The letter from the lawyer was unexpected. My great-uncle Arthur, a man I’d met only once as a child, had passed away and left me his entire estate: a property called Blackwood Manor. The name was grander than the reality, as the photos revealed—a large, Queen Anne-style house, its wood siding weathered to a dull gray, with a turret that leaned slightly, as if tired from holding up the sky. My partner, Leo, was ecstatic. “Are you kidding? A free house! No more renting!” He saw potential, a project. I saw a mausoleum. The town of Ravenswood was a forty-minute drive from the nearest hint of civilization, a place where the trees grew dense and the sunlight struggled to reach the ground.
The house stood at the end of a long, gravel drive, choked with weeds. It was bigger than I remembered, a hulking silhouette against the bruised twilight sky. The air was still and cold, carrying the scent of damp earth and decay. “It’s got character,” Leo said, hefting a suitcase. His optimism was a shield I desperately wanted to hide behind. The key, a heavy iron thing, stuck in the lock before turning with a groan that echoed through the house. The door swung inward onto a scene of frozen time. Dust motes danced in the slivers of light cutting through grimy windows. The furniture was shrouded in white sheets, like a congregation of ghosts. The air was thick and stale, but beneath it, I caught a faint, sweet smell, like rotten flowers.
We explored the ground floor: a parlor with a massive, cold fireplace, a dining room with a table long enough to seat twelve, and a kitchen with a cast-iron stove that belonged in a museum. It was all silent, save for the creak of our footsteps on the hardwood floors. “We’ll start with the bedroom,” Leo decided, his voice too loud in the hush. “Get a good night's sleep and tackle this in the morning.” The master bedroom was in the turret. It was circular, with windows offering a panoramic view of the encroaching woods. The four-poster bed was monstrous, its dark wood carved with intricate, twisting patterns that were hard to look at for too long. I felt a profound sense of unease, a feeling of being an intruder.
That first night, sleep was elusive. The house was never quiet. It settled around us with a symphony of cracks, pops, and distant, unidentifiable sounds. I told myself it was just an old house, adjusting to our presence.
Then I heard it. A whisper. It wasn't a word, just a soft, sibilant rush of air, like someone exhaling a secret right next to my ear. I froze, my heart hammering against my ribs. Leo was fast asleep beside me, his breathing deep and even. I lay there for what felt like hours, straining to hear, my body tense. Just as I began to relax, convinced it was my imagination, a floorboard in the hallway outside our door creaked. Not the random settling of the house, but a deliberate, single step. Then another. A slow, heavy pacing, back and forth, back and forth, right outside our room.
I didn’t dare move. I didn’t wake Leo. I just listened, trapped in the dark, as something walked the hall, guarding a home that no longer belonged to my uncle, but now, unmistakably, belonged to me.
