slvale_whispers

When Eveline Thorne inherits the crumbling estate of Greymoor, she doesn’t expect the house to remember her — or worse, mistake her for someone she’s never met.

Within its ivy-clad walls and timeworn mirrors, another version of herself lingers: Lady Eveline Harrow, a woman long dead… or not dead enough. Bound by memory, regret, and a curse that unravels time itself, Eveline is drawn into a loop of déjà vu, haunting dreams, and love that defies logic.

At the heart of it all is Rowan, a man tethered to both timelines, hiding truths behind soft eyes and silent goodbyes. As Eveline unravels the threads of her past life, she must choose whether to break the hour that binds them — or become the very ghost she fears.

A tale of echoes, fractured selves, and the hour that won’t let go.

The Gilded Hour

Eveline woke to the sound of it—a scream made of glass, sharp and sudden. She ran to the west tower, her nightdress tangled at her ankles, heart thrumming like wings against a cage.

When she arrived, the room was still.

Cracks webbed through the surface, splintering Harrow's reflection into a thousand jagged pieces—all of them still watching her.

"She's bleeding through," Rowan said from behind her. "The past is no longer past."

"Then what is it?" Eveline whispered.

"A second life trying to finish what the first one began."

They stood in silence as wind whistled through the broken panes.

"You should have told me," Eveline said. "About the curse. About what she did to you."

"Yes," she breathed. "I would've left. I would've stayed away."

He sat beside the broken mirror, gazing into a shard as if it could give him an answer he'd been running from for centuries.

"She didn't just bind me to this house," he murmured. "She bound you, too. Before you were ever born. She carved her longing into the foundation."

"You're saying… I was never free?"

"You were meant to be the vessel. A way to come back."

"But something went wrong. You became your own person. She wasn't expecting that."

"She loved you enough to curse me?"

"She loved me wrong," Rowan said. "And you're the price of that."

That night, Eveline couldn't sleep. The house moaned with age, or memory, or both. She stood before the cracked mirror again, running her fingers over its ruined face.

"You used to be me," she whispered. "But I will not become you."

The shards shifted—and assembled. Not into Harrow's face this time, but into her own. Crying.

Behind her reflection: firelight. The scent of smoke and lavender. And someone—a child? — calling her name in a voice she didn't recognize.

"Eveline," the voice cried. "Come back. You promised."

She staggered back. The mirror stilled. Her heart did not.

Downstairs, she found a letter tucked into the pages of the Harrow diary.

It was addressed to Rowan—and dated 1863.

"If I cannot have you in life, I will steal you in memory. You said forever, And I intend to collect it. Even if the clock must bleed to make it so."

Eveline turned the letter over. There, in faint graphite, a single line had been added by a second hand.

"You are not her. But you are all that remains."

No note. No trail. Only a circle of withered roses left on her pillow, and a pocket watch ticking softly on her nightstand.

"The gilded hour," Eveline whispered. "It's not just a time. It's a door."

She looked out the window. Fog was spilling across the lawn, thick and golden in the rising light.

And through it, a silhouette walked toward the house.

Chapter 13: The Promise that Broke the World