Entry 8 — Like It Had Always Belonged

Journal of Isla Loren — March 24

 

Location: kitchen window facing the overgrown trellis, in the white house above the Aiglin Sea

Weather: light wind through the eaves, sea haze crawling up the cliffs

Notes: soaked roots, unspoken invitations... I’m recording facts — that’s all… but now, I wish I was lying. 

Time: 8:32 a.m.

 

 

~

 

 

There’s something else that happened. 

 

I can’t quite remember this part, but I think it’s necessary to include. I don’t know what to make of it, but I’ll leave that up to you, dear reader, to figure out (if anyone will ever read any of this). 

 

 

~

 

 

I only saw the tumbler because I wasn’t looking for it. 

 

It was a hush morning, formed like a pause. Not normal quiet, but the one that presses in from all sides. No gulls. No pipes. No distant thrum of the sea—even the salt wind had ceased. The whole house, everything, suspended in time. 

 

One drop of water clung to the faucet but wouldn’t fall. The fridge didn’t hum. The light overhead didn’t buzz. It was like the kitchen had swallowed its own sounds, like it was waiting to see what I’d do.  

 

As if it couldn’t stand it any longer, the kettle screamed. Loud. Sharp. I jolted, dropped the spoon I’d been holding and reached for it, knocking my hip on the corner of the counter. 

 

It felt personal, somehow—like I’d been caught watching the wrong thing.

 

 

~

 

 

That’s when I opened the cupboard for a bowl, and there it was—tucked behind my mugs. Clear plastic with a gold palm tree decal. And that ridiculous pink bendy straw.

 

Clare’s. 

 

She wasn’t much of a drinker. Not really. She used to drink that thick matcha milk thing from it in college—and when opened, a trail of steam would rise around her small, focused face during exams. She called it her lifeline. Said it tasted like pond water but kept her grades up. Within the top 10% of her program, to be exact. 

 

The last time I saw Clare was at my housewarming. She wouldn’t have brought the tumbler to something like that—not her style. And not the kind of thing I would have missed. Definitely not something she’d just… forget. If I remember correctly, she had her arms wrapped around her knees on my front porch then, laughing into the dusky sea air, punctuated only by warm-coloured paper lanterns and pale moonlight. 

 

She had this laugh—big and sudden, like she’d scared herself with it. My dad didn’t usually react with lightheartedness in such situations: anything fun or human. His presence often either had a tense heaviness to it, or mimicked a natural piece of decor that went unnoticed. I only ever saw my dad react when Clare cracked a joke and her laugh lifted free into the air, causing everyone to laugh, and he smirked from the wicker settee on my porch. It was a sharp little smirk, as if it offended him to find something funny.

 

We were quiet girls, back in college, Clare and I. Soft-voiced. Observant. We’d walk all the way to parties, arm in arm, just to talk ourselves out of going in. Turn around. Wander back. Talk of coursework, professors, or the future. Pretend we were wiser than our years.

 

Sometimes, I think those walks were the only honest thing we ever did, besides crafting and studying. Every step away from noise and eyes felt like a small kind of rebellion. Like choosing stillness in a world that wanted volume. Now, as I write this, I wonder if she remembers that too. 

 

 

~

 

 

Cooped up in our dorm room, Clare once sat on her bed with one knee tucked under her chin, tapping out essays on her laptop. I sat at my desk in the soft glow of my lamp, cutting thread, always crafting. Always putting off coursework just a little longer. I told her about the party I’d been invited to that weekend, and she glanced up at me, half-amused, half-wary. I think she hated them more than I did. Too many expectations. Too many masks. 

 

“It’s just the people in this college house,” I’d said, the snip of my scissors slicing through the low clatter of Clare’s keyboard. “They expect so much out of everyone. As if… everyone is afraid of being alone.”

 

“Mmm.”

 

“You know… a distraction.” I twirled my scissors in the air.

 

“I get that. Some homes are just hungry. They take and take. And if you’re not careful, you forget what you gave up.”

 

 

~

 

 

I hadn’t seen Clare’s tumbler since our last year in those dorms.

 

I didn’t pack it. I didn’t bring it here. 

 

And yet—there it was.

 

Rinsed. Dry. Neatly placed behind my mugs like it had always belonged.

 

I haven’t seen Clare in weeks.

 

 

~

 

 

The call came after I tossed the tumbler into the sink and didn’t look at it again.

 

I’d almost forgotten I ever reached out.

 

There’d been a job board in the back of the library, almost empty. A part-time shop assistant. Two babysitting notices. And one strange little card, handwritten: “Handyperson wanted. Discreet.” No contact number. Just a PO box.

 

I’d slipped it into my pocket. Just in case.

 

The voice on the phone was fuzzy, almost mechanical. Not quite a man. Not quite a woman. Like it had to push through a wall to reach me.

 

They asked if I was still available. Said they’d be in touch. Then hung up without a goodbye.

 

I stood there with the phone still in my hand, like I’d just woken up from something.

 

 

~

 

 

Shortly after that: I didn’t hear the knock. Didn’t hear the latch. Just the creak of the floorboard near the living room rug—the one I’ve been stepping around.

 

Mira.

 

She was in the hallway before I knew I wasn’t alone. I jumped, yelped, almost fell over. Clutched my chest. Tried a laugh to ease the tension, but she wasn’t smiling. 

 

She just stared at me. Almost… through me.

 

She wore less eyeliner. Less perfume. Blouse pale and quiet and wrinkle-free. Hair pulled back and slick, like she’d just worked out. 

 

I glanced past her at the front window, but the white sheer curtains obscured outside. I probably wouldn’t have been able to see if her car was out front anyway. 

 

She smiled a little, thinner than her usual, more careful.

 

“You haven’t gone upstairs, have you?”

 

I told her I hadn’t. And that was true.

 

She nodded, but her gaze flicked toward the ceiling.

 

 

~

 

 

She moved like she knew the layout better than I did. Ran her fingers along the railing. Didn’t speak. Didn’t ask.

 

Something in me tightened.

 

I trailed after her. Said nothing.

 

She was already halfway to the craft room by the time I noticed them. Nestled in the corner of one of the stairs, something caught the light. 

 

Two silver hoop earrings, drop-shaped, dull silver. Worn. As if they’d been here for years.

 

Which is funny, because the first time I saw them, I could’ve sworn they were shiny. Mira’s.

 

I remember her bright, lopsided smile when I opened the front door. That wine-bottle in one hand, with the half-peeled label. The bakery box in the other, with the twine still tied. 

 

“They’re from that place on 6th,” she'd said.“I think they’re raspberry something. You like fruit, right?”

 

I picked them up from the step as if they were delicate artefacts. Recalled Mira at my front door her first visit, the earrings accentuating the faint glitter under her eyes, like she’d come from somewhere she didn’t want to leave. Like I had disturbed something more interesting.

 

I held them out to Mira as she approached. She blinked too slowly. Took them without a word. Stared at me a moment too long, as if she were a little loopy from drugs. 

 

“You weren’t supposed to open the window,” she said, so softly I almost didn’t catch it.

 

She sat down in the same chair as before.

 

But it was already turned—slightly askew, angled out like someone had left it that way before she arrived.

 

 

~

 

 

We didn’t talk much. The silence stretched. 

 

I picked at a thread in my sleeve. She kept looking toward the window. Where her car may or may not have been.

 

I felt like asking her why she’d come, if she’d called and maybe I missed it, but the words were caught with something large in my center, something that wouldn’t ease. 

 

When she stood to leave, she paused by the front door.

 

“If it starts again,” she said, not turning around, “Don’t follow it. Let it knock. Let it go.”

 

 

~

 

 

She didn’t take the daisy mug with her. At least—I didn’t see her carry it out. But after she left, I stepped onto the porch and there it was, sitting on the railing.

 

Still warm. Handle slightly wet. Like someone had been standing out there, watching the sea.

 

 

~

 

 

Fast forward to yesterday morning. I stepped outside to observe the plant again. The one with soft white blossoms.

 

Collapsed. The soil around it darkened, soaked.

 

The surrounding plants were fine. Damp from dew, maybe. But this one looked… suffocated. 

 

I knelt beside it, touched the dirt. My fingertips sank in too easily. The smell was almost sweet—not fresh, not alive—but with the ripeness of rot.

 

I haven’t watered it in days.

 

 

 ~

 

 

Late last night—or the night before, I can’t be sure—I peeked out my bedroom window and gazed at the garden, moonlight silvering the soil. Mira was there. 

 

At least, I think she was.

 

It’s hard to explain.

 

She stood over the collapsed plant with white blossoms, in nothing but her underwear.

 

No shoes. Feet shoulder-width apart, back to the house. Hair tied back the same way it had been when she showed up unannounced. She poured from a tin watering can. Soaking the roots, her legs, and the black, sludgy soil.

 

Just… standing there.

 

I blinked. She didn’t move.

 

I still don’t know if I imagined it. A dream, maybe. Or something worse.

 

But I saw her. I know I did.

 

 

~

 

 

This morning, I woke with soil under my nails. 

 

At some point, I stood at the base of the stairs for a long time. One hand on the railing.

 

Waiting. I don’t know what for. Only that I couldn’t move until it passed.

 

I thought I heard something above me—soft steps, slow and measured. Like socks on old wood. Like someone pacing, thinking. Probably the beams settling. Or the wind.

 

That’s what I tell myself.

 

~

 

 

I keep trying to stay grounded. I made a list.

 

• Tea. 
• Call Clare. 
• Paint the sparrow bones.
• Ignore the box (still open on my craft table.)
• Ignore the hallway.

 

I didn’t mean to write this morning, but the page found me anyway. Like a thread I’d nearly lost hold of—and needed, badly.

 

My hands are shaky. The light is all wrong. But the page is still here. Still mine. 

 

This journal is my lifeline. 

 

My knuckles ache with how long I’ve been pressing my hand to the page. But still, the pen feels steadier than I do. My chest tightens until the ink starts to move. 

 

It’s the only room in this house that still belongs to me.

 

The scratch of the pen is the only sound that doesn’t… watch me.

 

 

~

 

 

Now, between writing these words, I stare at Clare's tumbler. Laying clean and dry in the kitchen sink. 

 

I remember our dorm room—sun through paper blinds, her socks everywhere, the smell of that awful tea she liked (licorice root, I think). 

 

She always told me when I was seeing things bent that weren’t. 

 

She also used to say I was the softer one.

 

The one who’d ask the tree before carving initials, or apologize to a chair for stubbing my toe. She teased, but she meant it kindly. Said it like it was a rare trait. 

 

Something breakable that shouldn’t have survived our house.

 

 

—Isla 

 

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Photo by Nellie Adamyan on Unsplash