Her husband, Mark, shrugged it off. “Thermal expansion. The window frame’s old. I’ll patch it this weekend.”
She never mentioned it again.
The next morning, the crack was gone.
The following week, Ella woke at 3:17 a.m. to a sound. Not a crash, not a scratch—more like a slow, deliberate exhale . She lay still, listening. The house settled. Pipes groaned. But then came a soft tick . Then another. The sound of something stretching.
Ella noticed it on a Tuesday, while scrubbing a stubborn stain from the baseboard. A fine, hair-thin line, starting at the corner of the windowsill and zigzagging down the plaster like a bolt of frozen lightning. She ran a finger over it. Smooth. Dusty. Unremarkable.
That night, Mark found her sitting on the floor in front of it, knees drawn to her chest, rocking slightly.