29th December 1891 – Mortelle Manor, The West Room
Hush… Do be quiet. Listen carefully now. It is everywhere. You can feel it in the air. You can feel it in the walls.
What, you cannot? Ah… bliss, then, to be ignorant.
So, my little fool, let me explain. Houses are alive. They often hold far more than meets the eye.
What? You still doubt me? Insolent thing.
Then tell me — why do people shun abandoned houses, why do they call them haunted?
You don't know?
So, let me tell you why… Because it is in our nature to fear what we cannot name. We are born knowing danger, long before we can speak of it. Yet, we cloak that instinct in reason and place it on the altar of progress, as if brick and brass could dispel the oldest cravings.
Be still now and listen. Listen — not only with your ears, but with your skin, your bones, the slow weight in your chest. Stop, and you may hear it: in the depths of night, they breathe. And sometimes they groan as if gripped by nightmares.
A good house will cradle you in its warmth. But a bad house… Ah, a bad house is a story entirely different. A bad house makes your skin crawl before you understand why. It fills you with a fear that comes from nowhere and everywhere at once.
And a bad house hates. It hates every scrap of warmth, every glimmer of joy you carry. It waits patiently in the dark, until it can drive you into a corner… and there, it will devour you slowly, until nothing of you remains to trouble its halls.
Back in the west room of Mortelle Manor, the five guests, after Verena's call, had taken their designated seats around the rotunda table. At the head of the table sat Verena.
The fire in the grate was low, more ember than flame, and gave little warmth. Smoke coiled lazily up the chimney, but the room felt untouched by its heat. The curtains were drawn close, their folds heavy with years of dust and perfume. The air had a thickness to it, faintly perfumed with candle wax and something older — a scent that clung to the wood and seemed to deepen in the shadows.
Verena, after giving her instructions, sat straight-backed, her height and poise lending her an almost sculptural presence. The silk of her gown was black as coal, cut to the long, unbroken lines of her figure.
Her hair — dark, lustrous, and braided into a coronet — crowned her head without ornament, save for the single dried rose fixed at her shoulder. Her eyes, a pale gray in the firelight, moved slowly over the faces before her, as if measuring the weight of each one.
To her right, Henri Blouet lounged in a manner that fell short of rudeness only by habit of breeding. His coat was of good cloth but worn at the seams, while his cravat was knotted with careless elegance. A faint smile touched his mouth, though his eyes betrayed a certain watchfulness.
Directly across from him, Isolde Vexley reclined in a spill of garnet velvet. The fringe of her shawl shifted when she moved, catching the light like fine threads of blood. She did not look at her mirror, but at Verena, her gaze sharp enough to cut through the soft glow of the candles.
Mireille Ashton, at Verena's left, sat with both hands folded in her lap. Her dress, though plain, was of the finest silk, and the pale ribbon about her wrist was the only relief from mourning black. She watched Verena with quiet intent, her composure unbroken even as the fire hissed and sank lower.
Beside her was Dr. Felix Armitage, his gloves still on, his coat lined in dark green satin. The corner of a leather-bound notebook peeped from his breast pocket. His eyes, nearly black, studied the circle as though committing each detail to memory.
The last seat, near the locked windows, belonged to Edgar Colcombe. His head bent slightly forward, casting his face into shadow. One hand rested on the edge of the spirit board before him, fingers still as carved ivory. The mirror at his place gave back only a dim reflection, as though reluctant to show him clearly.
The entire room remained silent. The water in the glasses remained perfectly smooth. From somewhere deep within the walls came a soft, slow sound — a settling, or perhaps something else. The candles did not flicker, yet their light leaned toward the centre of the table.
For a long moment, the only sound was the slow turn of the phonograph, the faint scrape of the needle tracing its circle.
Henri sat back, one arm on the chair, the other resting across the table's edge.
"Three days, Verena," he said, voice pitched low, as if anything louder might wake something best left sleeping. "Three days since we stood by his grave, and now you…" His gaze swept the mirrors, the ash ring, the waiting spirit board. "…this."
Mireille's eyes cut to Henri before Verena could speak.
"If she believes she can reach him, she has that right," she said. Her tone was calm, but the way her fingers were laced together in her lap betrayed a tension. "I would not deny her that."
Henri's jaw tightened.
"And if this is nothing but grief leading her into—" He stopped himself, glancing briefly at Verena, then down at the ash, "…danger?"
Isolde gave a short, dry laugh, tilting her head, so the garnet fringe of her shawl swayed like drops of blood.
"If danger is in the room, Henri, she's already invited it. Look at the place she's set for him. Empty chair, waiting glass — I daresay our hostess is hoping for a guest none of us can see."
Verena met Isolde's eyes without blinking.
"I am not hoping," she said softly.
Felix leaned forward, fingertips resting against the tablecloth.
"Then what is this?" His eyes moved over the arrangement — the mirrors, the water, the measured spacing. "It's not improvised. Every object has a purpose. Where did you learn it?"
Verena's answer was quiet, but carried clearly in the still room.
"Some things… come to you when they are needed."
"That," Felix said, "is an evasion."
Edgar had been silent until now, his hands folded neatly before him, head slightly bowed.
"She'll tell us when she means to," he said.
Henri's gaze returned to Verena.
"I've seen you on stage, in every role from queen to martyr, but this is no performance. You're certain something will answer?"
"I am," Verena said simply.
Felix did not look away.
"Certainty in such matters comes at a price. One does not arrive at it by accident. So tell us, Verena — what was the cost?"
Verena's gaze lingered on him for a moment, then shifted—quietly, deliberately—away.
"You are asking the wrong question, Doctor."
Felix did not move.
"Then what is the right one?"
Verena's gaze remained on the empty chair. "I watched them bury him, Felix. I heard the earth upon the wood." Her fingers tightened once against the table. "And am I meant to accept that as the end of it? No, I will not have it so."
Henri shifted. "Verena, do not be illogical. That is what death is, and you know it."
"That is what we are told," Verena said.
Felix leaned forward slightly. "And you do not believe it?"
Verena's gaze returned to the table. "I do not believe it is the only answer."
Isolde watched her closely. "So, I assume you went looking for another."
Verena did not look at her. "You may assume as much, Isolde. The truth is that it found me."
Her hand moved beneath the table and came back with something held low at first, then placed in front of her.
A book.
The leather was dark, the silver skull on the cover tarnished to a dull grey. It sat there, heavy and silent.
Henri leaned forward. "…what is that?"
"I found it behind the eastern hearth," she said. "Bricked up behind the bust of a woman with a face identical to mine. Like it was waiting."
Felix's eyes fixed on it. "Hidden by whom?"
"I do not know."
Isolde's voice lowered. "And you trust it?"
"I must. It is my only hope," Verena muttered.
At Mireille's place, the water in the glass pulled sharply inward, the surface dipping toward its centre before settling again, not quite smooth.
Mireille drew in a breath. "Did anyone—"
"No," Felix said, already watching it, his tone tighter now. "Nothing touched it."
A sound followed—not the quiet settling of wood, but something deliberate, a knock from beneath the table that came once, then again, spaced just enough to be counted.
Felix's gaze dropped at once. "…there is no mechanism here."
"No," Verena said, her voice a fragile sliver of sound.
Henri's attention moved between the trembling glass and the book, his brow furrowing with a sudden, sharp realization. He did not ask another question; the answer was etched in the dead weight of the object on the table.
"You aren't just looking for him anymore," he murmured, his tone tight, all traces of careless elegance gone. "You are calling him back."
Verena did not look at him. She did not need to. Her fingers pressed into the weathered leather of the cover, not tightly, but enough to anchor her hand there.
"I decided not to leave him there without trying," was all she said.
The candles shifted then—not flickering from a breeze, but drawing inward, each flame bending toward the centre of the table as though the air had begun to pull towards the mysterious book.
Mireille's breath caught again, quieter this time.
The knocking came once more, closer now, answered by a slight movement of the board that was no longer subtle enough to doubt, its edge shifting against the wood with a soft, unmistakable sound.
At the same time, the phonograph dragged, the note of the violin bending and holding in a way that did not belong to any hand that could be seen.
The water in the glass trembled and did not settle.
Then, from the locked windows, a sound cut through the heavy air—the slow, bone-dry scrape of a fingernail tapping against the glass from the outside. Once. Twice. Three times.
No one moved nor spoke. The logical world of 1861 shattered in that moment.
Verena looked at each of them in turn, her grey eyes vacant of any fear. She picked up the bell, her hand as steady as marble.
"Do not look away from your mirrors," she warned them. "And by no means forget the rules I gave you."
Then she struck the bell.