The funeral was smaller than I expected.
Grandmother Vera had lived in Hollow's End for sixty-three years, yet only a handful of people showed up to watch her coffin sink into the ground. I counted them while the priest droned on about ashes and dust—seven mourners, including myself. Most looked older than the tombstones surrounding us, their faces carved with the same weathered indifference as the angels watching over the dead.
I hadn't seen my grandmother in ten years. The last time, I was seventeen, and she'd grabbed my wrist so hard during dinner that she left bruises. "You have your mother's eyes," she'd said, her voice sharp with something that wasn't quite anger. "God help you, child. God help us all."
Mom had packed our bags that same night. We never came back.
Now here I stood, twenty-seven and alone, watching strangers lower the only family I had left into the earth. Mom had died three years ago—cancer, swift and merciless. I'd called Grandmother Vera to tell her. She'd hung up without a word.
"Miss Caldwell?"
I turned to find a man in a charcoal suit standing too close for comfort. He was young, maybe early thirties, with wire-rimmed glasses and the kind of eager expression that reminded me of a golden retriever.
"I'm Martin Gosse. Your grandmother's attorney." He extended his hand, and I shook it out of obligation. His palm was damp. "I'm terribly sorry for your loss. Mrs. Caldwell was... quite a woman."
"I wouldn't know."
If my bluntness offended him, he didn't show it. Instead, he reached into his briefcase and pulled out a thick envelope. "She left specific instructions that I give you this immediately following the service. Her will is quite clear—everything goes to you. The house, the estate, all of it."
I stared at the envelope like it might bite me. "I don't want it."
"Nevertheless, it's yours." He pressed it into my hands with an insistence that felt almost desperate. "The reading is scheduled for tomorrow morning at ten. The address is on the card inside. Please, Miss Caldwell, it's important that you attend."
Before I could argue, he hurried away, his shoes squelching in the wet grass. The other mourners were already dispersing, eager to escape the October drizzle that had started to fall. Within minutes, I was alone among the graves.
I looked down at the envelope. My name was written across it in Grandmother Vera's spidery handwriting: Iris Caldwell—Open Alone.
The smart thing would've been to throw it away. Get back in my rental car, drive to the airport, and forget Hollow's End existed. I had a life in Seattle—a decent job as a graphic designer, a small apartment, a cat named Hitchcock who was currently being fed too many treats by my neighbor.
But I'd driven eight hours to get here. And maybe, just maybe, I wanted answers about why my grandmother had hated me so much she couldn't stand to be in the same room with me.
I tore open the envelope.
Inside was a single key on a tarnished silver chain, and a note written in that same angular script:
The house remembers everything. So will you. I'm sorry for what's coming.
—V
A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the rain.
Blackwood Manor sat on the edge of town like a bad memory no one wanted to acknowledge. The Victorian mansion loomed three stories high, all dark stone and pointed gables, surrounded by iron gates that had rusted into permanent grotesque grins. Dead ivy crawled up the walls like skeletal fingers.
It looked exactly like the kind of place where terrible things happened.
I parked in the circular driveway and sat there for a solid five minutes, trying to convince myself to leave. The rain hammered against the windshield, turning the house into a wavering nightmare through the glass.
My phone buzzed. A text from my best friend, Mara: How was it? You okay?
I typed back: Creepy. Heading to the house now. If I don't text back in an hour, assume I've been murdered by Gothic architecture.
Her response came immediately: NOT FUNNY. Call me later. Love you.
I pocketed my phone and grabbed my overnight bag from the passenger seat. The plan was simple—spend one night, meet with the lawyer tomorrow, sign whatever papers would let me sell this monstrosity, and never look back.
The key from the envelope fit perfectly into the front door's lock. It turned with a heavy click that echoed in the silence.
The door swung open.
The smell hit me first—dust and old perfume and something else, something sharp and metallic that made my stomach turn. I fumbled for a light switch and found one just inside the entrance. Weak yellow light flickered to life, revealing a grand foyer that probably hadn't been updated since 1950.
A sweeping staircase dominated the space, its bannister carved with roses so detailed I could see individual thorns. Portraits lined the walls—stern-faced Caldwell ancestors glaring down at me with judgment in their painted eyes. I recognized my mother in one of them, young and smiling in a way I'd never seen in life.
And there, at the end of the hall, was a portrait of Grandmother Vera. Even in oil paint, her gaze felt accusatory.
I set my bag down and wandered deeper into the house. The parlor was a museum of another era—velvet furniture, crystal decanters, a grandfather clock that had stopped at 3:33. The dining room table was set for two, complete with china plates and tarnished silverware, as if Grandmother Vera had been expecting a guest who never arrived.
Every room felt wrong. Not just old or neglected, but wrong, like the house itself was holding its breath.
I found myself drawn to a closed door at the end of the hall. Unlike the others, this one was locked. I tried the silver key, and it opened with an ease that felt intentional, like it had been waiting for me.
The room beyond was a study. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined three walls, packed with leather-bound volumes whose spines were too faded to read. A massive desk sat in the center, its surface covered in papers and photographs.
And candles. Dozens of them, melted into grotesque shapes, their wax pooled like frozen tears.
I approached the desk slowly. The photographs were old, black and white, showing Hollow's End from decades past. But it was the papers that caught my attention—newspaper clippings, all of them reporting murders.
LOCAL WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN WOODS—1982
SECOND BODY DISCOVERED—POLICE BAFFLED—1983
HOLLOW'S END KILLER STRIKES AGAIN—1984
There were dozens of them, spanning years. Different victims, different decades, but all from Hollow's End. All unsolved.
My hands were shaking as I rifled through them. Some of the clippings had notes in the margins, written in Grandmother Vera's handwriting: Same method. Same message. He's back.
At the bottom of the pile was a photograph that made my blood freeze.
It was my mother, maybe twenty years old, standing in front of this very house. She wasn't alone. A man stood beside her, his face obscured by shadow, his hand on her shoulder in a gesture that felt more possessive than affectionate.
Someone had written on the back: She saw him too. It didn't save her.
The photograph slipped from my fingers.
The moment it touched the desk, the world lurched.
Suddenly I wasn't in the study anymore. I was standing in a forest, rain pouring down, my feet bare and muddy. I could feel the cold, taste the copper tang of fear in my mouth. My heart was racing, pounding so hard it hurt.
Someone was behind me. I could hear their breathing, heavy and excited.
I tried to run, but my legs wouldn't move. A hand grabbed my hair, yanking my head back, and I saw the glint of a blade—
I gasped and stumbled backward, slamming into the bookshelf. The study snapped back into focus around me. I was alone. The photograph lay on the desk exactly where I'd dropped it.
What the hell was that?
My hands were still shaking. My heart was still racing. It had felt so real—the rain, the fear, the certainty that I was about to die.
I backed out of the study and slammed the door shut.
This house wasn't just wrong. It was dangerous.
I needed to leave. Now. I'd sleep in my car if I had to, drive back to Seattle tonight, and deal with the inheritance remotely. Let Martin Gosse handle everything. I didn't care about the money or the house or whatever secrets Grandmother Vera had been keeping.
I just wanted out.
But when I reached for my bag in the foyer, I heard it.
Footsteps. Upstairs.
Slow. Deliberate. Coming closer.
I froze, every muscle in my body screaming at me to run.
The footsteps stopped at the top of the stairs.
And then a voice—male, rough, edged with something dark—called down to me:
"You shouldn't have come back, Iris."