Chapter 38

The grandfather clock's tick echoed, a hammer blow against the silence. Alistair's gaze was locked on Evelyn, a woman he knew was as sharp as broken glass. She had accused him twice now. Twice she'd said the house devoured women. Once, he might have dismissed it as melodrama, but twice? It hinted at a pattern, a history he hadn't fully grasped.

He smoothed a crease in his coat, a deliberate act to control the tremor in his own hand. "That's twice now you've said the house eats women. Once could be metaphor. Twice? It's history." The words were calm, measured, but his mind raced. What history? What was she truly implying?

Evelyn moved, a predator's grace in her stride. She picked up the poker, her fingers caressing the cold metal. Was it a weapon, or a comfort? He watched her, fascinated by the fury that seemed to fuel her every movement.

"You think this is some game, don't you?" Her voice was a whip-crack. "That you can pick at the bones of these women and call it discovery. That you're owed their truth simply because you watched them suffer and did nothing."

His jaw clenched. The accusation, raw and unfounded, ignited a slow burn within him. "I loved Marian." The words were true, yet they felt hollow, inadequate in the face of her venom.

Evelyn turned, her eyes blazing. "You owned Marian."

The retort struck him like a physical blow. Owned her? He had given Marian everything. A name, a home, a life of luxury. He had protected her, cherished her. This woman, this bitter relic, dared to twist his affection into something so grotesque?

"You kept her in that mausoleum of yours like a jewel in a locked drawer," Evelyn continued, her voice rising, losing its brittle edge to a fierce crescendo. "She wrote to me. Dozens of letters. They stopped, yes. But not because she had nothing left to say. They stopped because something in that house swallowed her voice."

Rage coiled in his gut, a serpent ready to strike. Marian's letters? To Evelyn? He hadn't known. Another secret, another thread in the tapestry of her deception. "And what about Julia?" he demanded, his voice low, dangerous. "Do you think I'll silence her too?"

"I think you'll try," Evelyn said flatly, her gaze unwavering. "And I think the house will finish the job if you don't." Her certainty was unnerving, a hum of conviction that spoke not of madness, but of a deep, ingrained knowledge born of trauma. It was a certainty that chilled him more than any theatrics.

"She's not yours to protect anymore." He stated it as fact, a boundary drawn in the sand. Julia was his, his responsibility, his to shield.

"Oh, but she's not yours to break, either." Her words were a gauntlet thrown, and the silence that followed was colder than any winter rain.

He stepped closer, his voice dropping, the familiar prelude to a trap. "Tell me about the draft. Tell me what it is. Who gave it to Marian. To Julia. To you." He needed answers. This vague 'draft' was a key, he could feel it.

Evelyn's fingers flexed on the poker. Her face, usually so composed, showed a flicker of something he couldn't quite decipher. Fear? Resignation?

"You've no idea what you're asking."

"I'm asking what you're hiding." He pressed, his patience wearing thin.

Her eyes flashed with defiance. "I'm hiding her. Or I was. From you. From that house. From the rot that runs in your bloodline like ink through water."

His nostrils flared. The insult was direct, personal. But her admission, however reluctant, confirmed his suspicions. "Then it's true. There is a draft."

A slow exhale from Evelyn. "Yes," she said, the word barely audible. "There was a draft. Made by a woman who died before you were born, Alistair. Before Blackwood Hall ever passed into your hands. Before your father disappeared into that study of his and never came out again."

"Lady Henswick," he murmured, a name plucked from forgotten family archives. An old legend, a healer of some sort.

"She was not a lady. Not in the way you mean it. She was a healer. An apothecary. A midwife. And a Harrow."

The last word stopped him cold. A Harrow. Evelyn's own bloodline. The connection was undeniable, suddenly throwing the entire conversation into a new, more sinister light.

Evelyn's gaze didn't waver. "She was my great-grandmother. She lived in the woods past Whitmore Creek and delivered half the children in Essex during the famine years. People came to her for aid when the doctors refused. She saw things in women's blood that no man could name."

"And this draft?" Alistair asked, slower now, his mind working through the implications. A Harrow, a healer, secrets in women's blood. It was all a little too close to the unsettling whispers that always clung to Blackwood Hall.

"She made it for the ones who suffered," Evelyn said, her voice softer, almost reverent. "Women who bled without end. Who screamed in the night. Who saw things at the foot of their beds and called them by name."

His mouth was dry. The pieces were falling into place, forming a terrifying mosaic. "Like Marian."

"Like Julia," she whispered, her gaze piercing him.

He stepped back, a sudden coldness creeping into his bones. The room, once merely a sitting room, now felt like a cage, the air thick with unspoken horrors.

"You're saying it's a curse." The word tasted bitter. Curses were for superstitious fools, not men of his standing.

"I'm saying it's hereditary." Her correction was flat, absolute. More chilling than any curse.

His mind twisted, rebelling against the notion. He, Alistair Blackwood, did not believe in such antiquated nonsense. "I don't believe in curses."

"No," Evelyn said softly, a mocking lilt in her tone. "You embody one."

A gust of wind rattled the panes, a ghostly sigh. Somewhere in the flat, a door creaked open, not pushed, not pulled, but as if stirred by an unseen presence. He turned his head, a prickle of unease on his neck. The air had thickened, or perhaps it was just his imagination, playing tricks in the face of Evelyn's chilling pronouncements.

"I want the formula," he said finally, his voice firm, pushing down the rising tide of discomfort. He needed control, needed to understand this insidious influence.

Evelyn laughed, a sharp, humorless sound. "You want to bottle it? Sell it? Use it on her like you used up Marian?"

"No!" he snapped, the accusation infuriating. "I want to stop whatever's happening to Julia. I want answers."

"She's had them. You just didn't like them." Evelyn's eyes held a challenge.

He crossed the room in three swift strides, closing the distance between them. "If she dies—"

"She will, if she stays in that house much longer." Her voice was unwavering, a cold truth spoken.

His hands curled into fists, the urge to silence her, to shake the answers from her, almost overwhelming. But he held his ground, his composure a fragile shield.

"You think you understand her?" she asked, her voice shaking now, not with fear, but a raw, unbridled fury. "You don't even know why she stopped answering Marian's letters. You don't know what's in that drawer, or why she hasn't burned it yet. You think you're chasing truth when really, you're just circling your own shadow."

Letters? A drawer? He had missed something crucial. A vital piece of the puzzle. "What drawer?" His voice was suddenly low, a hunter scenting prey.

Evelyn blinked, the realization of her slip of tongue dawning in her eyes. Too late.

Alistair's smile returned, cold and cruel. "Where is it?"

"You'll never find it," she said, turning away, but her defiance was a flimsy curtain.

"I always do." He always found what he sought. Always.

The wind knocked harder against the windowpanes, a restless spirit. Then, in answer, three deliberate knocks echoed through the flat. From inside. From the bedroom. Not the door behind him.

Both of them froze. Evelyn's face went bloodless, all color draining from her features.

Alistair turned toward the sound, a cold knot forming in his chest. His heart hammered against his ribs. The air, heavy with a scent he knew intimately, invaded his senses—rosewater and ash. Marian's perfume. Faint, unmistakable.

"I told her not to bring it back into this house," Evelyn whispered, her voice a thin thread of dread. "I told her not to read it."

Alistair turned, slow and deliberate, the implication chilling him to the bone. "Read what?"

But Evelyn didn't answer. The knocking came again. Three sharp taps. Closer now. As though whatever had caused the sound had moved. As though something had heard its name spoken. And meant to answer.

His gaze snapped to the bedroom door. The knock came again—three soft taps, too precise for coincidence. And Evelyn… Evelyn looked genuinely afraid. Not startled, not dramatic, but a deep, visceral terror that clawed at him.

He didn't speak. He stepped forward slowly, like approaching a wounded animal, cautious, wary. The air had changed, grown thin and tight, as if the room itself held its breath. A subtle draft curled beneath the doorframe, faint but wrong, carrying a scent too delicate for this dust-choked flat: roses. Not fresh. Pressed. Wilted. Funereal.

His fingers brushed the cold door handle. He felt Evelyn's presence behind him like a weight, a heavy silence. Her earlier fire had vanished, replaced by the rigid stillness of someone who had imagined this moment, survived it once, and now faced its terrifying repetition.

He turned the knob. The bedroom door creaked open on trembling hinges.

No one stood there. Of course not.

The room was small, starkly furnished in Evelyn's austere style. An iron-framed bed, a crocheted blanket, a mirror that had long since ceased reflecting anything but the grey light. An armchair by the window, where an oil lamp still burned with a sullen glow. Rain smeared the windowpane, blurring the city into a watercolor of ash and gaslight.

Alistair stepped inside.

Then he saw it. The desk. Not Evelyn's. A narrow thing in the corner, its drawers all shut except for the lowest one—the far-right. Slightly ajar. Just enough to be wrong, to demand attention.

He crouched, his eyes fixed on the gap. The wood was smooth beneath his fingers, the handle cold. When he pulled the drawer open, it came with a reluctant sigh, as if it hadn't been opened in years, a breath of stale air escaping.

And there it lay. An envelope. Pale, yellowed, its edges curled as though held too long by damp hands. The seal was broken. The contents removed.

But something still lingered. A faint scent of old paper, a trace of rosewater.

Alistair reached for it—and froze. The moment his fingers brushed the paper, the mirror behind him creaked.

He turned sharply. Nothing. Only his reflection. Too still. Too quiet.

His breath fogged the glass. But the reflection didn't.

A slow, cold crawl ran up his spine. The scent of roses was stronger now, a chilling reminder of Marian.

From behind him, Evelyn's voice came, tight and hoarse. "She read it, didn't she?"

Alistair stood slowly, the envelope in hand, his gaze still fixed on his un-fogged reflection. "What was in it?" he asked, his voice rough.

"Whatever Marian couldn't say out loud." Her voice trembled, a fragile thing. "Whatever she was afraid of writing in ink until it was too late."

He turned toward her. She hadn't entered the room, as if a barrier, unseen yet palpable, prevented her. Her hand still gripped the edge of the doorway, knuckles white.

"I told her not to read it here," Evelyn whispered, her eyes wide with a desperate plea. "I told her it would wake the house if she took the memory with her."

Alistair's lips curled. "There is no house here. Only wood, and brick, and bad wallpaper." He dismissed her superstition, yet a part of him, a dark, primal part, acknowledged the chill in the air, the scent of ghosts.

"You don't understand," she said quietly, her gaze locked on the letter in his hand. "It doesn't stay there, Alistair. It doesn't stay anywhere."

A silence fell so thick it muffled even the distant sounds of the street below. He knew what she meant. The haunting wasn't confined to Blackwood Hall. It was a contagion, a thing that spread, that attached itself to those who dared to look too closely.

Alistair crossed the room, the letter trembling slightly in his grasp. He needed to know. "She mentioned me?" he asked, his voice low, a silken thread of curiosity.

Evelyn met his gaze—hers now steadier, as if the ritual of fear had passed, leaving her grim and hollow. "She mentioned something watching her from the walls. Something she thought wore your face."

His face did not change. But something in his expression—a muscle near the eye, a twitch in the jaw—flickered. The accusation was absurd, monstrous. Yet, a tiny sliver of unease burrowed into him.

"She was sick," he said flatly, dismissing it as a delusion of a fevered mind.

"She was certain," Evelyn countered, her voice unwavering. "And now Julia's begun the same descent."

He turned the envelope over again, fingers tracing the dry edge. This wasn't a desperate act of a woman seeking help. "She didn't leave this," he said, the realization dawning. "She planted it. Julia found it." A calculated move.

"She found what she was meant to find." Evelyn's statement was a challenge.

"Is that what you do?" he asked, stepping closer again, his voice soft as silk and just as slicing. "Leave trails for the women you've failed? Letters instead of lifelines? Curses instead of cures?"

Evelyn didn't flinch. "You don't get to ask that," she said, her voice sharp. "You were her husband. You had the house. I only had the ghosts."

He stepped back. Exhaled. The room felt smaller, suffocating. He thought of Julia in the East Wing. Alone. Nosebleeds staining her linen. Her voice raw from pleading. Her breath hitching beneath his hands.

He hadn't meant to hurt her. No—he never meant to hurt her. But sometimes—sometimes people needed to be broken open to be understood, to be truly seen. He needed to understand Julia, to possess her truth as he had once sought to possess Marian's.

"I want the draft," he said again, this time without pretense, the demand a clear declaration. "The real one. If it exists."

Evelyn didn't speak, her silence a defiant wall.

Alistair tilted his head. "I can make your life very difficult." A veiled threat, a reminder of his power.

Her laugh was short, humorless. "You already have."

He stepped toward the doorway, drawing level with her. His voice dropped to a near-whisper, laced with a chilling resolve. "If Julia dies, I will not bury her as I did Marian. I will burn that house down to its foundations and salt the earth beneath it. But before I do, I'll make sure whatever poison has crept through her blood—through your blood—is extracted, drop by drop." The words were a promise, a vow carved in ice.

"Spoken like a man who knows what it means to be haunted," she murmured, her eyes holding his.

He paused. Haunted? Perhaps. He had felt it, too, the creeping dread, the shadows in the corners of his vision. The ghost of Marian.

"There's a name written in Marian's journal," he said, drawing out a folded page from his coat. He unfolded it, the paper crackling, and held it up to her face. "I found it scrawled in the margins beside drawings of something... not human. A name crossed out again and again."

She paled, her eyes scanning the page, lips forming the shape of the word but refusing to say it.

Alistair said it for her. "Ormonde."

Evelyn's breath hitched, a gasp of pure terror. Then she turned and walked—no, fled—from the doorway, the hem of her gown catching on the chair leg as she passed.

Alistair followed, quietly, deliberately, like a hunter stalking prey down a narrow trail. "What is it, Evelyn?"

No answer.

"Who is it?"

Still nothing.

"Tell me what Julia saw in the dark." He pressed, his patience thinning.

Evelyn turned then, her voice cold, brittle, and utterly final. "It's not what she saw, Lord Blackwood. It's what saw her."

The hallway behind her darkened—not from the setting sun, but from the flicker of a gaslamp dimming, pulsing once, and dying with a sigh.

And in that last breath of light, Alistair saw something pass across Evelyn's face—a shadow. A reflection. A memory perhaps. Or perhaps something watching from behind him.

He didn't turn. But he no longer felt alone. The air was heavy, the silence profound. He knew, with a chilling certainty, that the game had changed. The true hunt had begun.