Chapter 2 - Shadows in the East WingMidnight in the Hawthorne estate was a suffocating experience.
Elena lay wide awake in the narrow, utilitarian bed of the nanny’s quarters located at the far end of the east wing. The room was clean, sparse, and smelled faintly of lavender disinfectant—a stark contrast to the opulence of the main family suites. Outside her small window, the moon cast long, ghostly shadows across the manicured lawns rolling down toward the black, ink-like expanse of Greenwich Harbor.
Her phone rested on the bedside table. She picked it up for the tenth time that hour, staring at the screen. No service. Not a single bar. The estate was outfitted with a military-grade signal jammer, ensuring that anyone inside was completely cut off from the outside world.
You’re trapped, a voice in her head whispered.
She sat up, rubbing her temples. Earlier that evening, after Arthur Hawthorne locked the nursery door, he had laid down the rules with chilling precision. She was not allowed to leave the east wing after 8:00 PM. She was not allowed to use the landline in the hallway without direct supervision. And under no circumstances was she ever to open the heavy iron-reinforced door at the end of the second-floor corridor—a door that led to the abandoned west wing of the mansion.
“Curiosity killed more than just cats in this family, Ms. Reyes,” Arthur had warned her over a silent, agonizing dinner served on fine bone china in the cavernous dining hall. Julian had not been present at the table; Mrs. Gable had taken a tray of pureed food up to the nursery hours earlier, locking the boy inside once again.
Elena threw back the covers and swung her legs out of bed. She couldn't sleep. The memory of Julian’s pale, terrified face and his desperate whisper—“the bad man comes out of the walls”—kept replaying in her mind like a broken record.
She pulled on a dark grey cardigan over her silk pajamas, slipped her bare feet into soft-soled slippers, and eased her bedroom door open.
The hallway was pitch black, illuminated only by occasional shafts of moonlight cutting through the tall arched windows. The mansion was dead silent, save for the rhythmic, ominous ticking of an antique grandfather clock downstairs and the low, distant groan of the coastal wind against the stone walls.
Elena crept down the corridor toward the nursery. Her intention was simply to check on the boy, to make sure he wasn't having a panic attack in the dark. But as she approached the double doors of the nursery, she noticed a narrow sliver of yellow light spilling out from beneath the doorframe.
Julian was awake.
She crept closer, her footsteps entirely silent on the thick carpet. As she reached the door, she heard a sound that made her blood run cold.
It wasn't crying. It wasn't the sound of a child playing.
It was whispering. Two voices.
One was Julian’s high, frightened treble. The other was a low, raspy, gravelly whisper that sounded like dry leaves scraping across concrete—a voice Elena had never heard before in this house.
“...they’re coming for us, Julian... they always come for the bloodline...” the wall voice rasped.
“Go away! Go away!” Julian sobbed softly inside the room. “Elena said she’s going to protect me! She’s nice!”
“No one is nice in the House of Hawthorne, little bird... everyone here has blood on their hands... your father had it... your grandfather has it... and soon, the new girl will have it too...”
Elena’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp. She pressed her ear against the heavy oak door.
“Who’s there?” she whispered into the empty hallway, her heart hammering wildly.
Suddenly, the whispering inside stopped instantly. Total, suffocating silence descended upon the nursery.
Without thinking, Elena reached out and twisted the brass doorknob. To her utter shock, it turned. Arthur Hawthorne had forgotten to lock it from the outside tonight, or perhaps he assumed no one would dare trespass.
The door swung inward with a faint creak.
“Julian?” Elena called out softly, stepping into the darkened room.
Moonlight poured through the massive windows, illuminating the untouched toys, the Persian rug, and the small bed in the corner. Julian was curled up tightly beneath the heavy duvet, his eyes squeezed shut, breathing heavily as though he had been running a marathon.
The room was entirely empty except for the boy. There was no one else there.
Elena hurried across the room, dropping to her knees beside the bed. She gently pulled the blanket down from his face. Julian’s skin was burning hot, slick with fever sweat.
“Julian, wake up. Who were you talking to?” she asked urgently, shaking his shoulder gently.
Julian’s eyes snapped open. They weren't just wide with fear; they were bloodshot, and in the pale moonlight, the irises seemed to shimmer with an unnatural, amber hue that made Elena recoil in shock.
“He’s behind the mirror, Elena,” Julian whispered, his voice sounding entirely too old, too rasping for a six-year-old child. He slowly raised a shaking finger and pointed directly toward the grand, ornate, floor-to-ceiling antique mirror mounted on the opposite wall.
Elena slowly stood up, turning to face the mirror.
May you like
Her own reflection stared back at her—pale, wide-eyed, standing in a dimly lit nursery. But as a sudden gust of wind rattled the windowpanes outside, the reflection in the mirror didn't move with her.
For a terrifying fraction of a second, the figure in the glass smiled back at her with a wide, bloodless grin that did not belong to Elena Reyes.
