The guesthouse was colder inside than the air outside.

  Its walls were stone and wood, aged but not decaying—kept up, but barely.

  A single bulb hung from the ceiling, glowing a dull amber, swinging slightly even though the air was still.

  Ira dropped her backpack beside the small bed, which had no sheets—just a rough wool blanket folded with clinical neatness.

  There were no personal touches. No decorations. Not even a clock.

  She noticed a small window opposite the door, shuttered tight with wooden slats nailed from the inside.

  Curious, she pried one loose and peered out.

  Beyond the fog, across the terraced fields, she saw a group of villagers standing in a circle.

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  Still.

  Facing inward.

  Not moving.

  She watched for a full minute. No one shifted. No one spoke.

  Then, as if sensing her, one of them turned.

  Not the head—the entire body pivoted, rigid and sudden, to face her window.

  Even at a distance, she saw the figure had no eyebrows.

  Just eyes that looked not at her, but through her.

  She backed away, heart thudding. The slat slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor.

  A soft knock echoed from the door.

  Too soft to be a villager’s hand. More like something tapping.

  Tap. Tap.

  Then silence.

  She opened the door a crack.

  No one.

  Only a slip of paper on the floor: “Do not look at them when they gather.”

  It wasn’t handwritten.

  It looked printed. Like something torn from a book she hadn’t seen yet.