She Never Left - Coming September 30th
Volume IV of The Stories After By Britt Wolfe
Inspired by: Poison Ivy
For decades, Sylvia Warden has tried to leave the past behind. She has built a quiet life, far from the house where it all happened, far from the memories that refuse to let her go. But when her father dies, she is forced to return home—to the house where Ivy lived, where she died, where Sylvie’s life was changed forever. She tells herself it’s just for a few weeks, just long enough to settle his affairs and sell the house. But from the moment she steps inside, something is wrong.
Sylvie begins to see Ivy. In the reflection of a mirror. In a passing shadow. In the corner of her vision, just for a moment—always watching. It’s impossible, but she feels Ivy’s presence everywhere, a creeping, suffocating weight pressing in on her. She hears whispers in the night, smells Ivy’s perfume lingering in empty rooms. The past is alive inside these walls, and no matter how much Sylvie tries to tell herself it’s grief, it’s stress, it’s exhaustion—she can’t ignore the feeling that Ivy never really left.
As Sylvie sorts through her father’s belongings, she begins to unravel pieces of the past she had long buried, pieces that don’t fit the story she’s told herself for years. The deeper she digs, the more the cracks in her reality begin to widen. The guilt she has carried for so long takes on a life of its own, twisting the past into something darker, something she can no longer outrun. Because the truth isn’t always what we remember it to be. And if Sylvie isn’t careful, she may never leave this house either.
