Every morning at 6:12, the same sweet scent drifted under Mia’s bedroom door. And every morning, she woke before her alarm, heart thudding, unsure why.
Mia had only lived in the old stone house in Devon for three weeks. Her mum said the place had “history,” which Mia guessed meant creaky floors and odd drafts. But the smell was new. It wasn’t her perfume. It wasn’t her mum’s either. It was softer, like old roses pressed into a book.
The first time she noticed it, she sat up fast. The room was dim and cold. Her curtains stayed closed at night, but thin morning light still leaked around the edges. The scent hung in the air, steady and warm, like someone had just walked past her bed.
She checked the hallway. Nothing. Her mum was downstairs making tea. The landing was empty.
“It’s probably the garden coming through the window,” her mum said when Mia asked. But the windows were shut tight that morning. And the garden smelled like wet soil, not roses.
The second week it got stranger. Mia started waking at the same time. 6:12. Every day. She tried staying up late so she’d sleep through it, but her eyes still snapped open at the exact minute, as if someone had called her name.
One morning, she pressed her ear to the wall. She heard a faint shuffle. Not footsteps. More like cloth brushing the floor. Slow. Careful.
Her stomach twisted. She whispered, “Hello?”
The sound stopped.
She told herself it was pipes. Houses like this always had pipe noises. She tried to believe it.
But she kept noticing small things: her desk chair slightly turned, the window latch resting half-open though she always checked it at night, her hairbrush found on the rug instead of the drawer.
Her mum insisted Mia was just tired from school. “Moving is stressful,” she said. “Your brain fills in gaps.”
Maybe that was true. But Mia didn’t think she was imagining the scent growing stronger every day.
On a cold Thursday morning, Mia woke at 6:12 again, but this time something felt wrong the moment her eyes opened. The air seemed heavy, like the room was holding its breath.
The perfume was stronger than ever. It drifted around her in slow waves. She sat up and saw a faint outline near her wardrobe. Not a shape—more like a smudge in the air, where the light bent strangely.
She blinked hard. It didn’t go away.
Mia’s heart beat so fast she felt it in her throat. She pulled her blankets close and stayed still, barely breathing. The outline rippled gently, as if turning toward her.
The scent pushed forward, warm and close. Mia felt a soft brush of cold across her cheek, like fingertips trailing in the air.
She froze.
Then came the sound.
A breath.
Not loud. Not sharp. A slow exhale, right near her face.
She scrambled back against the headboard, knocking her lamp to the floor. The bulb popped. Shadows jumped across the room.
The outline stretched upward, almost reaching the ceiling, then folded in on itself like mist collapsing. It drifted through the closed wardrobe door—straight through the wood—then vanished.
The perfume faded with it.
Mia stayed frozen until she heard her mum calling up the stairs that breakfast was ready.
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t move.
After school, Mia made herself check the wardrobe. Her hands shook the whole time. Inside, the air felt colder than the rest of the room. On the back wall, carved faintly into the wood, she saw a name.
Eliza.
The letters looked old, pressed deep, scratched by someone who had taken their time.
Mia backed away, her breath shaking in her chest. She didn’t tell her mum. She didn’t tell anyone.
The next morning she woke up before her alarm again. Her eyes shot open.
6:12.
Dead quiet.
She waited, barely breathing.
At first she thought the scent wasn’t coming.
Then it drifted in—soft, steady, and unmistakable—curling through the room like someone had opened the door and stepped inside.
This time it didn’t fade. It stayed, as if whoever it belonged to was still there, lingering in the quiet, waiting for her to notice.
