Behind the door

The book of roses

Chapter 11 – The Book of Roses

The house creaked with the settling night as Elena sat at her grandmother’s desk, the newly acquired book open before her. Its leather cover was smooth with age, embossed with the darkened rose emblem that seemed to shift under the candlelight. The scent of dust and lavender clung to its pages, as though her grandmother’s presence lingered there.

Adrian had left reluctantly after walking her home. He’d wanted to stay, but Elena insisted she needed space. She couldn’t read with him watching her every expression, couldn’t breathe with his secrets pressing so close.

The first pages held what looked like poetry, but the words bled into something stranger:

“Roses bloom where blood is spilled. One white, one red, one black. Three guardians, one key, one heart to break.”

Elena frowned, tracing the ink with her fingertip. A riddle. A warning. Or both.

She turned the page. More fragmented lines followed:

“The white rose will lead you. The red will tempt you. The black… will take you.”

Her heart quickened. White roses. Like the one on her piano. Like the one Adrian had left without explanation.

She flipped further. Between two pages, something thin and brittle fluttered out—a pressed rose, its petals faded to gray. The stem bore faint scorch marks, as if it had been pulled from fire.

A chill swept through her. She placed it gently on the desk, her breath shallow.

She forced herself onward. Scrawled notes filled the margins in her grandmother’s handwriting, shaky and urgent:

“He is bound to this place. Bound to me. Bound to her. If Elena reads this, she must choose. Trust him, or bury him. There is no third path.”

Elena’s hands trembled. The candlelight flickered violently, as though stirred by an unseen breath.

A sound drifted through the house then—soft, deliberate. Footsteps.

Her pulse hammered. “Adrian?” she whispered, but the name tasted of both fear and longing.

No answer. The footsteps faded toward the upper hall. Toward the locked door.

Elena slammed the book shut, heart racing. She stood, clutching it to her chest, torn between bolting upstairs to confront the noise and staying rooted in the safety of her grandmother’s study.

Then came the whisper. Not from the hall this time—but from the book itself.

A faint voice, feminine, lilting with sorrow: “Choose carefully, Elena…”

The flame guttered. The rose on the desk shivered, as though touched by invisible fingers.

Elena staggered back, gasping.

And in that moment, she realized: the book wasn’t merely a record. It was alive.

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