Three: The East Wing
719 Words
The party had long ended. The music faded hours ago, and the guests’ laughter had been swallowed by the storm.
Ashford Manor slept — or pretended to.
Elara stood in the silent ballroom, her reflection glimmering faintly in the mirrors as candlelight flickered behind her. The chandeliers had been dimmed, the roses on the tables wilted, and the champagne glasses sat half full, forgotten.
But she couldn’t sleep. Not tonight.
The image of the small, dark handprint haunted her. The scratching beneath the walls hadn’t stopped since the last guest left. Sometimes it sounded like nails. Sometimes like tiny fists.
She knew what it meant.
She knew who it was.
Her hand trembled as she slipped the small iron key from the chain around her neck — the key her father had sworn to destroy. He hadn’t. He had feared her too much for that.
The east wing loomed before her like the mouth of some ancient beast, the heavy door locked and sealed with rusted bolts. Her candle sputtered as she raised it. Shadows danced along the corridor walls, shaping themselves into long, distorted forms that seemed to follow her.
Her pulse quickened. Just the wind, she told herself. Only the wind.
The key slid into the lock with a soft click.
It turned far too easily.
A cold draft breathed out from the crack of the door — thick, damp, and tinged with decay. The candle’s flame dipped low, nearly extinguished, as Elara pushed the door open.
The smell hit her first.
Rotting wood. Damp fabric. A hint of something metallic, sweet, and wrong.
Her bare feet stepped onto the dust-caked floorboards of the east wing. The air was colder here, heavy and unmoving. Wallpaper peeled like dying skin. Cobwebs hung like curtains.
She raised her candle higher.
Everything was as she remembered — the tiny bed with its iron frame, the rocking horse overturned in the corner, the cracked mirror reflecting the shimmer of the flame. Her mother’s voice seemed to echo faintly in the distance: “He’s too weak, Elara. Be gentle with him.”
Her throat tightened.
Elara moved toward the cradle. It sat in the center of the room, covered by a mildewed white sheet. Her fingers hesitated above it, shaking. She hadn’t touched that cradle since the night everything changed.
Lightning flashed outside, flooding the room in pale light — and for a heartbeat, she thought she saw something move beneath the sheet.
Her breath caught.
“Elara…”
Her name.
A whisper — soft, childlike, and far too close.
She froze.
The candle flickered violently as if a breath of air had passed over it. She turned slowly, her heart hammering in her chest. The room was empty — but the whisper came again.
“Elara… play with me…”
The sound came from beneath the floor.
She dropped to her knees before she could stop herself, eyes wide, candle shaking in her grip. She remembered the loose board — the one she had pried up thirteen years ago with bloodied hands.
The one she had nailed back down when it was done.
Tears burned behind her eyes as she pressed her fingers to the edges of the board. The wood was splintered now, soft from rot. It didn’t take much to lift it.
The smell of decay filled the air, sharp and suffocating.
And there, beneath the floor, lay what she had buried: a small, brittle skeleton wrapped in the tattered remains of a baby’s blanket. The candlelight quivered across what was left of a face — sunken, pale, and wrong, as though time itself refused to let it fade.
A broken music box sat beside it. When Elara’s tears fell onto the wood, it clicked.
The lid sprang open, and the tiny ballerina began to turn — slowly, painfully — the tune dragging through rusted gears.
🎵 Lullaby and goodnight… 🎵
“Elara…” The whisper became a hiss, crawling up from the dark beneath the floor. “You left me here…”
Her scream caught in her throat as the candle went out.
Darkness swallowed everything.
And in that darkness, small hands wrapped around her wrist.
Cold. Fragile. Unmistakably human.
“Elara,” the voice crooned now, closer than her heartbeat, “it’s your turn to hide.”
- Writer
