The first thing Victoria noticed about the mansion was the silence.
Not the kind of silence that comforted, like snowfall or late-night pages turning. No, this was a watching silence, a kind that pressed against her skin, that seemed to hold its breath just long enough for her to wonder if it was listening.
The mansion loomed over Thorn Hollow like a story half-erased from history—ivy-cloaked walls, windows like eyes half-lidded in sleep, and spires that clawed at a sky smothered in fog. It sat isolated at the edge of a dying forest, miles from the nearest town.
Perfect for healing, the agent had said.
Peace. Solitude. A fresh start.
Victoria hadn't asked for much else. She'd signed the papers quickly, her signature still shaky from the accident, from the loss, from the months spent pretending she was okay.
Now here she was, twenty-seven, alone with nothing but suitcases, an old journal, and ghosts she hadn't meant to bring with her.
She stepped inside.
The front door creaked open like a groan from the mansion itself. Wood panels stretched across the floor like ribs. A grand staircase spiraled up into the dark. Dust danced in the air like ash.
You're fine, she told herself. It's just a house.
But the house didn't agree. It felt… aware.
---
That night, Victoria dreamed of fire.
She stood barefoot in the great hall, watching flames climb the velvet curtains and consume portraits of unfamiliar faces. She didn't run. She couldn't. Smoke coiled around her neck like hands.
Then—he appeared.
A man, tall and shrouded in shadows. His face obscured, but his presence undeniable—like gravity or grief. He reached for her. His fingers brushed her cheek, and the fire vanished.
She woke gasping, sheets twisted around her legs, skin clammy with sweat.
The grandfather clock downstairs struck three.
She blinked into the dark.
For a moment, she wasn't alone.
---
The following days passed in strange rhythms.
Victoria explored. Cleaned. Rearranged what little furniture remained.
But the mansion didn't stay still.
Doors she swore she closed were open. The piano in the parlor played two soft notes every morning before dawn. Footsteps echoed through empty halls at night. And always—the dreams.
He was there, again and again.
Not always clearly. Sometimes at a distance. Sometimes beside her. Always watching. Always reaching. His voice was never fully heard, only felt—a murmur in her bones.
Victoria tried to rationalize it. Stress. Trauma. Isolation.
But one night, while reading in the library, she looked up and saw him in the reflection of the mirror above the fireplace. Standing behind her.
When she turned, he was gone.
She touched the mirror. It was cold.
---
It was on the thirteenth night that he spoke.
In the dream, she was sitting at the edge of her bed. He stood in the doorway—tall, elegant, but cloaked in shadows that shimmered like smoke.
"Why are you here?" she asked.
"To remember," he replied.
"Remember what?"
There was a long pause.
"You."
When she woke, her fingers were tingling—as if they'd just let go of someone else's.
---
A week later, Victoria found a locked door behind a torn tapestry in the east wing.
The key was hidden beneath a loose stone in the hearth—something she found without knowing why she looked.
Inside was a small room. Dusty. Undisturbed. Filled with paintings. All of them unfinished. Faces blurred. But one stood out—a woman with her back turned, standing in a garden at twilight. The curve of her neck, the fall of her hair—it was her.
A chill swept down her spine.
And carved into the frame of the painting:
For the one who remembers me.
---
The next time Victoria dreamt, it was in color.
She stood in a twilight garden that seemed to stretch for miles. Roses bloomed under a blood-moon sky. A fountain murmured a melody older than time. And there he was—waiting.
This time, she could see his face.
Sharp jawline. Eyes dark as obsidian. Ageless beauty woven with something inhuman—not monstrous, but otherworldly. His presence rippled the air.
"You found the painting," he said, voice low like thunder behind closed doors.
"Was that… me?"
"It was us." His gaze softened. "You don't remember, do you?"
"I've never been here before," she whispered.
"You have. In another life. When you loved me… before the curse."
She stepped closer. "What curse?"
But the dream shattered like glass.
Victoria woke with her hand outstretched and the faint scent of roses clinging to her pillow.
---
That morning, Victoria did what she hadn't done since she moved in—she ventured into town.
It was a sleepy little place called Morningsend. Cobblestone streets. Rusting lampposts. Old women in shawls who seemed to know too much with just one glance.
She stopped at a small bookstore, hoping to find old maps or local legends. The shopkeeper, an elderly man with cataract eyes, looked up as she entered.
"Ah," he murmured, "Thorn Hollow House."
She froze. "You know it?"
He nodded slowly. "Not many move in there. Not for long."
"I need to know if anything ever… happened there."
He hesitated. "They say it's cursed. That the house traps grief. That a man once died for love and now his soul is bound to the walls… waiting for the one who left."
"But I've never—"
"Sometimes," he interrupted gently, "the heart remembers what the mind cannot."
---
That night, she didn't dream—she awoke.
To music.
The piano in the parlor was playing. A soft, mournful waltz. Victoria crept down the stairs, candle in hand, feet silent against the wooden floor.
He was there.
At the piano.
Not a dream. Not a ghost. Real.
The flame flickered, but didn't die.
"Why are you real now?" she asked, heart pounding.
"I never wasn't," he replied, not looking up. "You just weren't ready to see."
She stepped forward. "Tell me everything."
And he did.
His name had been Elias.
Long ago, he lived here with a woman he loved. They were to marry. But jealousy, betrayal, and blood wove a curse around them. Elias died protecting her. She fled. His soul—tethered by pain and devotion—was trapped in the house.
"I thought you might be her soul reborn," Elias said. "You carry her sorrow in your eyes."
Tears welled in Victoria's. "But I don't remember any of it."
"You don't need to remember to feel."
He reached out.
And this time—she didn't pull away.
---
Days passed like dream sequences.
They walked through the halls together. She spoke, he listened. He hummed old melodies, and she began to hum them back. His presence warmed the once-cold rooms. Her laughter returned.
She was falling in love—with a man who had died a century ago.
But there were limits.
He couldn't leave the house. Couldn't step into sunlight. Couldn't touch her for longer than a moment before the world grew cold around them.
And each time they kissed, it stole a little more from her—breath, warmth, time.
One night, he said softly, "The curse is weakening."
"Because of me?"
"Because of love," Elias whispered. "But love… always has a price."
---
A storm rolled in.
The mansion groaned and shook. Windows shattered. The walls bled water. Shadows twisted like smoke, howling in pain.
The curse was unraveling—but not gently.
Elias stood at the center of the great hall, flickering like a flame.
"You can end it," he said. "You can set me free."
"How?"
"Burn the portrait. Say my name. Let go."
"But what happens to you?"
"I pass on."
"To peace?"
He didn't answer.
"And me?"
"You live." A pause. "Alone."
Tears streamed down her face. "I just found you…"
"I waited over a hundred years to feel your touch again, even just for a moment. Don't let this house take you, too."
Lightning split the sky.
Victoria ran—to the hidden room, to the painting, to the face she somehow knew.
She held a match.
Her hand shook.
---
The flames consumed the canvas slowly, cruelly.
As it burned, the walls cracked. The mansion wailed. Wind roared through the halls. The ground trembled.
Elias appeared beside her—half-light, half-shadow.
"I remember everything," she sobbed. "I remember us."
His fingers brushed her face, soft as dusk.
"I love you," he said.
"Then stay."
"I can't."
He kissed her—one last time. His lips were cold. And then warm. And then nothing at all.
Elias faded with the firelight.
And she collapsed into ashes and memory.
---
The mansion was gone by morning.
Nothing left but stone bones and blackened earth.
Victoria stood alone in the middle of it all, her eyes hollow but shining.
She stayed in Morningsend for a while. Planted roses in the ruins. Wrote Elias' name in her journal every day. Not to remember, but to honor.
Because some loves don't end. They echo.
Not every ghost needs to be banished.
Some were once the only person who made you feel alive.
---
"Some loves are meant to haunt, not heal—but they still live on… In the name of love."