The morning came too bright. too still
Evelyn sat on the edge of her bed, staring at her hands. They shook—lightly, rhythmically—as if something inside her pulsed to a different tempo than her own heartbeat.
The dream still clung to her.
The heat. The touch. The hunger.
Not hers—but Lenore's.
Or worse: the house's.
She rose and dressed without thought, pulling on one of her aunt's old shawls she'd found in a trunk at the end of the hall. The scent of it made her stomach twist.
Roses again.
Always roses.
The kitchen was unusually cold. Frost glazed the windowpanes despite it being spring. The air inside her lungs felt heavy.
She didn't want breakfast.
She wanted answers.
And so she returned to the library.
The journals had shifted again—some that were closed now open, pages fluttering like wings in a breeze that wasn't there.
She walked to one. Noticed a single page had been torn out and laid flat on the table.
A different hand than Lenore's had written it. Masculine. Sharp.
"I told her not to fall in love with me. I warned her. She didn't listen. She said the house chose me. I think she was wrong. I think the house chooses all of us—and then feeds on what's left."
At the bottom, a name.
E. Ravenshade.
Evelyn whispered it aloud. "Elias…"
She closed the book slowly, heart pounding.
He had lived here.
He hadn't just known Lenore.
He had been part of the house's story.
And maybe… he still was.
She found him later that afternoon, near the cliffs where the waves crashed far below.
He didn't turn as she approached, but she felt him tense, like he already knew what she'd discovered.
"You lied to me," she said.
"I never lied," he replied softly. "I just didn't tell you everything."
She stepped beside him. "You were here. You were with her."
"Yes."
"Then why aren't you dead?"
He gave a bitter smile. "Maybe I am. Just not in the usual way."
She searched his face. It was too perfect. Too still.
"How old are you, Elias?"
"I stopped counting after the century turned."
A beat of silence.
"The house kept me. Just like it kept her. But not as a memory. As a punishment."
He turned to face her, eyes flashing with pain.
"I couldn't save her."
Evelyn's voice cracked. "From what?"
"From herself. From us."
She stepped closer. "And now you're doing the same thing with me."
"I know," he whispered. "But I can't stay away. You feel like her—but you burn differently. You fight it."
She reached up, touched his cheek. He leaned into it like he hadn't felt warmth in years.
"I don't want to become her," she said.
"Then leave," he said hoarsely. "Before the house takes you whole."
"But what if I don't want to go?"
His lips brushed her forehead. "Then I'll try to keep you alive."
That night, she returned to the locked room.
The mirror waited.
So did the reflection.
But this time, it wasn't Lenore's face that stared back.
It was Elias's.
And he was whispering something again, the same phrase over and over, mouth moving silently behind the glass.
She leaned closer, her breath fogging the surface.
Then she heard it, clear and cold:
"You loved me once…"
The mirror shattered.
She screamed and fell back, shards cutting into her hands and arms.
Blood dripped onto the wooden floor, the stain spreading like a blooming rose.
The house groaned.
Not the wood.
Not the wind.
The house.
It sighed.
It moaned.
It hungered.
And far down the hallway, the piano began to play.
Again.
The waltz.
Slow.
Seductive.
And someone—no, two someones—began to dance.
She saw them in the corner of her eye: silhouettes moving in a rhythm she knew too well. One woman. One man. Arms entwined. Faces ghosted.
And then they turned—
The woman was her.
The man… was Elias.
[End of Chapter 6]