A clatter echoed through the vast, empty corridor of Blackwood Estate. Elara froze, her hand hovering over a dusty banister. It was a faint sound, perhaps a draft-rattled window, but the sharp intake of breath from Mrs. Gable, a few paces ahead, told a different story. “Did you hear that?” the housekeeper’s voice cut through the silence, brittle with suspicion. Mrs. Gable, a woman whose face was etched with decades of Blackwood’s chilling history, turned slowly. Her gaze, sharp and knowing, pierced Elara. Elara forced a placid expression. “A mouse, perhaps, Mrs. Gable. Or the wind through the eaves.” She gestured vaguely towards the high, cobwebbed ceilings. “The old house groans sometimes.” “That was no mouse.” Mrs. Gable's eyes narrowed on the heavy oak door at the end of the hall – the door to the north wing’s forbidden chambers. “And the wind has a different tune.” A low, guttural murmur had certainly emanated from beyond that threshold. Elara’s heart hammered against her ribs. She swallowed, a dry, metallic taste in her mouth. “It’s an empty wing, Mrs. Gable. Surely you know how sounds play tricks in these old halls.” Her voice, carefully modulated, barely masked the tremor that threatened to betray her. Mrs. Gable merely scoffed, a dry, rustling sound. “Tricks? After sixty years tending this place, I know a trick from a truth. And I heard a truth.” She started to move, her stout frame purposeful. “I’m tired of your excuses, Miss Vance. Tired of ‘structural instability’ and ‘mildew’ and ‘storing old winter linens’.” Elara moved quickly, stepping into Mrs. Gable’s path. “Please, Mrs. Gable, there’s no need to disturb what is perfectly settled. The damp inside…” “The damp inside will be the least of it,” Mrs. Gable retorted, waving a dismissive hand. “I’ve lived with these secrets long enough. What is it this time? Another ghost you’re keeping company with? A phantom lover?” The housekeeper’s tone was accusatory, hinting at the manor’s whispered scandals. Elara’s cheeks flushed, a cold fear gripping her. The accusation, though absurd, struck a nerve. Single, isolated, a ward of this decaying house – her reputation was as fragile as the glass in the manor’s dusty windows. Mrs. Gable continued, her voice rising, “I’ve already sent young Thomas for the smith. He’ll have that lock off before the mist lifts.” “No!” Elara’s composure fractured. The word burst from her, sharp and desperate. She struggled for a convincing reason, any reason, but Mrs. Gable was relentless. “Stop your lies, girl!” Mrs. Gable’s eyes, usually clouded by age, glittered with an unsettling intensity. “I am weary of this game. This room has been locked for two years. Two years! What unseemly secret could possibly require such a prolonged confinement?” “It’s—it’s not my room,” Elara stammered, clutching her hands together. “I am merely permitted to oversee the estate. Certain areas are… forbidden to me as well.” It was a half-truth, a flimsy shield against Mrs. Gable’s wrath. Mrs. Gable laughed, a harsh, humorless sound. “Not your room? Yet you’re the only one with a key to enter. How did you store all those ‘old winter linens’ then?” “That… um…” Elara’s mind raced, searching for an escape. Her breath caught in her throat. The sound had been real. He was stirring. “I will sniff out the truth myself,” Mrs. Gable declared, pushing past Elara. “Even if it’s just the stench of forgotten sorrow.” “The air will be foul,” Elara pleaded, following her. “Unventilated. It could be… unhealthy.” She imagined the frail, ancient housekeeper stumbling into that room, seeing everything. The thought was unbearable. “Unhealthy?” Mrs. Gable’s laugh was even more cynical this time. “You do not trust me, Miss Vance. Even if you hid the Vance family jewels in there, I would never steal them.” *If only it were merely jewels*, Elara thought, offering Mrs. Gable a strained smile and making a dismissive gesture towards the staircase. “Curiosity, Mrs. Gable, can often invite greater trouble than it solves.” “You are a liar, Miss Vance! Why do you not speak such riddles to the solicitors from the city?” “But truly—” Mrs. Gable, who had seen countless caretakers come and go, found Elara’s placid demeanor increasingly irritating. The girl was too quiet, too compliant on the surface, yet held firm to her ridiculous secrets. It was a contradiction that grated on the old woman's nerves, especially given the estate’s grim reputation. Mrs. Gable spun around, her face set in an unyielding mask. “I will not surrender, Miss Vance, until the truth of this house is laid bare.” She retreated down the grand staircase, her heavy footsteps echoing her resolve. Elara slumped against the cool stone wall, pressing her forehead against its rough surface. *This damned north wing*. She closed her eyes, exhaustion washing over her. The clatter. It had been more than a mouse. --- Cool, musty air clung to the hidden room, thick with the scent of old wood and something vaguely antiseptic. A lone, flickering oil lamp cast long, dancing shadows, barely illuminating the chamber. At its center stood a wrought-iron bed, ancient and ornate, yet strangely out of place amidst the peculiar instruments surrounding it. Glass vials, their contents bubbling faintly, connected via delicate tubes to the man lying on the mattress. A brass pump hummed softly on a nearby table, feeding a steady stream of air through another tube leading to his mouth. The gentle whirring and faint clicking of the devices were the only sounds, a mechanical heartbeat in the oppressive silence. These intricate, almost archaic, machines were all that tethered him to life. It was impossible to discern the man's age. His eyes remained closed, his head turned slightly to the left, as though in a deep, peaceful slumber. Yet there was no peace. His once powerful frame had withered over the past two years, the skin on his arms and legs drawn taut. Only the broad, angular cut of his shoulders, a stark reminder of his former strength, remained as she remembered from that terrible night in the mountains. Elara sank onto a stool beside the bed, exhaling a long, shuddering breath. Two years. Two years of silent vigil, of ceaseless tending, and there had been no flicker of improvement. She ran a hand over her face, scrubbing away the deep fatigue that settled in her bones. She was no nurse. She had only her intellect and her fierce will to survive, qualities honed by this desolate existence. This man, even in this suspended state, was a man. Not a task. Not a problem to be solved with logic. He was a constant, terrifying presence. That night, a vivid, bloody tableau, still played in Elara’s mind, unbidden and relentless. *“You must run!”* She’d seen the shadow move in the heavy fog, near the abandoned chapel on the estate’s western edge. Her heart had seized. A dark shape, struggling, then a dull thud. She hadn’t dared approach, not in that choking mist, not with the whispers of Blackwood’s grim past chilling her to the bone. But then she’d heard a faint whimper, a choked gasp. Curiosity, or perhaps a desperate, foolish spark of courage, had pulled her forward. She'd found him, the man now on the bed, already bloodied, his eyes wide with a feral madness. He had lunged. A blur of movement. She remembered the cold touch of the grave marker, the stone cross she’d scrambled for, hefting it with a desperate, primal strength. It wasn’t a weapon, not truly. But she’d swung it, a clumsy, frantic arc, to protect herself, to buy a precious second. He hadn't flinched. Not even when she’d connected, a sickening crunch of bone and sinew. There had been blood, splattered on the ancient stone, on her trembling hands. But he hadn't stopped. He had simply advanced, a predator pursuing its prey, oblivious to the wound, to his own pain. She remembered thinking, *This is it. This is how it ends.* She’d turned, a final, terrified glance over her shoulder at the man who would take her life. And then, he’d stopped. His jaw had clenched, a spasm of agony distorting his face. Slowly, agonizingly, his heavy body had swayed, then pitched forward, collapsing to the dew-soaked earth with a sickening thud. Another figure had stood behind him, indistinct in the fog, a crude, heavy stone clutched in a bloodied hand. It was the man who would have been buried alive, had Elara not stumbled upon the scene. He stood there, covered in mud and his own blood, swaying like a broken reed. He’d tried to focus, tried to speak, before his eyes rolled back, and he too had crumpled, rolling down the slick slope into the deeper mist. Now, in this room, the memory still sent a tremor through Elara’s limbs. How easily she could have died that night, a forgotten victim in the gloom of Blackwood. She gazed at the still, silent form on the bed, surrounded only by the quiet hum of the machines. “Valerius,” she whispered, the name a heavy stone on her tongue. It felt wrong, too intimate for a man she both feared and sustained. “Please, do not wake.” She pressed her temples, fighting the crushing weight of her reality. All she yearned for was a quiet life, an ordinary existence, far from the shadows and secrets of this decaying estate. A simple, boring life felt like an unattainable privilege. “Please don’t wake,” she murmured, burying her face in her hands, despair and fatigue warring within her. At that moment, a single finger on the man’s inert hand twitched, a barely perceptible tremor against the crisp linen sheet.

A Locked Door in Blackwood