The first time Amara heard someone whisper her name, she was standing in front of her grandmother's coffin.

"Amara..."

She turned around.

Nobody was behind her.

The church was crowded with mourners dressed in black, their faces wet with tears and sweat. Outside, rain poured heavily over Umuora village, turning the red earth into thick mud.

Amara was twenty-one, and until that morning, she had believed that death was the worst thing that could happen to a person.

She was wrong.

Three days after the burial, a lawyer arrived at her small apartment in Port Harcourt with a brown envelope.

Inside were documents stating that her grandmother, Mama Nnenna, had left her an old mansion on the outskirts of Umuora.

The property was worth a fortune.

There was only one condition.

Amara had to spend seven consecutive nights inside the house before she could legally sell it.

She laughed when she read that part.

"What kind of foolish condition is this?" she muttered.

But the lawyer did not laugh.

"Your grandmother was very specific," he said. "She said you must sleep there for seven nights. And she left another instruction."

He handed Amara a folded piece of paper.

Her grandmother's handwriting was shaky, but unmistakable.

My child, if you must enter that house, remember three things.

Never answer when someone calls your name after midnight.

Never open the door to the room at the end of the upstairs corridor.

And whatever happens, do not look through the windows when you hear knocking from outside.

Amara read the message twice.

Then she shook her head.

Her grandmother had become increasingly strange during the final months of her life. Perhaps this was another one of her superstitions.

Amara needed the money. Her mother had died when she was a child, and her father had been absent from her life for years. She had nobody to rely on except herself.

She decided to go.

The journey to Umuora took almost four hours.

When the taxi finally dropped her at the village entrance, the sky had turned grey. She hired a motorcycle rider to take her to the mansion.

The moment they reached the final stretch of road, the rider slowed down.

"There," Amara said, pointing ahead. "That is the house."

The mansion stood behind a rusted iron gate, surrounded by tall grass and trees that seemed to lean towards it. Its once-white walls were stained with age. Several windows were boarded up, and the roof sagged in the middle.

The rider stopped.

"Madam, I cannot take you any farther."

Amara frowned. "Why?"

He looked at the house, then at her.

"Is this your first time here?"

"Yes."

He swallowed.

"Then please, whatever you hear tonight, don't answer."

Before she could ask another question, he turned his motorcycle around and sped away.

Amara stood alone with her suitcase.

She pushed open the gate.

It screamed on its rusty hinges.

Inside, the air smelled of damp wood, old books, and something faintly sweet, like flowers left too long in a closed room.

She found the key beneath a broken flowerpot, exactly where the lawyer had said it would be.

The front door opened with a heavy groan.

Dust covered the furniture. White sheets hung over the sofas. A chandelier dangled from the ceiling, and a staircase rose towards a dark upper corridor.

Amara switched on her phone's flashlight.

"Well," she whispered to herself, "at least the place is big enough to sell."

She spent the afternoon opening windows, sweeping the sitting room, and checking the bedrooms downstairs.

There were six rooms in total.

Five were ordinary bedrooms.

The sixth was a small study filled with old photographs.

One photograph caught her attention.

It showed her grandmother standing beside a little girl in a yellow dress.

Amara recognised herself immediately.

She was about four years old.

But she had no memory of ever visiting this house.

She turned the photograph over.

Written on the back were four words.

SHE MUST NEVER REMEMBER.

A chill travelled down her spine.

Before she could think about it further, thunder shook the windows.

Rain began to fall.

Amara decided to sleep downstairs, far away from the dark upper corridor. She ordered food from a small restaurant in the village before nightfall and charged her phone using the generator outside.

At eleven thirty, she locked the doors.

At midnight, she was still awake, scrolling through her phone.

Then the clock on the wall stopped.

12:07 a.m.

The house became completely silent.

Even the rain seemed to disappear.

Amara looked up.

From somewhere above her came the sound of footsteps.

Slow footsteps.

One.

Two.

Three.

They stopped directly above the sofa where she was sitting.

Then a woman's voice whispered from inside the ceiling.

"Amara..."

She froze.

The voice sounded old and tired.

It sounded exactly like her grandmother.

"Amara, my child..."

Amara's eyes filled with tears.

"Grandma?"

The moment she spoke, every light in the house went out.

And from the staircase came the sound of someone slowly walking down.

Amara grabbed her phone.

Its screen lit up.

A new message had appeared.

The sender was listed as MAMA NNENNA.

The message read:

I TOLD YOU NOT TO ANSWER.

Then someone knocked on the front door.

Three times.

And a voice from outside said, in Amara's own voice:

"Please open the door. I'm scared."