The encounter with Mr. Finch stayed with Sarah like a stain she couldn't scrub out.
It clung to everything, the corners of her thoughts, the way she moved through the halls, even the way she breathed.
She didn't just feel watched by the old portraits in the East Wing or the shrouded mirror in her room.
She felt watched by him.
That smile, too wide. That voice, smooth and heavy, like it wanted to wrap around her thoughts and stay there. Even when she was alone, she could still hear him. Still feel the ghost of his hand on her shoulder. Still picture those eyes that never quite blinked.
She stopped taking the main route to her room. It was easier to avoid the central halls altogether.
She started slipping through back corridors, shadowy passageways between classrooms and locked practice rooms, until all she saw was the crumbling walls of the East Wing and the wild edges of the overgrown garden outside.
For days, she didn't go near her violin. Didn't touch the piano. The memory of that first night, the dead, gray silence where her music used to live stayed with her like frost in her bones.
Her synesthesia, that strange, beautiful gift that once let her see music as color, had gone quiet. It had always been hers, a secret language that gave her the only connection to a life she couldn't remember.
Now, it was just... gone. And with it, so much of herself had gone too. The silence wasn't just in the air. It was inside her, louder than sound, echoing through the hollowness left behind.
But the ache to play never went away. It grew deeper, sharper. Like hunger. Music had always been more than a hobby. It was her language, her skin, her breath. Losing it felt like dying in slow motion.
She tried to push it down. But one night, when the halls were empty and the stone walls seemed to be listening, she gave in.
She had to try.
The mirror in her room still covered, still silent, seemed to pulse with judgment. She avoided looking at it as she grabbed her violin case and slipped out the door. The iron key clicked behind her, locking the quiet in.
The East Wing was pitch dark. Not the kind of dark where your eyes adjust. The kind of dark where the shadows feel like they're waiting. The air was cold and damp.
Every step she took stirred up the scent of old stone and forgotten dust. She used the dim glow from her phone to guide her steps. Even then, the corridor seemed to twist and shift.
Her shoes barely made a sound, but the building did. The groan of wooden beams. The sigh of wind through unseen cracks.
It felt like she was walking through something half-asleep and easily disturbed.
She didn't head for the performance hall.
That space, with its rows of grand pianos and echoing ceilings, was too open, too clean, too expectant. She didn't want anyone to hear her fail again.
Instead, she found a narrow hallway tucked behind a stairwell, one she hadn't noticed before. At the very end of it was a door. It creaked open with a soft push. No lock. No lights.
The room was barely bigger than a closet. Inside was an upright piano, old and scarred. Its wood was chipped. Some of the keys were yellow with age. A tall window stretched up one wall, but the night outside was empty, no stars, no light. Just black.
It felt hidden.
Safe.
Forgotten, just like her.
She set her violin down on a rickety chair and walked slowly to the piano. Her hands were trembling as she reached for the bench and sat down. The cushion beneath her creaked softly. The keys in front of her looked like bones. Clean, smooth, cold.
She stared at them for a long time, unsure if she could do this.
Then, with a shaky breath, she pressed a single key.
C.
A soft, trembling blue appeared behind her closed eyes. Not gray. Not empty.
Blue.
She gasped. The sound was small, almost surprised.
She pressed another key, G.
A pale, misty violet bloomed beside the blue, curling softly through her thoughts. It wasn't strong, but it was real. It was there.
A sound left her, half a laugh, half a sob. The relief was too big for her chest to hold. Her fingers shook, but they moved.
Slowly.
Carefully.
She pressed another note, then another. The colors were faint, soft, like watercolor paintings someone had spilled water over, but they moved. They responded.
She wasn't gone.
Something in her was still alive.
She started to play.
A melody came not one she knew, but one that felt familiar. A lullaby maybe, gentle and sad.
Blue.
Violet.
Soft silver.
The colors wove together as her hands moved across the keys. Her shoulders relaxed. Her breath slowed.
The music was fragile, but it was hers. Real.
For the first time since she had arrived at Blackwood, she felt like herself again. Or at least... close.
She played for what felt like forever. Time didn't matter. She let the music carry her. Her body swayed with it. Her thoughts quieted. The room around her disappeared. There was only sound. Only color. Only her.
But then...
Something changed.
It was one note, just one that didn't feel right. It landed wrong. The blue behind her eyes darkened. The soft light twisted into a bruised, muddled purple. She flinched.
She tried to correct it, tried to find the melody again, but it was slipping. The notes bled into each other. The colors turned cloudy, then murky. Her heartbeat quickened.
The humming came back.
Faint at first.
A low, vibrating hum in her ears. The same white noise from before, crawling back into her head. It grew louder, closer, as if something was pressing in from the walls. Her hands moved faster, desperate now. Trying to stay above it.
Then she felt it.
The keys beneath her fingers were changing.
They felt... thick. Not smooth, not light. Heavy. Dragging.
Sticky.
Her breath caught. Her skin crawled.
It was as if she were pushing her fingers into something warm and thick like tar. Slow and clinging. She looked down.
Nothing.
The keys were clean. Pale. Innocent.
But the sensation didn't stop. Her skin felt wrong. Her hands felt coated in something she couldn't see.
She pulled them back, fast. Stared at them. Turned them over.
Still clean.
But they didn't feel clean. They felt ruined. Violated.
The piano loomed in front of her. The same instrument that had just brought her comfort now felt alive. Watching. Mocking. As if it had lured her in just to hurt her.
She pushed the bench back so hard it screeched against the floor. The sound was sharp, painful. She snatched her violin case and stumbled out of the room, heart racing, throat tight. The air felt thick, like breathing through smoke.
She ran.
All the way back.
The hallway was darker now. The walls closer. The building groaned around her, floorboards creaking underfoot. It felt like it didn't want her to leave.
But she did.
She made it back to her room and slammed the door behind her, locking it with shaking hands. She stood there for a long time, her back pressed to the cold wood, her breaths shallow.
She looked at her hands again.
They were shaking. She rubbed them hard against her coat, trying to scrape the feeling off. But it stayed.
There was nothing to see.
No mark. No stain.
But she felt it. Deep under the skin. Like something had touched her where she couldn't reach.
She didn't know what was real anymore. The things she felt, the things she saw, were they her trauma, her broken memory? Or was this place changing her?
Had the music done something to her?
Or had she done it to herself?
Whatever it was, the one thing she had been sure of was that music would heal her, save her, was no longer true. The music had led her to something dark. It had shown her light just to take it away again.
She wouldn't go near the piano again.
Not for a long time.
Maybe never.
She sat on the edge of her bed, gripping her violin case like a lifeline, staring at the cloth-covered mirror across the room.
The silence was back.
And now, it felt like it was waiting.