The mist clung to the hills like a shroud as Elena drove the winding road into Eldridge Hollow. Her tires crunched over gravel slick with perpetual dampness, the wipers swiping lazily at the fine drizzle that never seemed to stop. She had inherited the cottage from her grandmother three weeks ago, a sudden windfall amid the wreckage of her divorce. The city had become too loud, too crowded with memories of betrayal, so she packed a single suitcase and fled to this forgotten corner of the world.

The cottage emerged from the fog like a specter, its stone walls moss-covered, windows dark and unblinking. Elena parked, grabbed her bag, and fumbled with the heavy iron key. Inside, the air was cool and still, smelling of aged wood and faint lavender. She flicked the light switch; a single bulb buzzed to life overhead, casting long shadows across the threadbare rugs.

That first night, sleep came fitfully. The wind moaned through the eaves, carrying whispers that sounded almost like words. Elena tossed, attributing it to exhaustion. Morning brought a pallid light filtering through lace curtains. She made coffee in the ancient kitchen, noting how the clock on the wall ticked erratically, sometimes fast, sometimes lagging behind her phone’s time by minutes.

Days blurred into a routine of unpacking and exploration. The cottage was modest: parlor with a fireplace, kitchen, bedroom upstairs, and a study crammed with her grandmother’s books on folklore and astronomy. Elena found solace in the quiet, reading by the fire as rain pattered endlessly. But unease crept in subtly. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror seemed to hesitate, lips moving a fraction after she spoke. Shadows in the corners stretched when she wasn’t looking, retracting when she turned.

One afternoon, wandering the property, she discovered an overgrown path leading into the woods. The trees pressed close, their branches interlacing overhead, dimming the light to twilight. The path ended at a circle of weathered stones, each the size of a man, arranged in a perfect ring about twenty feet across. The air within hummed faintly, charged like before a storm. Elena stepped inside experimentally; the world tilted, colors sharpening unnaturally, and for a heartbeat, she glimpsed… something. A flash of blue sky without clouds, laughter echoing from nowhere.

She retreated, heart pounding, dismissing it as imagination. Back at the cottage, she rifled through the study. Amid yellowed pages, she found a leather-bound journal. Her grandmother’s spidery handwriting filled it: ‘The Fold. That’s what they call it. Where the veil thins, worlds brush against ours. I’ve felt it calling since I was a girl. Stay away, or it pulls you in.’ Entries detailed visions, shadows that spoke, time slipping like sand.

Nights grew worse. Whispers resolved into her name, murmured from the walls. Footsteps padded overhead when she was downstairs. Once, waking in sweat, she saw a figure at the foot of her bed—a child, pale and translucent, beckoning. Elena bolted upright; it vanished.

Desperate for answers, she drove to the village pub, a dim place called The Hollow’s Rest. Locals eyed her warily over pints. ‘Aye, the old Miller place,’ grunted the barkeep. ‘Your gran warned folk about the Fold. People go in, don’t come out the same. Or at all.’ Tales spilled: hikers vanishing, lights dancing in the woods, voices of the lost.

Returning under heavier mist, Elena felt watched. Branches snapped behind her on the path, but nothing stirred. In the stone circle that evening, the hum intensified. She closed her eyes, and visions assaulted her: a war-ravaged landscape with screams, then a sunlit meadow with children playing, then an empty void echoing her sobs. Faces flickered—her ex-husband smiling lovingly, her unborn child reaching out.

She stumbled back, vomiting in the underbrush. The cottage felt hostile now, doors creaking open unaided, fires kindling without match. Her grandmother’s voice joined the whispers: ‘Elena… come back… it’s not real…’

Obsession gripped her. Days passed in fevered research; nights in vigil at the Fold. The visions coalesced: alternate lives unlived. In one, happily married, children grown. In another, alone but content in the city. Always, the cottage pulled her back, the inheritance a siren’s call.

On the seventh night, storm winds howled. Lightning illuminated the woods. Elena, flashlight in hand, marched to the Fold. The air inside the stones rippled visibly, a tear in fabric. Stepping forward, reality folded.

She emerged in blinding light. The cottage stood pristine, smoke curling from the chimney. Her grandmother, young and vital, waited on the porch. ‘Elena, my dear. You’ve returned.’

Confusion swirled. ‘Gran? You died years ago.’

Grandmother smiled sadly. ‘No, child. You did. At the Fold, when you were eight. Chasing fireflies, you stepped too far. The thin place claimed you. This life—the city, the marriage, the inheritance—it’s all the Fold’s weave, threads from what might have been, to keep you here. Comforting illusions so you don’t cross over.’

Elena’s mind reeled. Flashes: childhood memory resurfaced, the stones glowing, her small hand reaching, then darkness. The whispers? Echoes of other trapped souls. The shadows? Glimpses bleeding through. Her ‘divorce’? Fabricated pain to anchor her.

‘I can let you go,’ Grandmother said, eyes glistening. ‘Or you can stay in the weave.’

But as Elena turned, she saw her child-self skipping toward the stones, fireflies dancing. The loop beckoned. Terror and longing warred. She reached out—and the world folded again.

She awoke in the cottage bed, sun streaming through windows. Suitcase by the door, keys in hand. Had she dreamed it all? No—the clock ticked wrong again. Whispers began anew: ‘Elena…’

Outside, mist rolled down the hills. The Fold waited.