Rain tapped the windows like skeletal fingers, a cold wind howling through the rafters as if the mansion itself was mourning. Amara lay in bed, the journal clutched against her chest, her mother's words echoing through her thoughts.
"There are things even he shouldn't learn. Because if he does, they'll come for me. Again."
Who were they?
And why did Eli pretend he didn't know?
She couldn't sleep—not with that voice in her head.
Not with the tapping she heard that didn't belong to the rain.
It was just past 2 a.m. when she crept barefoot into the east corridor. The hallway was pitch dark, save for the flashlight on her phone. Each step echoed, the wood beneath her feet creaking softly, as though the house were exhaling secrets long kept.
She stopped outside the room where she'd found the portrait—the forbidden guest room Eli warned her to stay out of.
But this time, she wasn't interested in the painting.
She pressed her ear to the wall behind it.
There it was again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Faint. Muffled. Rhythmic.
Like a heartbeat in the wall.
Her pulse quickened.
She grabbed a small ornamental poker from the fireplace and pried the paneling away from the plaster, careful not to alert anyone.
Dust choked the air.
The wallpaper peeled like old skin.
And then—hollow wood.
She tapped it lightly.
A dull echo.
Something was behind it.
She dug faster, revealing a narrow cavity between the inner and outer walls.
Inside, wrapped in faded silk and covered in dust, was a wooden box. Small. Carved with strange symbols.
Amara pulled it out with trembling fingers.
Back in her room, she wiped it clean. The latch clicked open.
Inside were old cassette tapes, a worn key, and a folded photo of her mother—standing beside a man who wasn't Eli.
A man with a deep scar across his jaw.
And on the back of the photo, in her mother's scrawled handwriting:
"If this reaches you, it means they've found the house again. Don't trust the smile. Look beneath the floor of the greenhouse."
Amara stared at the words.
The smile?
Eli?
Her stomach dropped.
The man who claimed he loved her mother.
Who claimed he lost her.
What else was he hiding?
She slipped the cassette into an old player she found in the study downstairs.
It crackled to life.
Then a voice—her mother's.
Weak, tired, but unmistakably hers.
"If you're hearing this, I've failed. I tried to run. I tried to hide. But Thornridge is cursed. Not haunted by ghosts—but by men in suits and secrets no one is meant to survive... If Eli is still alive, he's either protecting you or preparing you. You'll have to find out which. You always were brave, my sweet girl. Be braver now."
The tape ended with static.
Amara's hand trembled.
So did her trust.
Later that day, Eli found her by the fireplace.
He smiled as usual—warm, casual, disarming.
But now, it chilled her.
"You look tired," he said, brushing a curl from her face.
She flinched.
"Didn't sleep well," she replied.
"Maybe you should take the day off."
Amara nodded slowly, forcing a smile of her own.
"Maybe I will."
But inside, her resolve hardened.
She would go to the greenhouse.
She would find what was beneath the floor.
And she would finally decide:
Is Eli the man her mother once loved... or the monster who helped bury her?