The next morning, a pale hush lay over the world outside. I blinked up at the ceiling, slowly becoming aware of the stillness in the room. There was no golden sunlight filtering through the tall windows today. Instead, the sky wore a heavy blanket of gray clouds, muted and silent. The air had a different kind of bite to it, not the crisp sting of autumn, but something gentler, a whisper of frost that hinted at the coming snow. The estate felt even more secluded in this eerie morning quiet, as though nature itself had drawn a veil over it.