knocks.

Measured. Soft.

Not on the front door, but on the back—the one facing the trees.

She pressed her ear to the wall. The knocking came again.

Three times.

"Michael?" she whispered.

No reply.

She should’ve stayed away. She knew she should have. But grief is a cruel guide. It tells you to hope, even when your heart knows better.

She opened the door.

And he was there.

Not shrouded in shadow anymore. He was close enough to touch. His blue eyes shimmered with the reflection of the candlelight behind her.

“It’s me,” he said softly.

Her breath caught. "You’re... you're dead."

“I was. But I heard you. Every night. The way you called for me.”

“I never—”

“Yes, you did. In your dreams. In your silence. You wanted me back.”

Her lips trembled. “I did.”

“I came back,” he said. “For you.”

Anna reached forward—but her hand stopped inches from his face. It was too still. Too perfect. Like something sculpted from memory. She studied his smile and saw something else behind it. Something patient. Hungry.

“You’re not him,” she whispered. “You look like him. But you’re not.”

The thing wearing Michael's face didn’t blink.

“Not him,” she said again. “Not now.”

Then, finally, its smile faded. The eyes lost their warmth. A subtle shift spread across its face, like the skin didn’t quite fit the bones beneath. Its voice changed, deepening.

“You invited me,” it said, now less a voice than a murmur of wind through dead branches.

Anna slammed the door and bolted it. Backed away. Lit every candle. Drew every curtain. Covered every mirror.

The thing didn’t knock again.

But it didn’t leave either.

Days passed. Or nights. It was hard to tell anymore.

Anna stopped checking the window. Stopped sleeping. She buried Michael’s old things in the snow—his coat, his boots, the box of love letters they’d written each other when they were young. The thing outside didn’t stop watching. She could feel it.

But she changed.

She stopped whispering his name into her pillow. Stopped aching every time she passed his favorite chair. She grieved with eyes open now, not through the veil of longing.

And that was the key.

The moment she stopped wishing for the past, the thing no longer had a way in.

One final night, she heard it scream.

Not loud. Not rage.

But the kind of scream that comes from something being forgotten.

By morning, the snow was untouched. The air lighter. The tree line empty.

Weeks later, when a forest ranger came by to check on her after the storm, he asked if she’d been alone the whole winter.

Anna smiled, just slightly.

"Yes," she said. "Alone."

But as the ranger turned back toward the road, she whispered under her breath, as if to something still listening:

"Not him.

Not now.

Not ever again."