Morning came quietly. Sunlight filtered through gauzy curtains, and the storm had passed, leaving behind the smell of wet earth and pine. Ava rolled over in bed and checked her phone. Dead.


She groaned, dragging herself out of bed. Downstairs, her grandmother, quiet as always, sat at the kitchen table reading a thick paperback novel. She looked up as Ava entered, her expression unreadable.


“Morning,” Ava said, grabbing a glass of orange juice.


“You might want to check your email,” Grandma murmured, sipping tea. “School’s closed today. Power lines down, or something.”


Ava froze.


“What?”


Grandma tapped her own laptop, open on the counter. Sure enough, an email from the school district confirmed it—no classes until further notice.


The juice nearly slipped from Ava’s hand. Her mind darted back to the sentence she’d written the night before. I wish I didn’t have to take my algebra test tomorrow.


Her heart pounded.


Coincidence. Had to be. Still...


She bolted upstairs and flung open the book. The page was blank. Not even an ink stain. As if she’d never written anything.


She stared at it for a long time.


That day passed in a blur. She walked the woods behind the house, scrolled old photos on her phone until it died again, and tried—tried—to forget the coincidence.


But that night, alone with the book once more, she opened it again.


This time, she wrote something else: I wish I could find a twenty-dollar bill in the garden tomorrow.


The moment she capped her pen, she heard it—the faintest sound. Like a sigh. Or a whisper.


She slammed the book shut and shoved it under her bed.


She didn’t sleep well.