The Third Time

She didn't remember climbing back up the stairs.

Not from the hidden chamber. Not from the basement. Not even from the hall.

But here she was.

In the hallway just outside her bedroom, Evelyn's journal still clutched to her chest. Her hands were smeared with red dust from the old vellum. Her fingers trembled as though they no longer belonged to her.

The house was too quiet now.

No creaking floorboards.

No heartbeat in the walls.

Just silence.

That was when the whisper came again. Not from below. Not from the corners.

From behind her.

Right behind her.

And it said her name for the third time.

"Anna."

Not loud.

Not soft.

Just certain.

She turned around—and saw the hallway was wrong.

Too long. The doors too far apart. The walls wet, like they were sweating.

And at the end of the corridor stood a figure.

It was her.

Anna.

But not quite.

The eyes were sunken, dark. The jaw slack. A slow, twisting grin that didn't belong on her face. Her doppelgänger cocked its head and took a step forward.

"I've been here longer than you think," the Other-Anna whispered. "I was the first to run. You'll be the last."

Anna backed away, heart pounding, journal pressed to her chest like a shield.

"You're not real," she said. "You're not me."

But her double only smiled wider.

"I'm what's left after Dorma speaks your name."

And then the walls began to bleed.

A thin line of black-red ichor seeped from the seams in the floorboards, dripping down the baseboards like tears. The house shuddered, and the lights flickered, and Anna felt something tighten around her throat.

Not a hand.

A memory.

Her mother's voice, from long ago.

"Never go below the third stair."

"Never say yes to a whisper."

"And if the floor moves beneath you—run."

Anna ran.

She ran blindly, the house reshaping around her, doors melting, corridors folding like paper. No matter where she turned, the doppelgänger was behind her, closer each time.

Until she burst into the parlor—and saw the trapdoor wide open.

The air that rose from it was sweet. Sickly. It smelled like memory and rot and lullabies. But she knew what she had to do.

Anna threw the journal into the fire.

The flames turned violet.

The house screamed.

Every window shattered. Every door slammed open and shut. And in the reflection of the fireplace glass, Anna saw the figure—her double—writhing, burning. Turning inside out as Dorma howled through her face.

Anna dropped to her knees, ears bleeding, eyes wide.

And then—silence again.

But this time, not empty.

This time, watching.

The house had stopped moving. The shadows pulled back.

But Anna knew it wasn't over.

The fire crackled.

The journal was gone.

And beneath the floorboards, something purred.

The memory nest and the stairs to the attic had always been hidden. Not locked. Just… unseen.

But now, with the journal burned and the whisper silenced—for now—the house seemed to allow her passage. Almost like it wanted her to go up.

She found the pull-string by accident, behind a threadbare curtain in the upstairs hallway. When she tugged it, the ladder dropped like a corpse uncoiling from a noose. The air that came down was thick with dust, the scent of mothballs and something older—like forgotten paper and dried flowers left on a grave.

Anna climbed.

The attic was pitch black.

Until her foot hit the top rung.

Then the lights flicked on—not from bulbs, but from fireflies. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. They swirled in slow patterns through the air, casting a golden glow that lit the space like a cathedral.

And all around her—stacked high and impossibly organized—were boxes.

Hundreds of them.

Each one labeled with a name.

She stepped forward and read the nearest: EDITH MORWEN – 1863–1879.