All Are Welcome Here – Chapter 5
Emily’s Voice Outside the Door
“You came exactly when they said you would.”
The sentence settled heavily inside the small lantern-lit house while fog pressed softly against the dark windows outside. Elias stood frozen near the front door, his heartbeat hammering painfully against his ribs as Emily’s voice lingered beyond the wood.
It sounded exactly like her.
Not close.
Not similar.
Exactly her.
Elias Ward instinctively reached for the deadbolt, but Mara grabbed his wrist immediately with surprising force. Her face had gone pale beneath the lantern light, and for the first time since meeting her, Elias saw genuine panic breaking through her calmness.
“Don’t open it,” she whispered.
“That’s my sister.”
“No,” Mara answered sharply. “That’s what the forest wants you to believe.”
Outside the door, silence followed briefly. Then came another soft knock.
Not aggressive.
Not desperate.
Patient.
Like whoever stood outside already knew the door would eventually open.
“Elias,” Emily’s voice called again, quieter now. “It’s cold.”
The words hit him hard because they sounded so normal. Not supernatural. Not distorted. Just his younger sister standing alone outside on a freezing mountain night asking to come inside.
Elias pulled slightly against Mara’s grip. “If that’s really her—”
“She shouldn’t be here tonight.”
The certainty in Mara’s voice stopped him.
“Why?”
Mara slowly looked toward the curtained windows around the house before answering. “Nobody returns from the forest after the third bell.”
Outside, the wind moved softly through the trees surrounding the house. Elias could hear faint movement beyond the porch now too. Not footsteps exactly. More like several people quietly shifting their weight in the darkness.
Listening.
Waiting.
Then Emily spoke again.
“You shouldn’t trust Mara.”
Mara’s grip around Elias’s wrist tightened painfully.
“She said the same thing to your sister.”
The air inside the room suddenly felt suffocatingly heavy. Elias stared toward the front door while his thoughts spiraled faster. Nothing about this town felt normal anymore, yet every explanation somehow sounded impossible too.
“What happened in this place?” he whispered.
Mara didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she walked toward the lantern sitting on the table and lowered the flame until the room dimmed further into shadow.
“They hear better after dark,” she said quietly.
Before Elias could ask who “they” were, movement passed outside one of the windows.
A shadow.
Tall.
Slowly crossing through the fog beyond the curtains.
Then another.
And another.
His stomach tightened instantly.
The lantern walkers.
Dozens of faint lantern lights now drifted silently between the trees surrounding the house, weaving through the fog like floating stars in the darkness. Elias realized with growing horror that they weren’t walking deeper into the forest anymore.
They were circling the house.
Outside the front door, Emily softly laughed.
Not loudly.
Just enough to make the hair rise along Elias’s arms.
“You can hear the bells already, can’t you?”
The moment she said it, Elias noticed something terrifying.
Deep beneath the wind outside…
beneath the creaking trees and shifting lantern lights…
came the faint sound of bells ringing somewhere far inside the forest.
Not loud.
Barely audible.
Yet strangely hypnotic.
Slow metallic tones drifting through the mountains like distant church bells underwater.
Mara immediately noticed the change in his expression.
“No,” she whispered. “Don’t listen to them.”
But Elias couldn’t stop hearing them now.
The sound felt wrong in a way he couldn’t explain. Not physically loud, yet impossible to ignore. Every bell strike seemed to vibrate somewhere deep inside his chest instead of his ears.
Outside the door, Emily spoke one final time.
“They’re waiting to welcome you.”
Then the lantern lights beyond the windows suddenly stopped moving all at once.
Complete silence fell around the house.
And from somewhere deep inside the forest—
a fourth bell rang.