CHAPTER 6 — The Woman Who Already Knows
470 Words
Kezia barely slept.
Every sound in the mansion seemed louder at night—the soft tapping on the walls, the creaking floorboards, the faint hum of something unseen.
By morning, her eyes were tired, but her mind was sharper than ever. She needed answers.
She stepped into the main hall, the silence pressing around her like fog… until—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Kezia froze.
No one should be visiting this place.
Carefully, she approached the door and opened it just enough to peek through.
A woman stood outside—tall, elegant, dressed in a long black trench coat that swayed in the wind. Her hair, dark as midnight, fell neatly over her shoulders. She held a slim leather notebook in one hand.
Her eyes met Kezia’s—calm, deep, and unsettlingly sharp, as if she already understood everything.
“Good morning, Miss Kezia,” the woman said softly.
“I’ve been expecting you.”
Kezia’s heart skipped.
“How do you… know my name?”
The woman smiled faintly, not in a friendly way, but in a knowing one.
“My name is Dr. Seraphine Vale.”
She handed Kezia a crisp white card.
On it:
Seraphine Vale, PhD — Psychology, Trauma Studies, Paranormal Behavior Research.
Kezia stared at the word paranormal.
Dr. Vale continued, “I knew your parents. In fact…”
She leaned slightly closer.
“I’m one of the last people they spoke to before they died.”
Kezia’s fingers tightened around the card.
“You knew them?” she whispered.
“What were they doing here? Why did they—”
The doctor lifted a hand, stopping her gently.
“All answers will come. But not here, not in the doorway of a house that listens.”
Kezia froze.
“What?”
Dr. Vale looked past Kezia into the mansion’s shadows, her expression shifting—just for a moment—as if she recognized something lurking within.
“I mean exactly what I said.”
Her voice was calm, steady, so sure it chilled Kezia’s spine.
“The house listens.”
A cold breeze swept across the hall.
Before Kezia could ask anything else, footsteps echoed from the second floor—slow, heavy, dragging slightly.
Not Levi’s.
Not hers.
Dr. Vale didn’t even look surprised.
Instead, she wrote something quickly in her notebook, eyes scanning the staircase with eerie interest.
“Kezia,” she said softly. “It has already noticed you.”
Kezia swallowed.
“What noticed me?”
The doctor closed her notebook with a soft click.
“That,” she said, turning toward the stairs,
“is what I came to help you understand.”
The footsteps stopped.
The mansion fell utterly silent.
And for the first time since her parents died…
Kezia felt like she wasn’t just being watched.
She felt hunted.
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