Page 1 of Where the Dark Things Bloom

Prologue

Lenore

Iwokeupina bed covered in white cotton sheets, wearing an old white dress my mom had made for me when I was sixteen. It had lace trim and silk straps that you could tie into bows at the top of your shoulders, a straight cut that reached all the way down to my feet. I looked around. The room I woke up in was not the same room I had fallen asleep in.

I remembered this—allof it. Like some twisted déjà vu, a memory I knew had happened before. I remembered seeing this—maybe I’d dreamed it.

I pinched the tip of my skin to check if I was still dreaming, but the pain twisted in my stomach like all of this was real.

I wasn’t dreaming. I couldn’t be.

I sat up, holding the sheet beneath my fingers, looking around for a clock. Even though there wasn’t one in the room, I knew it was 3:18 a.m.

I always know when it’s 3:18 a.m. When the silence sharpens around rooms like this one, the house is listening, watching my every move.

I turned my head to the corner. The green wallpaper with white roses was peeling slowly from the wall like someone was peeling it—but no one was there. I was all alone.

My heart started pounding in my chest. My eyes widened as I exhaled.

The wallpaper began to bleed. It wasn’t just water or mold. It was red. Blood slid slowly from the peeling corner.

It was that slow, pulsating red that didn’t stain the wallpaper. It just hummed and whispered toward me as I screamed, but I couldn’t look away. I just stared until my screams went silent. And when I blinked, there was a face in the corner, covered in blood. And when I blinked again, that face was mine.

The mirror with the golden frame on the opposite wall didn’t reflect the room. It showed the hallway on the second floor. I remembered walking through it. There were still wet footprints on the dark green carpet that lay over the dark wooden floor. I could smell the mud—the same smell of dirt after a storm, just like the first day I came here.

But I didn’t come here today. It’s been weeks.

I stood up, walking slowly to the door on the left side of the room. As I touched the knob, it was still warm. Someone had just touched it before me.

Behind me, I could feel his whisper calling out, “You left once before. Why did you come back?”

And my mind went black. I had no memory of when I left, or when I first arrived here.

Then came the part that always finds me, always too late—his footsteps, slowly approaching, syncing with the beat of my heart.

My stepbrother was haunting me tonight.

Again.

ONE

Lenore

Thecitysmellslikeburned pretzels and piss, but what’s to expect from another Saturday night in the neighborhood I live.

I walk home from the coffee shop with my apron still in my tote bag and a dry oat milk crusted on my sleeve. It’s past eleven, and the streets near 10th Avenue are mostly empty, except for a few people swaying under the streetlights, their faces buried in their phones or lost in whatever world you must live in to still be out this late.

I don’t mind the walk. It’s quiet, the kind of quiet New York only gets after midnight. My legs are sore and my shoes are damp from the sink leak under the espresso bar, but it’s not like there’s anything better waiting for me at home. Just a tiny apartment that always smells vaguely like someone else’s cooking and a boyfriend I’ve known for thirty-four days.

Not even a month and a half.

That’s all it took for us to live together.

That’s all it took for me to start confusing comfort with something else.

But for me, anything was better than living in a tent under the bridge.

I just told myself I was lucky I had a roof under my head, a job, and pasta on my plate. I told myself I was happy even if I wasn’t happy. I used to have everything until I had nothing. And when you lose everything, you get to appreciate the little things you have.

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