I returned to my room, but I didn't feel good. I felt a strange heaviness, as if I was about to be punished. I was consciously tormenting myself with repetitive thoughts and guilt of the kind that I had come to this house as a guest, but I had disrupted the house's order on the very first night. What a strange feeling. What had I even done to deserve so much self-punishment? Spilled a cup of tea? Broken a cup? I didn't understand. I kept grumbling to myself, giving contradictory excuses. In some versions, I was at fault; in others, Ada was just too sensitive. But in all cases, I knew one thing well: I didn't feel good. My chest was tight. My stomach was knotted. My skin was cold.
The wind softly hit the window, a gentle tapping, but the sound circulating in the room and even the hallway wasn't the wind's sound. It was slower, deeper, more rhythmic. It was as if the house was breathing.
I turned on the bedside lamp. The light was small and weak, a single bulb in a cheap fixture. The largeness of the room, the excessive darkness, and the smallness of the lamp's bulb wouldn't let the light reach the corner, let alone the entire room. The shadows in the corners remained thick and motionless.
The darkness and its vague feeling made breathing hard. It was as if the house was punishing me. But for what sin?
And then, i hear : knock knock.
I held my breath. I'm not really a brave girl, just a little courageous, and that too only because of my self-defense instinct. Courage is not the absence of fear; it's the decision to move forward despite it. But in that moment, I wasn't moving. I was frozen.
Loki's eyes were visible through the gap in the door. Green and glowing.
"Memory," he said. Not with his voice, but with his gaze. The word appeared in my mind, clear and cold.
My whole body froze. He was speaking, but not speaking. I could read his words through his gaze, as if his eyes were printing letters directly onto my consciousness.
"Nooshin, snap out of it. Stop the fantasies." I quickly went under the blanket and cut off the world.
The sound of the door opening grew louder—a slow creak of hinges that needed oil. I slowly pulled the blanket down from my face. Loki was sitting in the middle of the room, his tail wrapped around his paws. And this time, another pair of eyes were next to him, higher up. Larger eyes, darker eyes.
It was Odin's eyes.
"Don't get paranoid," they seemed to say. "We speak to you with our eyes."
I immediately pulled the blanket back over my face. For the first night, all these events were too much for me. Too strange, too fast, too inexplicable.
Where had I come? I didn't even have the ability to pick up my phone from the bedside table. My arm wouldn't move.
I was willing to die from the pressure of the blanket on my head—to suffocate in the lavender-scented darkness—but not to see those eyes again. I held my breath. The blanket felt like it weighed two hundred kilos, pressing down on my chest, my stomach, my legs. Fear was feeding off my body cells, bit by bit, growing larger as I grew smaller.
But then, the same courage I mentioned saved me. A voice in my head—my own voice—said:
You know, when you're audacious, you take risks boundlessly. But when you're courageous, you're scared. But this time, your intellect tries to make the right decision. Nooshin, you fled the war hoping to achieve your dreams because you promised to reach them. Surely this house, this room, this blanket, and those eyes are not your end.
I slowly moved the blanket aside, but with a decision: I would not open my eyes. Because this fear enters through the eyes. If I kept them closed, the fear couldn't find me.
The door was still half open. I felt the breeze from the hallway—cool and slightly damp—on my face. So they were still in the room. But what did it matter? They were just a strange dog and cat who had lived with Ada for a long time and taken on human-like habits. That was all. There was an explanation. There was always an explanation.
My subconscious mind had started rationalizing, building a theory from the surrounding events to make them understandable. When you understand something, you no longer fear it. I clung to this logic. The voices in my head grew more and more muffled, replaced by the steady rhythm of my own breathing.
Morning was much calmer than it should have been. That was the first thing I understood after waking up.
No car sounds. No people sounds. Not even bird sounds. The silence of the house had swallowed everything—every vibration, every echo, every possible disturbance.
But it was the kind of silence that forces you to listen loudly to your own thoughts. Your heartbeat sounds like a drum. Your breathing sounds like wind through a cave. This silence of the house gave me hyper-awareness, an anxiety that came from hearing myself too clearly.
What time was it? It felt like I had slept for years. My mouth was dry. My limbs were heavy. I found my phone with difficulty under the pillow. The screen glowed. The clock was acting strangely: it said 10:22 PM, but sunlight was streaming through the window. Only five hours had passed from yesterday when I arrived until today when I woke up? Impossible. I stared at the numbers, willing them to change. They didn't.
I was wrestling with the clock when—
I hear :Knock knock.
Suddenly, cold sweat covered my whole body. I just remembered how I had spent last night. The eyes. The words in my head. The blanket suffocating me.
Loki glanced into the room from the doorway but didn't enter fully. He just wanted to make sure I was awake. His green eyes blinked slowly. But what a difference between day and night that I was less scared. The sunlight seemed to diminish him, to make him just a cat again, not a messenger from some other realm. Maybe I was slowly getting used to it.
I understood what he said without words: breakfast was ready. But I wasn't scared of his look today. It was the memory of last night that scared me, the lingering feeling of being watched.
When I opened the door fully, sounds from the kitchen reached my ears—the clinking of dishes, the sizzle of something on the stove.
Ada still had this habit: she woke up before everyone in the morning and, with her boundless kindness, prepared the best breakfasts. But the aroma of her food had really changed. It was more intense, more complex. The smell of toast and something sweet—perhaps cinnamon—filled the air, but there were other smells underneath: roasted coffee, fresh cream, a hint of cardamom.
The morning light had turned the hallway grey, filtering through a thin layer of cloud. The picture frames looked stranger in the daylight—more ordinary in a way, but also more wrong. The beach still had no sea. The restaurant still had no food. The cake still had no candles. The station still had no train.
Ada was standing in the kitchen. She had tied up her red hair in a loose bun and was quietly pouring tea from a copper kettle. The morning light fell slightly on her face, softening her features, and at that moment, she looked like the old person I knew: simply attractive, warm, and kind. Not the anxious woman from last night. Not the woman who had covered a tea stain with a blanket as if it were a wound. Just Ada.
When she saw me, she gave a sincere smile and said, "Good morning! You woke up right on time."
"Thanks to the strange animals of this house," I said, sitting down at the table. "I think I'll be on time for everything from now on."
Ada laughed out loud. "Loki woke you up, huh?"
"Well, I've been dealing with these two since last night," I said, gesturing to Odin, who was lying by the stove, and Loki, who was perched on a chair.
Loki and Odin gave Ada a pitiful look, their eyes wide and innocent. Ada kissed both of them on the top of their heads and said, "Gently, gently. Make our guest aware of your abilities, but gently, lest she runs away like the others." She gave me a mischievous wink. "But they don't know you like I do. You came to stay."
If I didn't know Ada, I would have taken her words with a different intention—as a threat, or a warning. But this came from Ada's mouth, and Ada didn't threaten. Ada didn't warn. She just observed and stated.
A strange silence fell. Ada quickly turned back to the counter and started filling Loki and Odin's food bowls with dry food. It was as if she didn't want me to understand the reality that her house wasn't welcoming to guests, against the fact that she herself loved guests. The contradiction hung in the air between us, unacknowledged.
I started eating breakfast—eggs, cheese, olives, fresh bread, and a thick, sweet jam that I didn't recognize. "You always prepare the best Turkish breakfasts," I said. "Wow!"
Ada softly said, "Afiyet olsun... It's been a long time since someone said that."
"I'm really sorry about last night," I said. "I didn't know past memories upset you so much."
"Last night?" Ada looked confused.
"Last night we had a very delicious dinner, and you were so happy . Why are you apologizing?" Ada said
Loki slowly lifted his head from his food bowl and stared at me.
"She forgets bad memories," his gaze said.
Then he stared at the ceiling. I followed his eyes.
There was a large crack on the ceiling above the dining table. It hadn't been there yesterday.
"Ada, what's that?"
She looked up. Her face went pale. "Oh my god! When did this happen?"
"Maybe because of the heavy rain last night?" I said. "I don't know. But it's on the first floor? The kitchen is parallel to your room. Did you see anything on your ceiling?"
"No, I don't think so," she said, still staring at the crack. "I would have noticed it this morning."
Loki and Odin quickly ran upstairs—I heard their footsteps on the wood—and returned a moment later. They looked at Ada. It was as if they reported to her with their eyes: Everything safe upstairs.
"Finish your breakfast," Ada said, her voice distracted. "It's okay. I have some quick paint for the lower floor. I'll fix it."
"I'll help you," I offered.
"No, no need," she said firmly. "You just rest. Don't even think about it."
But the truth was, I wanted to snoop around the lower floor. I wanted to see minus one again, to understand it better. The crack was the best excuse.
This house had secrets, and I had to discover them. I could feel them pressing against me, waiting to be acknowledged.
The phone rang. At the same moment, a few seconds later, the TV in the living room turned on by itself. Ada glanced at her phone screen, then set it down. "I'll call them back later," she said. "My favorite series has started. I didn't get a chance to watch it last night."
She sat down on the couch and became absorbed in the show, her eyes fixed on the screen, her body relaxing into the cushions.
"I'll fix the ceiling," I said.
"Is that your job?" she said without looking away from the TV. "I told you to rest."
"At least let me get the supplies ready," I said. "I'm really bored."
This sentence was unpleasant for Ada. I saw her shoulders tense. She seemed to get scared, just for a moment. She turned to look at me, her eyes anxious. "Don't you like it here?" she asked. "Do you want to leave?"
Simultaneously, the garden light brightened—even though it was morning, even though the light came from the sun, a lamp in the garden turned on. A more beautiful view became visible from the window: the colors were richer, the shapes more perfect. A delightful scent of flowers that weren't in any pot spread through the room—roses, jasmine, something else I couldn't name. The black stain on the living room floor had faded, almost gone. The aquarium fish stood motionless, frozen in the water like ornaments. Loki sat with a look of astonishment, his eyes wide. Odin unconsciously ran toward me, his tail wagging, perhaps to distract me and clown around, to get the thought of leaving out of my head.
It was as if the house liked Ada's sentence. It wanted me to stay. But the animals—they seemed to want something else from me, something I had to understand but couldn't yet grasp.
"Do you want to leave?" Ada asked again. A tremor had fallen into her voice.
"Are you okay?" I said. "I'm just bored. I'm not going anywhere. Of course I want to stay here!"
The house's scent lessened. The flower smell faded. Odin became more excited, barking softly and running in circles. Loki started licking his paws, one then the other, methodically. The fish formed a circular gathering, swimming in a slow, synchronized circle around the center of the tank. It was as if they were all relieved that I was staying.
Except the house. The house seemed to hold its breath.
I hugged Ada tightly and enthusiastically and said loudly, "I'm staying. I'm going to stay here with you!"
As if Ada's anxiety had lessened a bit, she hugged me back, her arms warm around my shoulders. Then, outside, thunder reminded us of the changing weather.
The thunder was so loud that Odin and Loki ran downstairs in fear, disappearing into the darkness of the lower floor. Ada said with a deep sigh, "Rain again."
"I know," I said, still holding her. "Maybe some things seem strange to you at first, but later, you won't want to leave."
I didn't know who I was saying this to: Ada, or myself.
Yes. The house wasn't happy with me staying, and I had to discover the secret of this unhappiness.