Part I: Arrival
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Echo: "You're trapped in a living nightmare, with no awakening in sight."
---
The sky had no color.
It wasn't gray. It wasn't blue. It was... blank. A strange, diffuse whiteness pressed down on the winding road ahead of her like the inside of an eggshell-claustrophobic, lightless despite the hour being noon. No matter how far she drove, the world behind her remained swallowed in mist, and the road ahead seemed unchanged, a curling serpent of cracked asphalt flanked by tangled trees.
Isolde Vane adjusted her grip on the steering wheel. Her fingertips had gone numb, despite the heater blowing stale air from the vents. The sign she passed a minute ago had read: RAVENSWOOD - Population 3,407.
Though something about the number felt... false. Too specific. Too neat.
She hadn't been here since she was nine.
Not since the funeral. Not since-
No. Don't. She swallowed it. Let the thoughts slide back into their cage.
The GPS on her phone blinked once. Then again. Then went black.
No service.
The timing wasn't lost on her.
Ravenswood was the kind of town people forgot. Tucked inside a thick belt of forestland, wrapped in legends, populated mostly by people who'd been born there and would die there, willingly or otherwise. Her father had once called it a place the world gave up on. Her grandmother had called it sacred. Her mother... had refused to call it anything at all.
She rolled to a stop as the narrow lane forked: the left road curved downward into a dim valley, choked with ivy. The right road led up toward a silhouetted hilltop, where a crooked iron gate loomed.
Graymoor.
It wasn't marked, but she remembered.
With a deep breath and a clench of jaw, she took the right.
---
The tires crunched over gravel as the gate creaked open-not electronically, not mechanically. It simply swung, on its own, as if aware of her presence.
"No one's lived here in ten years," the lawyer had told her on the phone, a week ago.
"Miss Vane, the property is yours, per the will. But be advised... there's no record of upkeep. I'm legally required to mention some neighbors have made complaints of disturbances. Trespassers. Strange lights."
"Ghost stories?" she'd said, trying to keep her tone dry.
"Call them... local customs."
The house didn't appear at first. Only the shadow of it. The outline through trees whose limbs hung too low, too still, as if painted in place. And then, all at once, Graymoor emerged from the veil-three stories of crumbling stone and widow's walks, tall windows boarded over with weather-warped planks, vines climbing its blackened façade like veins.
Something shifted in her chest when she saw it. A kind of... distant familiarity. Not comfort. Not exactly. Something older.
She parked the car.
Silence.
Not birds. Not wind. Not even the tick of the engine cooling.
The front door opened before she reached it.
"Miss Vane."
The voice was crisp. Female. English-tinged.
A tall woman stood on the threshold, dressed in mourning black. Her skin was alabaster pale, her eyes a pale amber that caught the light strangely. She did not smile."I am Ms. Winter. The housekeeper."
She didn't offer her hand.
"I was instructed to greet you when you arrived. You are... later than expected."
"I had car trouble," Isolde lied, glancing behind her at the empty drive. She could've sworn it had been morning. But now the sun was nowhere.
Without further word, Ms. Winter turned and stepped inside.
Isolde followed.
---
The moment she crossed the threshold, the air changed.
Colder. Heavy. She might've sworn she smelled iron and jasmine-like fresh blood soaked into flowers.
The interior was in far better condition than the outside suggested. Candle sconces still flickered with flame. The parquet floors gleamed. The grand staircase rose before her like the spine of some vast skeletal beast, vanishing into shadow.
"Your grandmother's things are largely untouched," Ms. Winter said, gliding ahead. "She insisted on it. Until the end."
"Until the end..." Isolde echoed. "Was it natural?"
Ms. Winter paused at the base of the stairs.
"No."
There was no elaboration.
Before she could speak again, something caught her eye.
A movement. In the mirror above the fireplace.
She turned.
The mirror was fractured at the center. But that wasn't what drew her attention.
She was alone in the reflection. Ms. Winter wasn't there.
She blinked. Looked back.
The housekeeper was still standing a few feet away. Watching her.
"Guest room's prepared," she said. "Your grandmother left a box for you. You'll find it on the writing desk. If you need me, I'll be in the east wing.
"Then she was gone. No footsteps. No sound. Just vanished into the gloom.
Isolde looked back at the mirror.
Still broken.
Still only her.
*************************
Part II: The Letter
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Echo (from Part I):
She was alone in the reflection. Ms. Winter wasn't there.
---
Isolde climbed the staircase with a slow, deliberate tread, each step creaking beneath her like an old man's whisper. The walls on either side rose high and close, lined with crooked portraits of long-dead ancestors whose eyes followed her ascent with unnatural stillness. Their gazes didn't accuse. They anticipated.
The guest room was at the end of the hall.
A door, slightly ajar, as if someone had left it open moments ago.
She nudged it open with her foot.
The room was... untouched. Drapes drawn. Dust faintly rising in the shafts of late light. A writing desk rested near the window, its surface bare-except for a single, polished wooden box.
She approached it slowly, as if it might react to her nearness.
The box was mahogany, inlaid with thin silver bands. An ancient symbol had been carved into the top-a circle intersected by a triangle, surrounded by seven small points. She had no memory of it, and yet it filled her with a strange recognition. Not like a memory. More like... a dream she'd had once, and forgot the moment she woke.
A sealed envelope lay beside it. Heavy parchment. Wax-stamped.
Her name wasn't written on it. Only:
TO THE ONE WHO HEARS THEM
Her mouth went dry.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose.
Hands trembling slightly, she opened the envelope.
Inside was a single page, written in elegant, curling handwriting she immediately recognized. Her grandmother's.
---
My dearest Isolde,
If you're reading this, then the Veil has begun to thin.
I hope it's not too late.
They have waited too long for you. I tried to keep them back, to hold them at bay with blood and salt and prayer, but time, like pain, is patient. You must understand: our family is not cursed. We are chosen.
That box before you contains your beginning. Or your ending. I cannot say which it will be. Use the key when you are ready-but only after you've looked into the shard. Only after you remember. They will come to you when you are open.
Remember the woods.
Remember the name Ashcroft.
Remember never to speak to the one who wears no face.
With all that remains of my love,- Grandmother V.---Isolde's breath hitched.
She read the letter again, then again. Her heart thudded against her ribs-not fast, but slow, like something knocking from inside her chest, demanding to be let out.
She turned back to the box.
It had no lock. Yet she knew-felt-that only now, after reading, could it open.
The lid creaked as she lifted it.
Inside:
1. An old brass key, long and notched like a key for a door that hadn't existed in centuries.
2. A shard of mirror, maybe six inches long, wrapped in velvet. Its surface shimmered faintly in the dark like water under moonlight.
3. A photograph.
She lifted the photo with care.
Black and white. Grainy. The image was of a forest clearing, fog-wreathed, with a single figure at the center.
The figure wore a long-hooded cloak. No face was visible-just blackness under the cowl. Around the figure, faint shapes lurked in the shadows. A circle of watchers.
The figure stood exactly where her recurring dreams always began.
Exactly where her father disappeared.
A sound escaped her throat-something between a laugh and a gasp. Not amusement. Disbelief. Dread.
The mirror shard pulsed faintly in her palm.
She turned it, tilted it toward her face.
At first, she saw only herself.
Then-flickering.
Behind her reflection, a hallway. Not her own. Older. Lined with candles.
And standing in that hallway, watching her through the mirror's eye, was a hooded shape.
She turned around-nothing.
Looked back-gone.
The mirror shard was warm now. Almost hot.
She dropped it back into the box and closed the lid, breathing hard.
A soft sound echoed down the hall.
Creak.
Creak.
Footsteps.
Not running. Not walking. Shuffling. Slow. Like someone dragging one foot behind them.
And humming.
A soft, tuneless sound. Like a lullaby half-remembered.
It stopped outside the door.
Isolde rose, breath held.
Silence.
Then:
Tap. Tap.
Knocking. Three times.
No voice. No announcement.
Just those three precise, deliberate knocks.
She crept to the door and pressed her eye to the keyhole.
Only darkness.
A whisper came from the other side. Dry. Gentle.
"You left it open."
Isolde stumbled back.
The door swung inward an inch, creaking.
She didn't scream.
She didn't breathe.
Instead, she whispered back:
"Who's there?"
Silence again.
Then-The sound of retreating steps.
Down the hall.
Into the dark.
************************
Part III: The First Visitation
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Echo (from Part II):
"You left it open."
---
The door remained ajar long after the sound had vanished.
Isolde stood in the middle of the room, still gripping the box, eyes darting between the door and the mirror above the fireplace across the hall-where, for a split second, she swore she saw a second version of herself standing just behind her. Smiling.
She shut the door and dragged the dresser in front of it.
Let whatever haunted this house knock again. She wasn't going to open it.
---
Night came without warning.
Not a gentle fade, not the shift of shadows across the floor-just sudden darkness, as though the house had blinked and swallowed the sun. The lamps didn't work. No lightbulbs responded. Her phone was dead.
She lit three candles from the drawer by the bed. Their flame gave just enough light to make the corners of the room seem farther away than they should be.
The mirror shard sat on the desk. She kept glancing at it like a weapon she didn't want to touch. It wasn't glowing anymore, but every time she neared it, she felt... pulled.
Outside the window, the fog pressed against the glass like breath.
She hadn't eaten.
She didn't feel hunger.
What she felt was watched.
Not by Ms. Winter. Not by eyes in the house.
By something just beyond it.
---
Sleep came like drowning.
One moment she sat on the edge of the bed, wrapped in her coat, candles melting beside her.
The next, she was walking barefoot through pine needles.
The dream was too lucid. She knew it was a dream-knew it even as the cold sliced through her toes, even as the trees parted without sound. The world was cast in a kind of silvered dimness, like moonlight beneath a deep lake.
She walked because her body moved.
And ahead, in the distance, a clearing opened like a wound in the forest.
Seven figures stood in a circle.
Hoods. Long black robes that barely moved despite the wind.
They did not face her.
They faced the center.
Where a stone slab waited, and atop it-
Was her.
No. Not her.
A child. Her as a child. Nine, maybe ten. Lying still, eyes open, as if aware of everything, unable to move.
The seven began to chant.
They did not speak in language. It was rhythm. It was sound with intent.
"Isol-de. Isol-de. Isol-de..."
She tried to run. Couldn't. Her legs wouldn't move.
One of the hoods turned.
There was no face beneath it.
Just... nothing.
But it saw her. She knew it saw her. Her body screamed with the wrongness of being seen by something that had no eyes.
She screamed-
And awoke.
---
Her lungs burned. Her mouth was dry.
The candles were gone.
The desk was empty.
The window was open.
Wind blew in, cold and unnatural, heavy with the smell of moss and ash. Her fingers were pressed against the windowsill.
No-clutching it.
She hadn't walked there. But her feet were bare. And wet
She looked down.
Mud on the floor.
A trail. From the door to her bed to the window.
Someone-or something-had come in.
Or out.
She stepped back slowly.
The door was still blocked.
Then she saw it.
On the mirror across the room.
A handprint.
Pressed from the inside.
Long fingers. Smudged. As if the glass had been fogged from within.
She couldn't look away.
Then the glass moved.
Not shattered. Shifted. Like it was liquid.
And in the ripple of its surface, a face appeared.
Ashen skin. Hollow black eyes. Lips stitched shut.
The face turned, slow and deliberate, as if listening to her heartbeat.
Then it smiled, despite the stitches.
A voice-whispered, dry and ancient-rose in the room, though her ears heard nothing.
"He is coming."
Then silence.
The mirror stilled.
And the face was gone.
She backed away again-one step. Two.
And her foot struck something.
She turned.
The brass key from the box.
It lay on the floor.
Even though she had left the box locked.
Even though no one could have entered.
Even though she hadn't dreamed that part.
Had she?
Her hand trembled as she bent to pick it up.
A creak outside the door.
And then-scratching.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Right against the dresser.
She held her breath.
The scratching stopped.
And something slid underneath the door.
She stared at it.
It was a drawing.
Crude. Pencil on yellowed paper.
A sketch of her-standing at the window.
And in the background... the garden.
Where someone stood waiting.
With white eyes.
*************************
Part IV: Ash in the Garden
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Echo (from Part III):
A sketch of her-standing at the window. And in the background... the garden. Where someone stood waiting. With white eyes.
---
She didn't remember putting on her boots.
She didn't remember finding her coat or unlocking the back door of the mansion.
But the next thing Isolde knew, she was standing in the garden.
Fog clung low to the ground like pale fingers, weaving through statues that had cracked with time. The once-groomed hedges had grown monstrous, knotting upward and outward in twisted patterns. It was colder than it should have been-colder than night. It felt like a cellar beneath the earth. Like something had drawn every ounce of heat into itself and buried it.
She held the brass key tightly in one hand. She didn't know why.
The garden path wound in a crooked loop, leading past a fountain filled with dead leaves and murky water. The air here tasted strange-sweet and rotten, like perfume spilled in a crypt.And then she saw him.
Seated on a stone bench beneath a dying tree.
Back straight. Legs crossed. As if he'd been waiting.
He wore a black coat, long and elegant, with high buttons and faint dust at the cuffs. His skin was pale-not sickly pale, but moonlight-on-water pale. His hair, dark and curled at the ends, moved slightly in the breeze.
But it was his eyes that arrested her.
Pale gray. Like smoked glass. Watching her without blinking.He didn't rise. Didn't speak.
She stood there for several long moments, caught between terror and an odd, inexplicable pull.
"...Who are you?" she asked.
He tilted his head slightly. "You always ask that first."
Her throat tightened. "Have we met?"
He smiled faintly. Not kindly. Not cruelly.
"Not properly. But I've seen you sleep."
She took a step back.
"You're not real," she said.
"Neither is this garden," he said, gesturing lazily to the fog, the statues, the crooked tree. "But that doesn't stop the flowers from dying, does it?"
He uncrossed his legs and stood slowly.
Not a sound.
The wind seemed to pause when he did.
"You're the one from the sketch," she said. "You were in the drawing."
"You saw it?" he asked, voice low and even.
"I saw... something. Someone." She held out the key. "Why is this important? Why now?"
He took a step closer. Not threatening-just closer. The fog curled around his boots.
"Because you opened the box," he said. "You read her letter. The house felt you. The Hoods did, too. That door can't be unopened now."
Isolde stared at him. "You talk like you know all this already."
"I do," he said. "You'll understand soon. Everything here echoes. It all comes back. Again and again."
There was something ancient in his voice. Not his age-he looked no older than her. But the way he spoke was... tired. Like someone repeating a story he'd told too many times.
"I saw them," she said quietly. "The seven. In my dream."
"They weren't dreaming," he said.
She swallowed. "Then what were they doing?"
"Waiting."
"For what?"
He paused. His face shifted just slightly. A crack in his composure.
"For you."
A crow cawed in the distance.
It was the first natural sound she'd heard since coming outside.
She didn't believe him. Not fully.
But something inside her-the part that never stopped looking over her shoulder, the part that woke up screaming from dreams of forests and fire-recognized him.
"And you?" she asked. "Are you one of them?"
His gaze hardened. "No."
"But you know what they are?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he stepped past her, brushing her shoulder.
"I can only stay a little while longer," he said. "You shouldn't be out here. Not when the Veil is this thin."
"What's the Veil?" she asked, turning quickly.
But he was already walking away-toward the back of the garden, where the trees grew thick and black.
"Wait!" she called. "Tell me your name!"
He stopped. Just before the mist swallowed him.
Then, over his shoulder, in a voice like thunder wrapped in silk:
"Ashcroft."
And he vanished into the fog.
******************