CHAPTER TWO
1431 Words
GHOSTS IN THE MANSION
Victoria had no choice but to adjust to life in the mansion.
It was nothing like anything she had ever known.
“What is this place?” she whispered aloud as she walked through the marbled halls. “It’s too surreal… eerie… and way too quiet. Don’t people here talk?”
The maids passed her in silence, each one turning to face the wall whenever she got too close.
Victoria stepped toward one of them. “Excuse me… do you know where I can find Icon?”
The maid simply bowed and walked away without saying a single word.
“Weird,” Victoria muttered, eyebrows raised.
Victoria blinked in confusion when the maid avoided her gaze and stepped back. Instinctively, she touched her head, half-expecting to feel horns or something unnatural. What’s happening to people around here? she wondered, heart pounding.
Victoria walked through its vast hallways, each step echoing louder than the last.
The silence was heavy, like the walls were holding their breath, watching her in silence.
After spending the next hour wandering around and admiring the mansion’s exquisite garden, roses that bloomed unnaturally wide, a fountain that glowed faintly at night and looking for Icon, she returned to her room, hoping to rest.
The first maid Icon introduced left Victoria baffled. The man hobbled in with a limp so exaggerated she feared he might collapse at any moment.
One of his eyes was permanently shut, the other eerily alert, giving him the look of someone who had seen too much and spoken too little.
He bowed stiffly, mumbling something unintelligible before tripping over his own foot. Victoria blinked in confusion.
Icon watched her reaction with quiet amusement before whispering, “Don’t worry. He’s just a decoy.”
This man was one of the most loyal servants Icon had, that is why he wanted him to serve Victoria
But what is really wrong with this man? Icon thought
A day later, Travis arrived, young, graceful, and oddly observant, with one side of his hair perfectly parted like a blade had carved it.
But before long, there was a knock at the door.
She walked to it cautiously, peeked through the peephole, and saw Icon standing just outside.
She looked at him with admiration before opening the door.
“I looked for you everywhere’ said Victoria
Without pleasantries, he spoke plainly: “This is Travis. He’ll be in charge of everything you need,more like your personal maid.”
Victoria’s eyes drifted to the man beside him. Travis was... peculiar, to say the least. Half of his head was bald, while the other half had a messy tuft of thick, bushy hair.
Who is this person? How can someone like this be my maid? she thought, but kept it to herself.
“Okay… thanks,” she said aloud, managing a polite smile. “But can I have a word with you privately?”
“Of course,” Icon replied.
She tiptoed slightly to peer over Icon’s shoulder and whispered, “Without him, please.”
Icon waved a hand, and Travis vanished down the corridor, silent as a shadow.Without so much as a glance.
Once alone, Victoria folded her arms and faced him directly. “ Personal maid, really?.
Don’t you have normal people working for you? Because I really don’t understand the kinds of people I’ve been seeing around here. I’ve met a few of your inner staff and they seem oddly… careful around me. Did you ask them to avoid me?”
“My staff has nothing to do with you,” Icon said curtly.
“Do you like him?” he asked, tilting his head slightly.
“Like who exactly?” asked Victoria
Icon looked at her intently
“No, I don’t,” Victoria replied bluntly.
“Okay. I’ll change him. Would you prefer a man or a woman?”
“A woman, please. Preferably someone around my age. Thank you.”
“Done,” he said without hesitation, and then turned and left.
Victoria lay down, hoping sleep would take her quickly, but rest was impossible.
She kept hearing whispers. Seeing flashes of that same woman, Evelyn in reflections, shadows, and mirrors. Her presence was like smoke trailing through her mind.
Icon avoided her questions, especially when she became too inquisitive. But he had dropped a few hints. Hints that Evelyn was more than just a lover. She had been a protector, one born with rare, almost sacred gifts.
A few nights later, Victoria had the most vivid dream of her life.
She was running barefoot through a dark forest. Something was chasing her. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it, breathing down her neck, clawing at the edges of her soul.
Just as it reached out to touch her… her entire body erupted with silver light. The world stopped. The creature vanished.
She jolted awake, gasping for breath, drenched in sweat.
“What’s going on in this house?I haven’t been myself since I got here” she whispered, clutching her chest.
Dragging herself to the bathroom, she turned on the tap and began scrubbing her body under the warm spray. That was when she noticed it.
A strange mark had appeared on her wrist faintly, glowing softly beneath the skin.
“Where did I get this?” she whispered.
And then she remembered the dream.
Before the dream, she often heard whispers, soft as the wind but laced with sorrow. One evening, as she passed the mirror in the west corridor, her reflection didn’t follow, instead a figure stood behind her, a woman with hair as dark as midnight and eyes glowing with silent grief.
She thought she was imagining things but now it made sense, it was real.
Later that morning, she went downstairs to grab breakfast. To her surprise, Icon was already seated at the head of the long dining table.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said calmly.
“Sorry for keeping you waiting. I didn’t know you wanted to have breakfast with me,” Victoria replied, taking the seat opposite him.
She counted at least ten people standing off to the side, chefs, servers, guards, maybe. It was overwhelming.
“How many people are eating with us?” she asked.
“It’s just the two of us,” Icon said, sipping from his coffee.
“Then why is there so much food?” she asked, confused.
“I didn’t know what you’d like, so I asked them to prepare everything.”
He stood up to leave, but paused, turning to look at her with that same unreadable gaze.
“She’ll be here by noon,” he said.
Victoria blinked. “Who?”
“Your personal maid. Everything you need to know about her is in the book on your table.”
Without another word, he left the dining hall and walked briskly toward a secured corridor, where his men were already waiting for him.
“Tango,” Icon called out as he approached. “What do we have?”
Tango, his right-hand man, stepped forward. “Sir, she’s awakening faster than we expected. She had a dream last night. We’ll need to act soon.”
Icon’s jaw tightened, his eyes drifting toward the hallway behind him.
“There’s no time to wait,” he said. “She’s not Evelyn. But she’s something else.”
Victoria had recently noticed something strange about herself. She was no longer that quiet girl who kept her thoughts locked away like precious secrets.
She was blossoming. Words came to her now with ease,as if something within her had been set free. She laughed more, questioned things more, and even found herself challenging Icon’s orders when she felt something was off.
This newfound openness scared her, but it also made her feel alive.
It was a side of her she never knew existed, one that Murphy's store had smothered with long hours, silence, and routine.
Icon noticed the change too, but not with amusement. With suspicion. His sharp eyes followed her even when he pretended not to look.
He studied the way she moved, the way she touched objects, how she reacted to certain words, especially ones Evelyn used to say
. He wasn’t just watching her. He was weighing her, measuring something only he could sense.
Could this be Evelyn returned, hidden in a new vessel? Or was Victoria something else entirely? Something ancient.
A power greater than what they had feared or hoped for. Whatever it was, Icon couldn’t look away. The more she blossomed, the more uneasy he became.
- Writer
