The Storm
1079 Words
The journal beneath the bed haunted Amara for the rest of the day.
She walked through the house as though nothing had happened, smiling when Claire asked if she wanted more tea, laughing with Oliver and Lily as they built a fort from blankets in the sitting room.
But her thoughts never left the hidden room.
The leather journal.
Daniel’s expression when he’d seen it.
The story about his sister.
Something didn’t fit.
That evening, dark clouds rolled across the countryside, swallowing the last of the sunset. By the time dinner ended, rain lashed against the windows with such force that even the children grew quiet.
“I don’t like storms,” Lily whispered.
Claire kissed the top of her head.
“They always pass.”
Oliver looked at Amara.
“Will you read to us tonight?”
“Of course.”
She followed the children upstairs, carrying a well-worn copy of The Secret Garden. As she read, Lily slowly drifted to sleep, her small hand still resting on Amara’s arm.
Oliver, however, remained awake.
He stared at the ceiling for several moments before speaking.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
Amara closed the book.
“You can tell me anything.”
He lowered his voice.
“Sometimes, when Mum and Dad think we’re asleep, they go into the walls.”
Amara frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“The hidden passages.”
She felt her pulse quicken.
“They don’t know I’ve seen them.”
“Where do they go?”
Oliver shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
“They always lock the door.”
“Which door?”
“The red one.”
“There isn’t a red door in the house.”
“There is.”
He looked at her with complete certainty.
“You just can’t see it.”
Before Amara could ask another question, Claire appeared in the doorway.
“Time for sleep.”
Oliver immediately pulled the blanket over himself.
“Goodnight.”
Claire smiled warmly at Amara.
“They adore you.”
“I adore them too.”
Yet as Claire closed the bedroom door, Amara noticed Oliver watching her from beneath the blanket.
His eyes were wide with fear.
⸻
The storm worsened after midnight.
Thunder rattled the windows, and flashes of lightning illuminated the mansion for brief, ghostly moments.
Amara waited until she was certain everyone was asleep.
She retrieved the silver key, a small torch, and the map before slipping into the hallway.
The hidden passage was colder than she remembered.
Rainwater seeped through cracks in the stone, and the air smelled of damp wood and age.
She reached the hidden room and quietly unlocked the door.
Nothing had changed.
The blue scarf still hung over the chair.
The suitcase remained in the wardrobe.
The room felt frozen in time.
She knelt beside the bed.
The leather journal was still there.
She pulled it free.
Unlike Sophia’s diary, this one had no name on the cover.
Only the initials:
E.W.
Eleanor Whitmore.
Daniel’s sister.
Amara sat on the floor and opened the first page.
⸻
15 April
Father says every family has secrets.
He says some are meant to protect us.
I think secrets become prisons.
⸻
She turned another page.
⸻
2 June
Claire visited today.
Daniel smiled for the first time in weeks.
I hope she marries him.
⸻
Amara blinked.
Claire had known the family long before the children were born.
She kept reading.
⸻
18 October
Another au pair arrived today.
She’s from Croatia.
She’s kind.
I hope this house doesn’t frighten her the way it frightens me.
⸻
Another au pair?
That couldn’t be Sophia.
The date was years earlier.
How many au pairs had lived here?
She turned another page.
Several had been torn out.
Again.
Always torn out.
The remaining entries became increasingly difficult to read.
The handwriting shook.
The ink smeared in places.
Then she found one final entry.
⸻
I heard Father unlock the red door again tonight.
Daniel doesn’t know.
Claire doesn’t know.
If anything happens to me, the truth isn’t beneath the house.
It’s above it.
⸻
A loud clap of thunder shook the room.
The lights throughout the mansion flickered.
Then went out.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Amara switched on her torch.
Its beam trembled in her hand.
Above her…
She heard footsteps.
Not below.
Not in the hallway.
Directly overhead.
Someone was walking in the ceiling.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
The footsteps stopped.
Then a faint scraping sound followed, as though something heavy was being dragged across wooden boards.
Amara looked up.
The hidden room had no upper floor.
Only an attic.
Her heartbeat quickened.
It’s above it.
Eleanor’s final words echoed in her mind.
She swept her torch across the ceiling.
In one corner, almost hidden by shadows, she noticed a narrow wooden hatch with a rusted metal ring.
An attic entrance.
She hadn’t seen it before.
Dragging an old chair beneath it, she climbed carefully and reached for the ring.
It resisted at first.
Then, with a loud c***k, the hatch dropped open.
A rush of icy air poured into the room.
The smell was overwhelming.
Dust.
Old timber.
And something metallic.
She climbed into the attic.
Rows of forgotten furniture stood beneath the sloping roof.
Broken mirrors.
Old trunks.
Children’s toys covered in sheets.
Then her torch caught something at the far end.
A wall.
Unlike the rest of the attic, this section had been built recently.
Fresh timber.
New nails.
As though someone had deliberately sealed off part of the space.
Someone had built another room inside the attic.
Amara stepped closer.
The beam of her torch landed on a brass nameplate screwed into the wooden wall.
Only one word was engraved.
ARCHIVE
She reached for the handle.
Locked.
The silver key didn’t fit.
Suddenly, another sound echoed behind her.
The attic ladder creaked.
Someone else was climbing up.
Slowly.
One step at a time.
Amara switched off her torch.
The attic fell into darkness.
She pressed herself behind an old wardrobe, barely daring to breathe.
A second torch flickered to life below the hatch.
Its beam swept across the attic floor.
Then a familiar voice spoke quietly into the darkness.
“I know you’re up here.”
It was Daniel.
Silence filled the attic.
Then, in a calm voice that sent a chill through Amara’s entire body, he added:
“You’ve been reading things that were never meant for you.”
- Writer
