Chapter 7: Beneath the Crimson Moon
457 Words
The manor had many wings, but only one came alive at night.
The West Wing.
No servants walked there. No torches stayed lit. The few who dared called it cursed. The locals called it haunted. Nathaniel called it home.
Evelyn woke in a guest chamber cloaked in velvet and dust. The bed was warm, though she couldn’t remember falling asleep. Her boots were clean. Her dress had been changed.
She sat up with a start.
The room was not locked.
A tray of breakfast—still steaming—rested on a table beside a vase of midnight roses. Black petals, soft as moth wings. She stared at them, unsure if they were real.
The only note was folded beneath the plate:
*"Do not wander."
So, naturally, she wandered.
The halls were too quiet, and the air held a scent like old parchment and cold metal. As she drifted past door after door, the manor shifted. She could feel it. Staircases moved ever so slightly. Portraits changed. Once, she thought a shadow stepped from behind her.
Then she heard it.
Laughter. Not mocking. Not childlike. A woman’s laugh, soft and echoing, like it came from the end of a long tunnel.
It led her to the West Wing.
The moment she crossed the threshold, the temperature dropped. Her breath fogged.
A door creaked open on its own.
Inside was a library with no candles, yet every book glowed faintly. Dust floated in the air like stars. And in the center of the room stood a mirror taller than a man. Its frame was bone-white, its glass black as ink.
She stepped toward it.
The surface rippled.
And then, her reflection blinked.
She gasped.
Behind her, a voice spoke—so close it could have been a breath.
"You see it too."
She turned. Nathaniel.
Not dressed as before, but in dark robes etched with red threads that pulsed like veins. His eyes burned less now, but they still held the storm.
"What is that mirror?" she whispered.
"A doorway. Or a prison. Or a memory. Depends who asks."
She swallowed. "And what does it show?"
He smiled faintly. "Truths no one asks for."
She wanted to turn away, but couldn’t.
In the mirror, her reflection still stared at her—but her eyes were gold.
"You're not like the others," he said quietly.
"And you're not just a lord," she replied.
The tension between them stretched, heavy and breathless.
"Why did you bring me here?" she asked.
Nathaniel looked at the mirror, then at her.
"Because the past isn’t done with you, Evelyn. And neither am I."
And in that moment, the mirror cracked—not with sound, but with light.
Like it had heard something it remembered.
- Writer
