The Ridge House

There are houses we forget. And then there are houses that we remember too much. The Ridge House stood at the edge of town like a wound that never closed-quiet, overgrown, and older than any map would admit. It was the kind of place people passed without speaking its name, where windows fogged from the inside and doors creaked even when still. Children were warned away. Adults made jokes they didn't mean. And somewhere inside its walls, time moved sideways. Now, no one lives here. He hadn't planned to return. But memory is a gravity all its own, and when the call came about his father's death-he found himself pulled back to the house.