Chapter 2: Whispers in the Walls
The night was colder than it had been in the carriage, and though Cassandra stood beneath thick blankets, the chill of the manor seemed to seep into her bones. Her room, though large and opulent, felt strangely alien. The bed—a vast, dark four-poster, its carved wood intricate with patterns she couldn’t quite place—was draped with an ancient quilt, the fabric worn thin in places, as if generations had passed their own silent burdens onto it. The walls, painted in muted shades of blue and grey, loomed with an unsettling stillness. And it was the silence that gnawed at her, an absence so heavy it pressed against her chest, forcing the air to grow thick and suffocating.
She had tried to rest, tried to succumb to the embrace of the bed, but sleep would not come. The house seemed to whisper in the dark, its old timbers groaning beneath the weight of time, its floors creaking as if the very walls were alive, straining with forgotten voices.
Cassandra sat on the edge of the bed, her fingers brushing the cold surface of the nightstand beside her. Her mind wandered back to the letter, to the cold, detached words of Gareth Alden, the executor. There had been no explanation, no mention of why she had inherited the manor, only an abrupt and unsettling formality. And now, this eerie quiet, the oppressive weight of a house that seemed to exist beyond the reach of time.
A sudden thump echoed through the manor, distant, like the muffled sound of something falling. Cassandra froze, her pulse quickening. It was followed by another sound—faint, but unmistakable. A whisper.
She stood, heart racing, and approached the window, pulling back the thick curtains. The world outside was swallowed in mist, the garden beyond obscured by shadows, its paths hidden from view. No light, no movement. Only the fog, thick as sorrow, stretching across the land like an endless sea. There was no sound from the estate beyond the manor walls, no sign of life to reassure her.
Her eyes turned back toward the room, and she felt it—the sensation of being watched. It was subtle, like a brush of air against her neck, but there was no denying it. The silence was no longer still. It was alive.
The door to her room creaked open, a figure slipping inside without a sound. Cassandra spun around, her breath catching in her throat.
The butler.
“I trust you are comfortable, Miss Evans?” His voice was calm, almost too calm, but there was an edge to it—something that hinted at more than mere politeness. His shadow loomed at the doorway, the dim light casting his features into sharp contrast.
“I… I heard something,” Cassandra replied, her voice trembling, though she could not say why. She had expected the house to feel abandoned, but the presence of the manor was like an unseen weight pressing down on her shoulders. Every creak, every whisper, felt too deliberate.
The butler nodded, his face expressionless. “This house has a way of… speaking in its own manner,” he said. “The sounds you hear are simply the echoes of its history. The walls are old, Miss Evans. The floorboards are tired.”
“But the whispers?” Cassandra pressed, her voice barely above a whisper. “I… I could have sworn…”
“The house,” the butler continued, his gaze lingering on her, “is full of stories. But not all stories are meant to be told.”
Cassandra watched him, feeling a knot of unease coil tighter in her chest. His words hung in the air like a riddle, one she could not solve. He stood there for a moment longer, as if waiting for something, before turning toward the door.
“If you need anything, Miss Evans,” he said, his voice trailing off as he retreated into the hallway, “you need only call.”
Cassandra stood in the center of the room, her pulse hammering in her throat. She could hear him retreating down the hallway, his footsteps fading into the thick quiet of the manor. And yet, she still felt it—a presence. As though the house were watching her, as though its darkened corners were waiting for her to discover what lay hidden within them.
The night stretched on.
As the hours passed, Cassandra found herself wandering the labyrinthine halls of Blackthorn Manor, drawn by an unseen force, by the pull of something just beyond her understanding. The shadows seemed to lengthen with every step she took, curling around her like tendrils, as if the house itself were breathing, expanding, contracting with the rhythm of her movements.
She found herself drawn to the library, a vast chamber with walls lined in dark wood and shelves sagging under the weight of ancient books. The air inside was thick with dust, but there was something comforting about the room. The faint scent of leather, of old paper, of things forgotten.
Cassandra ran her fingers along the spines of the books, feeling the cool, smooth texture beneath her fingertips. She had never been one for history or family lore, but there was something here that whispered to her, urging her to look, to search for something long buried.
Her eyes landed on a book that seemed out of place. It was bound in cracked, black leather, the title embossed in gold—The House of Blackthorn. It seemed an odd choice for the collection, an intimate title that felt almost… personal.
She pulled the book from the shelf, its weight heavier than she had expected. As she opened the cover, the pages were yellowed, the ink faded but legible. The words inside told a story that chilled her to the core—a tale of ancestors who had lived and died in this very manor, of dark deeds that had been done beneath its roof, of curses whispered in the dead of night.
But what struck her most were the images that filled the pages—portraits of men and women she did not recognize, their faces drawn with an unsettling intensity. They seemed to watch her, their eyes piercing through the paper as though they were still alive, still lingering in the shadows of the house.
Cassandra felt a wave of nausea rise in her chest. The house was alive, she realized. Not just in the way the wind howled through its walls or the way the floorboards creaked beneath her feet. It was alive in a deeper sense, in a way that went beyond reason, beyond explanation.
The book slipped from her hands and fell to the floor with a dull thud, its pages splayed open to a drawing of the manor itself. The dark, sprawling structure was rendered in intricate detail, its sharp angles and towering spires twisting toward the heavens. But beneath the image, scrawled in faded ink, was a single sentence:
“The house remembers.”
