Chapter Four: The Locked Door
1004 Words
The laughter stopped.
So suddenly that the silence felt louder than the sound itself.
Rowan stared at the closed door to the music room, her heart slamming against her rib cage.
"Elias..." she breathed. "If no children were ever here...then who was laughing?"
His eyebrows knitted together.
"I don't know." His voice was quiet but filled with dread.
She shook her head.
"You don't know?" She blinked hard, trying to dispel the fear that was creeping up her spine.
"I've been living in this house for ninety-eight years, Rowan. There are things about this place I don't understand." His voice cracked at the end.
The doorknob turned.
Slowly.
Neither of them dared breathe.
The brass handle twisted until it flushed against the door.
The wood groaned as it slowly creaked open.
The empty hallway glowed beyond the moonlight.
Not a single footprint marred the hardwood floor.
No voices called out.
No children ran past them.
Only silence.
And darkness.
---
"I'll go." Rowan grabbed Elias's wrist and started toward the hallway.
His icy fingers clamped down on her skin, gentle yet stern.
She froze. You could feel him, she thought in disbelief.
Elias met her eyes.
"You can touch me?" Rowan asked. Her voice was a whisper.
He dropped his gaze to their hands.
"I shouldn't be able to."
For just a second, his form solidified where it contacted her skin.
His edges stopped wavering.
His breath, something that ghosts shouldn't even be capable of, steadied.
Then he released his hold on her wrist.
She felt it slip away.
"I'm sorry," he murmured. His back moved toward the hallway.
"Don't apologize." She swallowed audibly, relaxing her hold onto the space where his hand used to be.
Neither of them realized they were smiling until they heard it again.
Laughter.
It bubbled from the hallway behind them.
Only this time it was closer.
---
The noise was coming from the far end of the corridor.
A small wooden door hung ajar, its knob missing from the hinge.
Rowan hadn't noticed it before.
"What's in there?" She asked, trying to hide the tremble in her voice.
White spread across Elias's cheeks.
"That wasn't here yesterday."
"What?" Rowan stumbled backwards into Elias.
"The door." His voice was barely audible.
It slithered down Rowan's spine, eliciting a chill she couldn't shake.
"What do you mean that door wasn't here?" She frowned.
"Things... move around in this house." He swallowed thickly.
His voice was so soft she almost didn't catch it.
"It always has."
---
The two of them cautiously approached the door together.
It looked like it hadn't been touched in years. The brass knob was covered in a thick layer of dust—long spiderwebs draped over the wood frame.
Rowan reached out and flinched when her fingertips touched the dust. It seemed almost unreal that the door was open at all, yet here it was.
Just cracked open, swallowing the darkness from the other room.
Rowan pushed it the rest of the way. It groaned loudly on its hinges.
On the other side was a narrow staircase leading down.
"That's impossible," Rowan murmured.
"There's no stairs on this floor." She nodded toward the house's blueprint they had discovered earlier.
"You've seen those?" She realized Elias had been studying the document ever since they found it.
"My grandmother kept one in her study." He shrugged.
The man swallowed and avoided her gaze. "The house… rearranges itself. Sometimes."
---
The staircase led to a large stone hallway underneath the mansion.
The air was cool and musty.
Ancient.
Lit only by candles carved into the wall.
One… by one...
They ignited, flames dancing across their wicks.
Nobody had touched them.
Rowan whipped around to glare at Elias.
"What did you do?" She hissed.
He shook his head frantically.
"No!" His eyes were wide with fear.
The light crept towards the darkness ahead, elongating like a telescope.
Guiding them.
At the end of the hallway was a massive wooden door.
Covered in carvings of twisting vines and ravens.
A large crescent moon sat in the center of the wood, just like the symbol on the journal she had found.
Rowan reached for the doorknob.
"Don't," Elias said, his voice booming in the stone hallway.
"If we open that door..."
"I know what's behind it, Elias." She placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"The house isn't going to harm you." His voice was barely audible over her shaking.
"We have to see."
---
Rowan swung the door open before Elias could stop her.
A gust of wind whipped past her, snatching her words.
"Rowan?"
It was a whisper from behind the door.
She hesitated.
"Elias, did you hear that?" Her voice was uneven.
His head whipped towards her, panic-stricken.
He nodded.
"It knows your name." It said again, fear laced into its tone.
Rowan flinched. Had they heard it too?
Another whisper floated through the stone hallway.
"...Rowan..."
"This place is messed up, isn't it?" Elias rubbed a hand along his face.
The voice came again.
Light.
Desperate.
"...please come in. Please..."
It sounded so young.
No, not young.
Not like a child.
Sad.
"Why would someone be locked in there?" She wiped her brow, surprised at how terrified she was.
Elias didn't answer her. He was staring down at the carvings on the door, absorbing every detail.
"...please help me..."
A woman.
Rowan's hand shook as it rested on the doorknob.
"What if someone is trapped in there?" She glanced over at Elias, who was lost in his own thoughts.
"They are trapped." He finally replied, his eyes still fixated on the door.
The candles flared up violently.
The stone hallway began to shake beneath their feet.
Paint chipped off the walls.
Then three knocks sounded from behind the door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Elias stepped in front of Rowan, using his body to shield her from whatever was on the other side.
His grey eyes were locked on the door.
"Rowan, please..." He began to whisper.
"...don't open it."
- Writer
