Chapter 4: The Locked West Wing*
674 Words
2:17 AM.
Evelyn was awake.
Blackwood Manor didn’t sleep. It breathed. Old stone shifting. Pipes groaning. The river hitting the foundation like a heartbeat.
But this was different.
Crying.
Soft. Faint. Coming from behind the locked west wing doors at the end of her hall.
She sat up in the massive bed. The silver locket at her throat was warm.
She hadn’t put a hand on it.
“Impossible,” she whispered.
The crying stopped.
Then started again.
A child’s voice. A girl. Whispering her name.
_“Evelyn...”_
Her blood went cold.
She shouldn’t be here. That’s what the note said.
Evelyn threw off the blankets. Her feet hit the cold floor. The hallway was dark. Only moonlight from the tall windows. Portraits of dead Blackwoods watched her walk past.
The west wing doors were iron. Black. No handle on her side. Just a keyhole.
The crying was louder here. Closer.
“Hello?” she said, voice barely there.
The locket burned.
She stumbled back, clutching it. It felt like she was holding a coal.
A hand clamped around her wrist.
Evelyn screamed.
Damien.
He was barefoot. Black pants. No shirt. His chest rising fast like he’d been running.
“What are you doing?” he hissed, pulling her away from the door.
“Let go—”
“You don’t touch that door. Ever.” His gray eyes were wild in the dark. Not angry. Scared. “Did you hear something?”
She nodded. Couldn’t lie. “A girl. Crying my name.”
Damien’s grip tightened for one second. Then he let go like she was fire.
“Go back to your room,” he said. Flat. Final.
“Damien, I—”
“Now, Evelyn.”
She went. Because the way he looked at that door told her it wasn’t a suggestion.
Back in her room, she locked the door. Sat on the bed. The locket was cold again.
Her phone buzzed. Unknown number.
A photo.
Blackwood Manor. Twenty years ago. A woman in a white dress, holding a baby. Her face was blurred out. But the baby had a silver locket around its neck.
The same locket.
Under the photo, one line of text:
_YOU LOOK JUST LIKE HER._
Evelyn dropped the phone.
A knock. Hard.
“Evelyn.” Damien’s voice. Low. Urgent.
She opened the door. He was still in the hall. Still barefoot. In his hand: the note from earlier. _SHE SHOULDN’T BE HERE._
“Did you get a message?” he asked.
She showed him her phone.
His jaw clenched. He took the phone, deleted the photo, and handed it back.
“From now on, you don’t go into the hall after midnight,” he said. “You don’t answer unknown numbers. And you don’t open that door.”
“Who sent it?”
“I don’t know.” He looked past her, into her room, like he expected someone to be hiding there. “But someone in this house wants you afraid.”
“Or dead,” Evelyn said.
Damien didn’t deny it.
He stepped closer. She could smell rain and something darker. Woodsmoke.
“The girl you heard,” he said. “It wasn’t real.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve heard her too,” he admitted. “For twenty years.”
Evelyn’s breath caught. “Your sister?”
“My sister died the night my mother did,” he said. “In the west wing. She was three months old.”
The house went silent. Even the river stopped.
“She had a locket,” Damien continued. “Identical to yours.”
Evelyn’s hand flew to her throat. “No.”
“Someone stole her,” he said. “Someone forged the death records. Someone’s been waiting for her to come back.”
His eyes locked on hers.
“That someone is you.”
The locket pulsed once. Hot.
Down the hall, the west wing doors rattled.
Neither of them moved.
Because something was trying to get out.
- Writer
