The Haunting Of Blackwood Academy

Chapter Two: The Whispering Library

The library at Blackwood Academy was not marked on the map.

Raven found this both suspicious and entirely expected.

When she asked a fourth-year named Theo where the library was, he only smiled nervously and said, “It shows up when it wants to be found,” then hurried away as if saying more might make it disappear forever.

Luna, on the other hand, was delighted by the challenge.

“Of course it’s not on the map,” she said, trailing her fingers along the wall as they descended a dim corridor in the east wing. “Half the books in there are sentient. One of them bit a kid last term and tried to rewrite his memory.”

“Is that why your friend walked into a fountain instead of class this morning?” Raven asked.

“Probably.” Luna grinned. “That was Lucien. He borrowed a book on shadow mimicry and forgot his own name for three days.”

The hallway curved tighter, slanting downward at a strange angle. It smelled like dust and something older like the breath of something that had been sleeping for centuries and didn’t appreciate being disturbed.

Finally, they reached a dead-end wall made of stone the color of charcoal. An inscription was etched across it in worn, curling script:

"Knowledge demands a question."

Luna stepped aside. “It likes new people.”

Raven raised an eyebrow. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Ask something. Something real. Not ‘What’s for lunch?’”

Raven stared at the wall for a moment.

Then she asked quietly, “Why did my mother disappear?”

There was a soft click, like a lock sliding free. The stone shimmered, split down the center, and melted away revealing a long corridor lined with flickering lanterns and twisting iron shelves that reached into the dark like the ribs of a beast.

“Welcome to the Whispering Library,” Luna said, stepping inside.

Raven followed, her boots making no sound against the cold black floor.

The library was alive.

It breathed.

Every aisle seemed to shift when she wasn’t looking, rearranging itself to hide something, or maybe lead her toward it. Books whispered as they passed some in languages Raven didn’t recognize, others in half-sentences that sounded disturbingly like her own thoughts.

She doesn’t know yet…

The blood remembers…

Wake the gate…

Raven paused. “Did you hear that?”

Luna frowned. “Hear what?”

Raven shook her head. “Never mind.”

They turned a corner and came face to face with a tall librarian with translucent skin and hollow eyes. She wore a cloak made of stitched parchment and didn’t blink once.

“You seek the Index,” the librarian said. “Follow the ink.”

She turned and glided away, leaving a trail of ink splatters behind her that stained the floor but never dried.

Raven followed.

At the end of the aisle stood a massive desk carved from obsidian, ink bottles glowing faintly on either side. Behind it was a single book the size of a tombstone, its pages fluttering even though there was no wind.

The Index.

Luna hung back, whispering, “Only the chosen can open it without losing their hands.”

Raven didn’t hesitate.

She reached out and touched the cover.

The book responded like it had been waiting for her. The leather binding warmed beneath her fingers, and the title shimmered into view:

"The Line of Blackthorn: Blood-Bound Secrets."

Raven opened the book.

A drawing filled the first page ,an intricate sketch of her mother, younger, dressed in Blackwood robes, standing before a door covered in chains.

Beneath it, the words:

"She tried to seal what could not be sealed."

Raven turned the page.

More drawings. Symbols. Diagrams of the Morivyn,a formless shadow, a chain of names, a bleeding tree.

And then… a prophecy.

Written in red ink:

“When the blood burns the gate,

When the dreamer wakes,

The Sealed One shall rise again,

By the hand of Blackthorn.”

Raven’s pulse quickened.

There were other names listed under the prophecy,some crossed out.

Her mother’s name was there.

And beneath it… her own.

Suddenly, a cold hand gripped her wrist.

She looked up,nothing there.

But a voice, deep and dry like wind through bones, whispered directly into her ear:

“You cannot run from what was born in your blood.”

Raven slammed the book shut.

When she turned, the librarian was gone.

The ink trail had vanished.

And the library around them was already beginning to shift again.

Raven looked at Luna. “We need to find Room 9.”

Luna nodded slowly, her gaze flicking around the aisles now bending at strange angles. The shelves loomed closer than before, their spines warping as though breathing in tandem. Books twitched. One opened on its own and began to bleed ink.

“Let’s not be here when the library changes moods,” she muttered, grabbing Raven’s sleeve.

They retraced their steps,or tried to. The aisle they had come from no longer existed. Instead, there was a long corridor lined with portraits of faceless figures. Each one turned subtly as they passed, head tilting slightly toward Raven as if scenting something on her skin.

The library had decided it wasn’t finished with her yet.

Luna exhaled sharply. “Okay. We’re not walking out of here the normal way.”

“You have another way?” Raven asked.

“Not exactly, but when it gets like this, you’ve got to make the exit want you gone.” She pulled a small pouch from her boot and sprinkled a pinch of silvery powder into the air. “Ash of unwelcome guest,” she explained. “Old trick.”

A low growl trembled through the floor beneath them. The shelves groaned. Books snapped shut. The air grew colder.

Then the aisle to their right split open like a mouth. A narrow archway formed, lit by dim green light.

Raven stepped through first.

On the other side, they found themselves back in the east wing corridor. No sign of the library. Just stone walls and flickering lanterns like nothing had ever shifted at all.

“That thing wants me,” Raven whispered, her thoughts still spinning. “It’s tied to me. To my blood. It called me a dreamer.”

Luna leaned against the wall, breathing hard. “Your mother didn’t just try to seal the Morivyn. She must’ve been part of the prophecy—one of the last ones tied to it.”

“She failed,” Raven said.

Luna’s eyes met hers. “You might not.”

They returned to Room 313 to find a black envelope pinned to the door.

No name. No seal.

Raven pulled it free and opened it. A single phrase was scrawled in silver ink:

“Come to Room 9 at midnight. Alone,or not at all.”

She folded the note and turned it over in her hands.

“Do you know where Room 9 is?” she asked.

Luna's brow creased. “It’s not part of the student dorms. Room numbers start at 100. Room 9 is part of the Old Wing,the sealed section.”

“The one they said was off-limits?”

“The one where three students went missing last year and only one came back,with no tongue and no shadow.”

Raven didn’t flinch. “Then that’s where I’ll go.”

Luna crossed her arms. “You know this is probably a trap, right?”

Raven nodded. “Yes.”

“You know I’m not letting you go alone.”

“I don’t have a choice. That’s the condition.”

Luna was silent for a moment, then pulled out a thin crystal charm from under her shirt and pressed it into Raven’s palm.

“It’s a locator. Crush it, and I’ll come running. With potions. And possibly an angry bat.”

Raven smiled faintly. “Thanks.”

She tucked the charm into her boot and looked toward the moonlit sky outside. The clock tower was already striking eleven.

One hour to midnight.

One hour until the door opened.

The hour passed slowly, like the academy itself was holding its breath.

Raven sat on her bed, still dressed in her uniform, black coat draped over her shoulders like armor. Outside, the moon was a pale, sickle-shaped wound in the sky, casting silver light across the twisted trees and the mist that slithered across the grounds like it was looking for something lost.

Luna was reading aloud from an old, yellowing book of warding spells, half her words muffled as she chewed on a licorice wand.

“Are you sure you don’t want a shadow cloak?” she asked without looking up. “It won’t make you invisible, but it makes people really uncomfortable.”

Raven glanced at her. “Tempting. But I think whoever left the note already knows exactly how to find me.”

Luna sighed, clearly unhappy. “I hate rules like ‘come alone or else.’ It’s so unfair. And boring.”

The tower bell tolled midnight,twelve slow, reverberating chimes that seemed to shake the stones beneath their feet. As the final note faded, a soft rustling sound crept through the room like paper being torn very slowly.

Raven turned toward the door.

There was no knock.

Instead, the word “Open” appeared, etched in frost across the wood.

She stood, adjusted the charm in her boot, and gave Luna a look that said don’t follow but also be ready.

Luna just nodded and mouthed, Don’t die.

The hall was deserted. Everyone was supposed to be asleep,though Raven could feel eyes watching from behind every shadow. The torches on the walls flickered in and out like they were unsure they wanted to stay lit.

She headed for the western corridor. The Old Wing.

No students were allowed past the sealed archway, but tonight, a narrow slit of light glowed along the floor where the door usually sat like solid stone.

It was open.

Raven stepped through.

The air changed instantly,colder, heavier, older. The hallway beyond was narrower and unlit, the walls made of older stone laced with deep red veins. Dust choked the air, but there were no cobwebs. No insects. Nothing living.

She passed faded doors with no numbers,some sealed with wax, some scratched with symbols she didn’t recognize. Her footsteps made no sound. The further she walked, the more the hallway seemed to stretch unnaturally, like it didn’t follow the rules of physics anymore.

And then, at the end of the corridor, a door marked 9.

Simple. Black. Wooden.

It had no handle.

Just a keyhole.

Raven didn’t hesitate. She held up her right hand, the fingertip still branded with the key shape, and pressed it to the lock.

A faint click.

The door creaked open.

Inside, the room was empty… except for a single chair placed in the center beneath a skylight that revealed nothing but swirling blackness above.

No stars. No moon.

And behind the chair stood a figure wrapped in shadow.

They wore no face Raven could make out, only a long coat and gloves. The shadows around them pulsed like smoke.

“I knew you’d come,” the figure said, voice soft and distorted like it echoed from a well.

“Who are you?” Raven asked, stepping just inside the doorway.

“I’m a reminder.”

“Of what?”

“Of what you are. Of what you were born for.”

Raven kept her back straight. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“Neither did she,” the figure said. “Your mother. She thought she could rewrite fate. That blood could be erased.”

A flash—Raven saw it in her mind. Her mother, standing where she stood now, face bloodied, hands glowing with runes. Screaming something in a language Raven didn’t know.

She shook it off.

“What happened to her?” Raven demanded.

The figure tilted its head. “She sealed the wrong door. And let the right one open.”

A low, rhythmic pounding began,soft at first, like a distant drum. Then louder. Closer.

“What is that?”

The figure took a step back. “It wakes.”

Raven turned just as the wall to her left shuddered.

A thin c***k split the stone, oozing darkness.

From inside, something breathed.

The figure was gone.

The door behind her slammed shut.

And the pounding became a heartbeat.

Her heartbeat.

The sound matched her pulse exactly,slow, heavy, thunderous.

Raven backed away from the wall, but there was nowhere to go. Room 9 had no windows, no other doors, just that cracked stone leaking shadows and the chair at the center,now smoldering at the edges, faint embers glowing along its legs like it had survived a fire centuries ago.

She touched the charm in her boot.

Not yet.

If she used it too early, she might not learn what she needed. And if she used it too late… there wouldn’t be anyone left to find.

The c***k in the wall widened with a sharp groan, stone flaking away like skin. Something pushed against it from the inside, distorting it like a membrane. Raven’s breath caught.

And then a whisper slithered out.

Not from the c***k.

From inside her own head.

“Open the gate, Raven. You are the key.”

“No,” she whispered.

“Your blood calls to it. You’ve already begun.”

A second c***k bloomed, running from floor to ceiling. A gust of freezing air burst from it, carrying the scent of old metal and wilted flowers.

Her knees trembled. Her skin burned. And then… a sound cut through it all.

Footsteps.

Not hers.

Not Luna’s.

Steady. Measured. Confident.

The wall ceased its groaning. The c***k paused, as if listening too.

The door burst open.

Cassian stepped through like he belonged to this nightmare. His coat flared behind him, and his dark eyes swept the room before landing on Raven.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

She swallowed hard. “You followed me.”

“No,” he said. “I followed it.”

Cassian crossed the room in two strides and reached into his coat, pulling out a long silver dagger etched with runes. Without hesitation, he slashed it across his own palm, sending a burst of light surging through the room.

The shadows screamed.

Literally screamed.

The c***k recoiled, sucking inward, like something had been yanked back by force.

Raven gasped as her vision dimmed,black fog curling at the edge of her sight. A pressure released from her chest, as though something had been sitting on it the entire time and had finally lifted.

Cassian dropped to one knee, panting, blood dripping from his hand.

The room stilled.

Raven stared at him. “What was that?”

“The Morivyn,” he said between breaths. “A fragment. Testing you. It knows who you are now.”

“I didn’t open the gate.”

Cassian stood slowly. “You didn’t need to. It was already open. Just… sleeping.”

He reached out and touched the c***k in the wall.

It sealed itself with a hiss.

Room 9 grew quiet again, as if it had never been anything but a dusty, abandoned cell.

Raven took a shaky breath. “You know more than you’re saying.”

“I know enough to tell you this,” he said. “This school isn’t just a place for magic. It’s a prison. And your family helped build the lock.”

Raven felt the blood drain from her face.

Cassian stepped closer, lowering his voice.

“If the Morivyn is waking… you’re not here to learn. You’re here to finish what your mother started.”

And then he handed her something,cold, metal.

A key.

Not the one branded on her skin.

A real one. Black iron. Shaped like a raven’s feather.

Cassian’s voice was almost a whisper. “You’ll need this for what comes next.”

She stared down at it in her hand, the weight heavier than it should’ve been.

“I don’t even know what I’m fighting.”

Cassian looked toward the sealed wall. “Then you better learn fast.”

Cassian’s words hung in the air like frost.

Then he turned without another glance and left the room as if what had just happened was nothing out of the ordinary. Raven remained still, staring at the key in her palm. It pulsed faintly with warmth,an echo of something ancient and unfinished.

She closed her fingers around it and turned toward the door, her legs still unsteady. The silence of the hallway beyond was complete. Even the torches had dimmed to embers, casting long, twisted shadows along the cracked stone floor.

As she stepped out of Room 9, the door slammed shut behind her. The number on it vanished. A blank slab of stone remained in its place.

Room 9 was gone.

And Raven wasn’t sure it had ever truly existed at all.

She didn’t remember walking back to her tower. Her body moved, but her mind spun like a wheel,each piece of information clicking into place with a soundless jolt.

Her mother.

The prophecy.

The Morivyn.

And now this key.

The academy was no longer a school. It was a map. A puzzle. A curse wrapped in stone and sealed with secrets.

When she reached Room 313, the door creaked open before she even touched it.

Luna sat on the floor inside a glowing chalk circle, surrounded by flickering tarot cards and jars filled with suspiciously twitchy contents.

“You’re late,” Luna said.

“I got trapped in a haunted cell with a possessed wall, a talking shadow, and a blood-mage with a messiah complex,” Raven muttered.

Luna blinked. “So… typical Blackwood Tuesday?”

Raven dropped the iron feather key onto her bed.

Luna’s eyes widened. “That’s a binding key.”

“Binding what?”

“Anything ancient. Dangerous. Dead. Or… not quite dead.”

Raven sat on the edge of her bed and let her face drop into her hands.

Luna crawled over, gently tugging her hands away. “Hey.”

Raven looked up.

“I don’t know what this is yet,” Luna said softly, “but you’re not alone in it. You’ve got me. You’ve got Mortimer. You even have Cassian, though let’s be real, he probably drinks blood recreationally.”

“I don’t want to be chosen,” Raven said. “I don’t want my blood to mean anything.”

Luna shrugged. “Tough. It does. You’re here now. The prophecy’s awake. And I, for one, think the universe made the right call.”

Raven managed a weak smile. “Even if I doom us all?”

“Especially if you doom us all. If we’re going down, I’d rather it be with someone who can throw psychic punches and look good in black.”

Outside, a storm had begun to build,quiet thunder rumbling beneath the hills, clouds curling over the spires of Blackwood like a crown of smoke.

Raven leaned her head against the window.

Down in the forest, something moved.

Not approaching.

Not attacking.

Just watching.

The shadows knew her now.

And they were waiting.

Somewhere beneath the academy, something stirred again.

Somewhere beyond the walls, the Morivyn whispered her name.

And for the first time, Raven whispered back.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

Luna fell asleep sometime after three, curled in a blanket shaped like a bat wing, still muttering protective chants in her sleep. Mortimer perched silently above the headboard, eyes half-lidded, but alert. He hadn’t spoken since Raven returned, and that silence unnerved her more than any prophecy.

Raven lay awake, the iron feather key clutched in one hand beneath her pillow, the branded mark on her fingertip still faintly warm.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the voice that spoke from the wall. About the way the shadows hadn’t attacked her,but had recognized her. Not as prey.

As one of their own.

The thought left her feeling cold inside.

She rose from bed quietly, padded across the room, and opened her notebook. Every page until now had been blank. She hadn’t known what to write since arriving. But now she did.

She drew the c***k in the wall first,every jagged edge etched in memory. Then her mother’s face from the library sketch. Then the key. The prophecy. The shape of the whispering thing behind the glass.

And finally, she wrote five words across the top of the page:

This isn’t just a school.

Beneath it, in smaller writing:

It’s a warning.

She stared at the page until the ink dried, her eyes burning.

From across the room, Mortimer finally croaked, voice gravelly and low.

“The seal weakens. She must choose.”

Raven didn’t flinch.

She looked back out the window, past the grounds, to the forest that knew her name.

Midnight had passed.

The storm was gathering.

And she knew now without doubt

The haunting of Blackwood Academy had only just begun.