I grab the first book in the series he said made him cry and settle in. The story was about a young woman who was bullied and horribly mistreated by her peers and family.

After being hit one too many times she runs into the woods, taking nothing with her. She knew that she might die but didn't care. She felt no one cared about her and wondered why she should.

She walks deeper into the forest and stumbles upon a placid lake. Something about the cool sapphire color soothes her, pulling her in, drawing her gaze into its depths. She gets entranced, thinking she saw gold and silver rippling in the waves.

As she stares deeply into it she feels hands pushing against her back and falls in. At first she feels herself drowning, air escaping her mouth, lungs burning. She closes her eyes and gives into the sensation and wakes up in a new world, full of bright colors, and a young man was looking down at her, asking if she was alright.

Tears were filling my eyes and I sat and sipped at the drink I had taken out of the mini fridge. It was the last few sips. I set the book down on the chair and decided to take some space, to let my emotions calm down.

I decided that I needed to finish exploring the cabin, being a perfectionist I couldn’t leave the job incomplete, time to go check out the attic.

As I walked through the hall, I noticed a new sticky note on the door. It simply read, ‘Noah’.

My heart did a little skip, now that I knew his name it felt more intimate and that I could now call him a friend. “Name learned, achievement unlocked?” I ask him.

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Noah stood by the door to the basement and felt such relief when he saw the lights turn on. He felt apprehensive, but also knew instinctively that she was safe.

Noah decided that while she was doing the laundry he was going to have a bit of fun and leave her some little notes in places that he thought she was likely to go. She had seemed interested in his little reading nook so he was going to leave all the notes he could think of, using every pen color he had, it was a must!

He smiled as he worked through noting has magna, remembering all the stories and how they helped him to feel better at his lowest points. He didn't know why Aurora was here, but he caught her looking sad and lonely and wanted to do little things for her so knew she wasn’t alone.

He was a bit startled when she entered the library as he was just finishing up his notes. He watched as she walked the isles and was very curious to find out what she would end up doing.

He stood nearby and was delighted when she went to his area and looked around. Was she going to play a game? Was she going to read? If so, what?

He had a cute and shy smile on his face when she responded out loud to his notes. When she asked what his name was he paused and stood still. Should he tell her? Was she really so curious about him?

Making up his mind, he went to his room, and on the door wrote a sticky note that read "Noah". All the note writing wore him out, but he was happy as he realized it was significantly more than he had been able to do in the past. He went into his room, laid on his bed and closed his eyes.

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I leave the sticky note there. I liked having a make-shift nameplate for his room. I wondered about the other rooms that had items in them. I didn't think that the other ghosts had reached out to me. So I asked, trying to make sure that I wasn't being rude, "Noah, are you the only ghost here right now?"

After speaking out loud I got the sense that no one, not even my cinnamon-roll note writing Noah, was listening to me right now. It was something about the silence, it was more oppressive and soul crushing, but it was not worth thinking about. I dismiss the thought with a, remember it is a haunted house, haunted house!

The other rooms indicated that there were more occupants, probably ghosts, but I didn’t sense them around. It was almost like they weren’t here yet. No, it was more like they were still asleep?

I didn't know how that made sense, but I honestly didn't understand how any of this made sense. My head began to hurt, so before going to the attic I went down a floor and into my room.

I flopped down onto the bed and closed my eyes. While I wished for restful sleep this alluded me. While napping my brain decided that it was anxious and was going to bring up bad memories.

I sit alone in my room, my hands over my ears wishing that it would stop. I ignore the blood running down my arm from where a glass hit me and shattered.

I ran downstairs as my parents started screaming at each other even louder. I don't know who threw the glass, and I don't even know if they were aiming at me.

My hands couldn't block out the sound, so I opened up my closet and crawled into it. I had a lot of pillows and blankets stacked in there in a way to make it my own little nest. I reach underneath one of the piles and pull out a Walkman CD Disk player and slip the headphones over my ears.

I listened to my music and pretended that nothing existed outside of my closet. I even had a sheet hanging down when you open the closet for that extra added layer of protection against the outside world. After the headphones were over my ears I reached under another pile and pulled out my first aid kit and start taking care of my cuts.

Darkness.

"Do you really plan to be a dancer with that body? I think that you have put on some weight recently, don't you? Well, that's nothing we can't take care of. We will just have you go for a run before you can have dinner."

I nod and go outside and run in the rain, doing my best to keep from having water splashed on me by the cars that go by infrequently. My foot slips out from under me and I fall, choosing to fall forward onto my hands rather than risking twisting an ankle. I hold my hands up and let the rain wash over them, cleaning the mud and blood off.

Darkness.

An eerie sort of music starts to play, without realizing it my body moves dancing in line with the rhythm. My movements are smooth and graceful, my limbs drawn out in perfect lines.

I spin and twirl with my shadowed partner, not touching but within arm’s length. The lights flicker, causing distortions.

A lightbulb creaks and then shatters above me, and glass shards sprinkle down around me causing a familiar cut on my arm. When I look up, I see wires, they are connected to my wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles.

Finally, a razor thin one was loosely looped around my neck. I know that as long as I follow the movements that are demanded by the wires, the one around my neck won't get pulled.

I dance keeping pace to the music, but it starts to grow faster. My movements get sharper, jerkier, I feel them losing their grace.

The music starts to shriek as it plays too quickly, shadows start closing in, distorted faces in the crowd. I see a pair of red eyes moving through the crowd. I watch them and turn my foot wrong, falling, the wire around my throat tightens across my skin and...