Hollow Kingdom / Season 1, Episode 2
Tremors in the Teacup
Eleanor’s fingers tightened around the chipped porcelain handle of the teacup, the faint tremor in her wrist betraying the calm she’d plastered across her face. The drawing room smelled of damp wool and ancient tobacco, the kind of scent that clung to the heavy drapes like a second skin, and the fire in the grate spat embers onto the hearth with a petulance that matched the mood. Thomas sat opposite her, his broad hands folded on the table, knuckles white as if he were bracing for a blow. Margot, perched on the arm of a sagging velvet chair, flicked ash from her cigarette into a cracked saucer, her eyes darting between them like a child watching parents bicker.
“You can’t just sit there and pretend it’s fine,” Thomas said, his voice low, rough as the gravel path outside. “He’s not coming. Not today, not tomorrow. Felix doesn’t give a damn about any of us, let alone Father’s bloody will.”
Eleanor set the teacup down with a clink that seemed to echo in the cavernous room, the sound sharper than she intended. “He’ll come. He has to. Mr. Crowe was clear—all of us, or no reading. No inheritance. Felix might be a disaster, but he’s not stupid enough to walk away from money.”
Margot let out a sharp bark of a laugh, smoke curling from her lips. “Money? You think that’s what’s waiting in that will? Christ, Ellie, you’ve been gone too long. Father didn’t have two pennies to rub together by the end. Whatever’s in there, it’s not a cheque.”
“Don’t call me that,” Eleanor snapped, her voice cutting through the haze of cigarette smoke. Her jaw tightened, and she felt the old ache in her chest, the one that always flared when she was back in this house, under this roof, with these people who knew every crack in her armour. She smoothed her tailored blazer, the fabric too crisp, too modern against the decay of Ashworth Hall, and forced her tone to level. “And don’t pretend you know what Father left. None of us do. That’s why we’re here.”
Thomas leaned forward, his chair creaking under his weight, the sound like a bone snapping in the quiet. His eyes, pale and watery like their mother’s, pinned her in place. “You don’t get it, do you? You left. You ran off to your fancy life in London, changed your name like you could erase us. But this house—it doesn’t let go. And neither does whatever Father’s cooked up in that will. Felix showing up or not, it’s going to be a mess.”
The air in the room felt heavier with every word, pressing down on Eleanor’s shoulders like a physical weight. She could taste the dust on her tongue, the faint bitterness of the tea she hadn’t touched since the first sip. The tall windows behind Thomas rattled in their frames, a gust of wind from the moor beyond sneaking through the cracks, and she suppressed a shiver. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing her flinch. Not Thomas, with his quiet resentment that had festered for decades in these walls. Not Margot, whose sharp tongue always found the softest spot to stab.
“I didn’t erase anything,” she said, her words clipped, precise, the way she spoke in court when she needed to dismantle a witness. “I built a life. Something you might not understand, Thomas, since you’ve never stepped foot past the estate gates. And Margot, if you’ve got something to say about Father’s finances, spit it out. I’m not here for riddles.”
Margot’s lips curled into a half-smile, but her eyes were cold, glinting like the chipped glass of the chandelier above. She stubbed out her cigarette with a deliberate twist, the ember hissing against the porcelain. “Oh, I’ve got plenty to say. But you wouldn’t believe me even if I painted it for you. Father wasn’t right, not at the end. And this place—” She gestured vaguely at the peeling wallpaper, the faded portraits of stern-faced ancestors staring down at them. “It’s got his madness in the bricks. You’ll see soon enough.”
Eleanor opened her mouth to retort, but a sharp rap at the door cut her off. The sound was abrupt, echoing through the room like a gunshot, and all three of them froze for a fraction of a second. Thomas’s hands unclenched, his gaze flicking to the heavy oak door as if he expected something other than a person to be on the other side. Margot’s smirk faltered, her fingers twitching toward another cigarette. Eleanor felt her pulse jump, though she told herself it was nothing—just the wind, or Mr. Crowe with news of Felix, or one of the few remaining staff who still haunted the corridors of Ashworth Hall.
Thomas pushed back his chair, the legs scraping against the uneven floorboards, and crossed the room in three long strides. He opened the door with a grunt, revealing Mr. Crowe, his narrow frame bundled in a black overcoat that looked as old as the house itself. His face, lined and sallow, carried a grimness that made Eleanor’s stomach twist. The solicitor’s hands clutched a leather portfolio, the edges worn to a dull sheen, and his eyes darted past Thomas to meet hers.
“Miss Harcourt,” he said, his voice dry as parchment, ignoring the fact that she’d never corrected him on her married name. “I’ve received word. Your brother Felix has been… delayed. An issue in London, it seems. He won’t arrive until tomorrow at the earliest.”
The room seemed to shrink around Eleanor, the walls inching closer with every breath. She stood, her heels clicking on the floor, and crossed her arms as if to shield herself from the disappointment—or perhaps the relief—that coiled in her chest. “Delayed. Of course he is. And what does this mean for the will, Mr. Crowe? Surely we don’t have to sit here twiddling our thumbs until Felix deigns to show up?”
Crowe’s lips pressed into a thin line, his fingers tightening on the portfolio. “I’m afraid the conditions are explicit, as I explained yesterday. All heirs must be present for the reading. Until Mr. Felix Ashworth arrives, I am bound by your father’s instructions to withhold the contents. However…” He hesitated, his gaze flickering to the shadowed hallway beyond the door, as if something there listened. “There is a secondary matter. A codicil, of sorts, that I am permitted to disclose now, given the delay.”
Thomas turned sharply, his bulk filling the doorway. “A codicil? What the hell does that mean? Speak plain, man.”
Crowe adjusted his wire-rimmed spectacles, the gesture slow, deliberate, as if buying time. “It means, Mr. Ashworth, that your father left a preliminary condition. One that must be met before the full will can be read, regardless of your brother’s presence. You are all required to remain within the bounds of Ashworth Hall for a period of seven nights, commencing tonight. Only then, and with all parties present, will the estate be settled.”
Margot let out a low whistle, her fingers pausing midway to her cigarette packet. “Seven nights? Here? You’ve got to be joking. This place is falling apart. There’s barely heat in half the rooms, and the plumbing’s a nightmare. What was Father playing at?”
Eleanor felt a prickle of unease crawl up her spine, cold as the draught that slipped through the window frames. Seven nights. It wasn’t just the inconvenience, though that was bad enough—her caseload in London wouldn’t wait, and she’d already burned a favour to take this time away. No, it was the way Crowe’s voice dipped on the word ‘condition,’ the way his eyes avoided hers, skittering instead to the darkened corners of the room. There was something he wasn’t saying, something coiled beneath the legal jargon, waiting to strike.
“And if we don’t?” she asked, her tone measured, testing the waters. “If one of us walks out before the seven nights are up? What then?”
Crowe’s mouth twitched, a shadow of something—regret, perhaps, or fear—passing across his weathered face. “Then, Miss Harcourt, the estate reverts to an alternative provision. I am not at liberty to disclose the details of that provision, but I assure you, your father was… insistent that it would be to no one’s benefit.”
The silence that followed was thick, suffocating, broken only by the faint crackle of the fire and the distant howl of wind across the moor. Eleanor’s mind raced, picking apart Crowe’s words like a brief she needed to dissect for flaws. An alternative provision. A threat, then, dressed up in legalese. She glanced at Thomas, whose face had darkened, his jaw working as if chewing on something bitter. Margot, meanwhile, had gone still, her usual restlessness replaced by a quiet that felt more dangerous than her barbs.
“Right, then,” Thomas muttered at last, stepping back from the door to let Crowe fully enter. “Seven nights. Guess we’re stuck with each other, whether Felix shows or not. Best get the guest rooms sorted, hadn’t we?”
Crowe nodded, though his posture remained stiff, his hands still clutching the portfolio as if it were a lifeline. “I’ll have the staff prepare what they can. Though, as Miss Margot noted, the house is not in its prime. You may find certain… discomforts. I suggest you each choose a room in the west wing. The east is… not suitable at present.”
Eleanor caught the hesitation in his voice, the way his gaze flicked again to the hallway, and her unease sharpened into something closer to dread. Not suitable. What did that mean? She remembered the east wing from her childhood, the long corridor sealed off after Mother’s death, the heavy padlock on the door that Father had forbidden them to touch. She’d always assumed it was grief, or some practical reason—structural damage, perhaps. But now, with Crowe’s cryptic warnings and the weight of Father’s final game hanging over them, she wasn’t so sure.
“Fine,” she said, keeping her voice steady, though her palms felt clammy against the wool of her trousers. “West wing it is. I’ll take the blue room, if it’s still standing. Thomas, you’ll show us up?”
Thomas grunted, already turning toward the grand staircase that loomed beyond the drawing room doors, its banister warped and blackened with age. Margot stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette and rose, her boots scuffing against the floor as she followed, muttering something under her breath about traps and cages. Crowe lingered a moment longer, his eyes meeting Eleanor’s with an intensity that made her skin crawl.
“Miss Harcourt,” he said quietly, almost a whisper, as the others moved out of earshot. “A word of caution. Ashworth Hall has stood for centuries, and not all its history is written in the ledgers. Be mindful of where you tread, especially after dark.”
Her breath caught, though she masked it with a curt nod. “I’m not a child, Mr. Crowe. I don’t scare easily.”
But as she turned to follow her siblings, the solicitor’s words echoed in her mind, and the house seemed to pulse around her, the shadows in the corners stretching just a little longer, the air just a little colder. She told herself it was nothing—just fatigue, just the weight of being back in a place she’d sworn never to return to. Yet as she climbed the creaking stairs, each step groaning underfoot like a warning, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something watched her from the darkened landings above, waiting for the first night to fall.
They reached the west wing corridor, a narrow passage lined with doors that hadn’t been opened in years, if the cobwebs lacing the handles were any indication. The air here was stale, thick with the scent of mould and forgotten things, and the single bulb flickering overhead cast jagged shadows across the walls. Thomas stopped at the first door, shoving it open with his shoulder to reveal a room draped in dust sheets, the bedframe sagging like an old man’s spine.
“Blue room’s down the end,” he said, not looking at Eleanor as he spoke. “You’ll want to air it out. Windows stick, mind. I’ll fetch some blankets from the linen press—assuming the moths haven’t got to them.”
Margot snorted, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. “Charming. Seven nights in a mausoleum. Should’ve brought my easel—plenty of inspiration for a still life of decay.”
Eleanor ignored her, moving past to the end of the corridor where the blue room waited. The door handle was cold under her palm, the metal biting into her skin as she turned it with a rasp of rust. Inside, the room was as she remembered it, though time had dulled the once-vivid wallpaper to a sickly grey, the floral pattern barely discernible beneath layers of grime. The bed was unmade, the mattress bare and stained, and the wardrobe door hung ajar, revealing nothing but empty hangers and a faint whiff of camphor.
She crossed to the window, wrestling with the sash until it gave with a groan, letting in a blast of icy air from the moor. The view was unchanged—rolling hills of heather and gorse, stretching into a horizon bruised with storm clouds. But it wasn’t the landscape that made her breath hitch. It was the sound, faint but unmistakable, carried on the wind: a low, rhythmic tapping, like fingernails against wood, coming from somewhere deep within the house.
Her hand froze on the window frame, splinters pricking her skin as she listened. The tapping wasn’t steady—it paused, then resumed, almost as if testing for a response. She told herself it was pipes, or the wind rattling loose shutters, but the explanation felt hollow, a lie she couldn’t quite believe. Her gaze darted to the corridor beyond her open door, where Thomas and Margot’s voices murmured faintly, and for a moment, she considered calling out to them, asking if they heard it too.
But she didn’t. Instead, she shut the window with more force than necessary, the glass rattling in its frame, and turned back to the room, her heart thudding against her ribs. Seven nights, she thought, the words looping in her mind like a mantra—or a curse. Seven nights, and whatever Father had planned for them, whatever lay hidden in the will or in the sealed east wing, was already stirring. She could feel it in the way the floorboards creaked underfoot, in the way the shadows seemed to linger just out of sight, waiting for the dark to deepen.
[Approximate word count: 3,000. Story pauses here with rising tension around the mysterious tapping sound and the ominous weight of the seven-night condition, setting the stage for further developments in Part 2.]
Eleanor stood frozen in the half-light of her old bedroom, the echo of the window slamming shut still vibrating through her fingers. The tapping had stopped—or she thought it had. Her ears strained against the quiet, searching for that uneven rhythm, but all she caught was the faint wheeze of her own breath and the distant murmur of Thomas and Margot down the hall. The air in the room felt heavier now, pressing against her skin, thick with the must of old curtains and something sharper, something she couldn’t name. She moved toward the bed, her bare feet flinching at the cold bite of the floorboards, each step deliberate, as if the house itself might shift beneath her.
She didn’t sit. Couldn’t. Instead, she hovered by the edge of the mattress, her eyes flicking to the wardrobe in the corner. It loomed there, a hulking silhouette of dark oak, its doors slightly ajar, just as they’d been when she was a child. She’d always hated that wardrobe—hated the way it seemed to watch her, the way its cracked varnish caught the light like a smirk. As a girl, she’d stuffed blankets into the gap to keep it shut, convinced something inside shifted at night. Now, staring at it, she felt that same childish dread clawing up her throat, though she was forty-five, a barrister who’d faced down murderers in court without blinking. Ridiculous, she told herself, but her hand twitched toward the bedside lamp, fumbling with the switch until a weak yellow glow spilled across the room.
The light didn’t help. If anything, it made the shadows sharper, stretching the wardrobe’s outline across the wall like a stain. She forced herself to turn away, her gaze landing on the small leather suitcase she’d brought from London. It sat by the door, unopened, a reminder of the life she’d built far from here—a life where she was Eleanor Harcourt, not Ashworth, where her past was a neatly filed deposition, not this rotting pile of stone and memory. But the suitcase looked wrong here, too modern, too clean against the peeling wallpaper and the dust that clung to everything like a second skin. She crossed to it, kneeling to unzip the top, needing something familiar to anchor her—her planner, her phone, anything—but as her fingers brushed the zipper, a sharp creak sliced through the silence.
Her head snapped up. The sound had come from above, from the attic, she thought, or perhaps the corridor ceiling. It wasn’t the tapping from before; this was heavier, deliberate, like a footfall testing old wood. Her pulse kicked against her wrist, and she straightened slowly, her knees protesting as she rose. The house was old, she reasoned, full of settling beams and warped floors, but the thought felt flimsy, a paper shield against whatever was prickling at the edge of her senses. She glanced at the door again, still ajar, the sliver of hallway beyond dark and empty. Thomas and Margot’s voices had gone quiet, or maybe she just couldn’t hear them over the blood rushing in her ears.
“Get a grip,” she muttered under her breath, the words sharp but trembling at the edges. She wasn’t some frightened child anymore, jumping at every groan of the house. She was here for the will, for whatever legal tangle Father had left behind, and then she’d be gone. Seven nights. She could survive that. She had to. But even as she repeated the mantra, her eyes darted back to the ceiling, tracking the path of that creak as if she could see through plaster and timber to whatever—or whoever—moved above.
She stepped into the hallway before she could talk herself out of it, her bare feet silent on the threadbare runner. The air out here was colder, carrying the faint tang of damp stone and something sweeter, almost cloying, like overripe fruit. The corridor stretched both ways, dim and endless, the few sconces casting pools of light that didn’t quite reach the corners. To her left, the stairs descended into the main hall, where she knew Thomas and Margot would be, probably still arguing over who’d handle the funeral arrangements. To her right, the passage led toward the east wing, sealed off for as long as she could remember, its doors bolted with iron that no one dared touch. Father had forbidden it, his voice like thunder when she’d once asked why as a girl. “Some things are better left alone, Eleanor,” he’d snapped, his eyes hard in a way that had made her flinch. She hadn’t asked again.
Now, though, her gaze lingered on that end of the corridor, on the heavy oak door that marked the boundary. A faint draught seeped from beneath it, brushing against her ankles like a whisper, and for a moment, she thought she heard something—a low hum, or maybe a sigh, so soft it might have been her imagination. Her chest tightened, and she took an involuntary step back, her shoulder brushing the wall. The plaster was rough under her palm, crumbling slightly, and she yanked her hand away as if it had burned her.
“Ellie?” Thomas’s voice cut through the quiet, low and rough, coming from the stairwell. She turned sharply, her breath catching, and saw his silhouette at the top of the stairs, half in shadow, his broad frame filling the space. He hadn’t called her Ellie in years, not since she’d left, and the nickname grated now, too familiar for the distance between them. His face was unreadable in the dim light, but his hands hung loose at his sides, fingers twitching slightly, a habit she remembered from when they were children and he was nervous.
“Did you hear that?” she asked, her voice sharper than she meant it to be. She didn’t specify what—she didn’t need to. Thomas had lived here his whole life, never left, never escaped. If anyone knew the house’s noises, it was him.
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stepped closer, his boots heavy on the runner, the sound deliberate, almost too loud in the stillness. His eyes flicked past her, down the corridor toward the east wing, and something flickered across his face—unease, maybe, or recognition. “House is old,” he said finally, his tone flat, but there was a tightness to it, a crack in the usual gruff certainty. “Always making sounds. You’ll get used to it again.”
“I’m not staying long enough to get used to anything,” she shot back, folding her arms across her chest. The cold bit through her thin blouse, and she regretted not grabbing a cardigan. “But that wasn’t just settling. It was… deliberate. Up there.” She tilted her chin toward the ceiling, watching his reaction.
Thomas’s jaw tightened, a muscle ticking beneath the stubble. He rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture so familiar it tugged at something in her, a memory of him standing in the kitchen as teenagers, lying to Father about where she’d gone after curfew. “Attic’s locked,” he said, avoiding her gaze. “Has been for years. Nothing up there but cobwebs and rot. Probably just the wind pushing through a crack.”
“You don’t believe that,” she said, stepping closer, her voice dropping. “I can see it on your face, Tom. What aren’t you saying?”
He met her eyes then, and for a moment, she saw something raw there, something that looked a lot like fear. But it was gone as quickly as it came, buried under the same stubborn mask he’d worn for decades. “You’ve been gone a long time, Ellie. You don’t know this place anymore. Don’t go looking for things that aren’t there.”
The words stung, more than she expected. She wanted to argue, to press him until he cracked, but the weight of the house pressed down on her, the shadows in the corridor seeming to thicken with every second. Before she could respond, a faint thud echoed from above again, softer this time, almost tentative, like a child testing a locked door. Her skin prickled, and she saw Thomas’s shoulders tense, though he didn’t turn to look.
“Margot’s downstairs,” he said abruptly, changing the subject with all the subtlety of a brick. “She’s asking for you. Something about the paintings she brought. Says they’re… important.” He hesitated on the last word, as if it tasted wrong in his mouth.
Eleanor frowned, the shift in topic jarring. Margot and her paintings—always so bloody cryptic, always claiming some deeper meaning no one else could see. But there was something in Thomas’s tone, a reluctance that made her pause. “Fine,” she said at last, her voice clipped. “But this isn’t over. Whatever’s going on here, I’m not blind, and I’m not stupid.”
Thomas didn’t reply, just stepped aside to let her pass, his eyes lingering on the east wing door as she moved toward the stairs. She felt his gaze on her back, heavy and unspoken, and the air seemed to grow colder with each step she took downward, the banister slick under her palm, the wood groaning as if it resented her weight.
The main hall was dim when she reached it, the chandelier unlit, its crystals catching only the faint glow from a single lamp on the side table. Margot sat cross-legged on the floor near the hearth, surrounded by a scatter of canvases, her dark hair spilling over one shoulder as she bent over a sketchbook. The room smelled of turpentine and damp ash, the fireplace cold and black, and Eleanor’s nose wrinkled as she approached. Margot didn’t look up, her pencil moving in quick, jagged strokes, the sound scraping against the quiet.
“You wanted me?” Eleanor asked, stopping a few feet away, her arms still crossed. She didn’t sit. Didn’t want to. The floor looked too cold, too close to the paintings, which even from here unsettled her—swirls of shadow and light that didn’t resolve into anything recognizable, yet felt… wrong, somehow.
Margot’s pencil paused, hovering over the page. She tilted her head slightly, not quite meeting Eleanor’s gaze, her eyes fixed somewhere beyond her. “I saw something,” she said, her voice soft but threaded with something urgent, something that made Eleanor’s stomach twist. “In the lines. In the shapes. It’s coming together, Ellie. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s important. You need to see.”
Eleanor’s patience, already thin, frayed further. “Margot, I’m not in the mood for your riddles. If you’ve got something to say, say it. I’ve just spent the last ten minutes listening to the house play tricks, and Thomas pretending he doesn’t hear a thing. So what is it?”
Margot finally looked up, her eyes wide and bright, too bright, like she hadn’t slept in days. There was paint smudged on her cheek, a streak of deep crimson that looked almost like blood in the dim light, and her hands trembled slightly as she set the pencil down. “It’s not a riddle,” she said, quieter now, almost a whisper. “It’s a warning. I’ve been sketching since we got here, and… it’s not just random. The house is in them. The corridors, the rooms. And something else. Something moving through it all.”
Eleanor’s throat tightened, though she tried to keep her expression neutral. She didn’t want to encourage this—Margot had always been dramatic, always seeing things where there was nothing—but the memory of that creak, that tapping, clawed at the back of her mind. “Show me,” she said at last, the words coming out more curtly than she intended.
Margot scrambled to her feet, nearly knocking over a canvas as she did, and grabbed one of the larger ones leaning against the wall. She turned it toward Eleanor with a kind of desperate energy, her fingers smudging the edges. The painting was unfinished, just rough strokes of charcoal and muted oils, but it was unmistakable: a corridor, long and dark, with a door at the end half-open, spilling shadow like ink. And in the foreground, barely visible, a figure—or the suggestion of one, its form blurred, its edges bleeding into the background. Eleanor’s breath caught, not because it was beautiful, but because it felt wrong, like looking at something she wasn’t meant to see.
“That’s the east wing,” Margot said, her voice barely above a whisper now. “I’ve never been inside, you know that. Father wouldn’t allow it. But I saw this last night, in my head, clear as if I’d walked it. And that… thing. It’s waiting there. I don’t know what it is, but it’s waiting.”
Eleanor stared at the canvas, her hands clenching at her sides. She wanted to dismiss it, to tell Margot she was losing her mind, that grief or exhaustion or whatever else was twisting her thoughts. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d seen that corridor before—not in reality, but in the corners of her memory, in the nightmares she’d had as a child, waking up gasping with the sense of something watching from just beyond her door. Her mouth went dry, and she forced herself to look away, to meet Margot’s gaze instead.
“You’re tired,” she said, though the words felt hollow even to her. “We all are. This place… it gets under your skin. Always has. Don’t let it.”
Margot shook her head, her expression fierce now, almost angry. “You don’t get it, Ellie. You never did. You left, you ran, but I stayed. Thomas stayed. We’ve seen things—felt things—you wouldn’t believe. And now it’s waking up. Because we’re all here again. It’s been waiting for us.”
The words hung in the air, heavy and sharp, and for a moment, Eleanor couldn’t speak. She wanted to argue, to snap back with something cutting, but the weight of Margot’s certainty, the rawness in her voice, stopped her. And then, from somewhere deep in the house—beyond the hall, beyond the stairs—a low groan echoed, not wood settling, not wind, but something guttural, almost alive. It rolled through the walls, vibrating underfoot, and both women froze, their eyes locking.
Eleanor’s heart slammed against her ribs, her mind racing for an explanation, any explanation, but none came. Margot’s hand gripped her arm, fingers digging in hard enough to hurt, and her voice was a hiss when she spoke. “You hear it now, don’t you? You can’t run from this, Ellie. None of us can.”
The groan came again, louder, closer, and Eleanor felt the floor tilt under her, though she knew it hadn’t moved. Her gaze darted to the hall, to the shadows pooling at the base of the stairs, and she realized with a sick jolt that Thomas was no longer at the top. He was gone, or hidden, and the house felt suddenly, suffocatingly vast, every corner a threat. Seven nights, she thought again, the words a drumbeat in her skull, and for the first time since arriving, she understood—truly understood—that whatever Father had left for them, whatever lay sealed in the east wing or buried in the will, it wasn’t just money or property. It was something older, something hungrier, and it was awake.
Eleanor’s breath caught in her throat, a sharp, ragged thing that scratched as it went down. The groan from the house—or whatever lived within its bones—lingered in the air, a low, predatory hum that seemed to curl around her ankles like damp fog. Margot’s grip on her arm tightened, her nails biting into the flesh through Eleanor’s thin blouse, and for a moment, neither of them moved. The hall stretched before them, dim and endless, the gas lamps flickering as if they, too, were holding their breath. Shadows clung to the edges of the oak panelling, thick and oily, and Eleanor’s eyes strained to find Thomas, to catch a glimpse of his familiar slouch at the top of the stairs. But there was nothing. Just the dark, and the weight of Margot’s stare boring into her.
“Say something,” Margot hissed, her voice low, almost a growl. “Don’t just stand there like you’ve got it all figured out. You heard it. I know you did.”
Eleanor’s mouth opened, but no sound came. Her mind churned, grasping for logic, for the courtroom clarity she wielded like a blade in London. Old houses creak, she told herself. Foundations shift. Pipes moan under strain. But the words felt hollow, flimsy against the memory of that sound—not mechanical, not natural, but deliberate. Like a throat clearing in the dark. Her hand slid along the wall beside her, seeking the solidity of plaster and wood, something to anchor her, but the surface was cold, unnaturally so, as if the house itself were leaching warmth from her skin.
“I don’t—” she started, then stopped, her voice betraying her with a tremble. She swallowed, tried again. “I don’t know what I heard. It’s an old house, Margot. It’s falling apart. You know that.”
Margot’s laugh was sharp, a bark that cut through the quiet. “Falling apart? That’s your answer? Christ, Ellie, you’ve been gone too long. You think this place is just rotting wood and bad plumbing?” She released Eleanor’s arm with a shove, stepping back, her boots scuffing against the threadbare runner. Her eyes, wild and bright in the lamplight, darted to the ceiling, then back to Eleanor. “It’s not falling apart. It’s waiting. Always has been. And now you’re here, it’s got what it wants.”
Eleanor’s stomach twisted, a cold knot tightening at the base of her spine. She wanted to snap back, to tell Margot she was unhinged, seeing things that weren’t there, but the words wouldn’t form. Not when her own pulse was hammering in her ears, not when every creak of the floorboards underfoot felt like a warning. Instead, she forced herself to straighten, to draw on the steel she’d forged over decades in courtrooms, facing down men who thought they could intimidate her with a glare. “Enough,” she said, her voice low, clipped. “I’m not here for ghost stories. I’m here for the will, for whatever Father left, and then I’m gone. Seven nights. That’s it.”
Margot’s face shifted, a flicker of something—hurt, maybe, or pity—crossing her features before they hardened again. “You think it’s that simple? You think you can just walk away again?” She took a step closer, her voice dropping to a whisper, raw and urgent. “You don’t get it, do you? This isn’t about money or land. It’s about us. All of us. And what we owe.”
Eleanor’s jaw tightened, her teeth grinding together. She wanted to ask what Margot meant, to demand clarity, but the house groaned again—a deep, resonant shudder that rolled through the walls like a wave. It was closer this time, as if whatever made the sound had shifted, drawn nearer. Her eyes flicked to the hall, to the shadowed archway leading to the drawing room, and for a fleeting second, she thought she saw movement. A shape, indistinct, hovering at the edge of her vision. But when she turned her head, there was nothing. Just the dark, and the faint smell of mildew seeping from the wallpaper.
“Where’s Thomas?” she asked suddenly, her voice sharper than she intended. She turned back to Margot, who was staring at the same archway, her expression unreadable. “He was just there, at the top of the stairs. Where’d he go?”
Margot didn’t answer immediately. Her hands twitched at her sides, fingers curling and uncurling, as if she were itching to paint, to capture whatever she saw in her mind’s eye. Finally, she muttered, “He’s always disappearing. You’d think after all these years, he’d be tethered to this place, but he’s got his corners. His hiding spots. Probably in the kitchen, pretending he doesn’t hear what we hear.”
Eleanor’s brow furrowed. She didn’t like the way Margot said it, the implication that Thomas knew more than he let on, that he was complicit in whatever strangeness clung to Ashworth Hall. She opened her mouth to press further, but a new sound cut her off—a faint, rhythmic tapping, like fingernails against wood, coming from somewhere above. Her head snapped up, eyes tracing the ceiling, where the plaster was cracked and yellowed, sagging under the weight of time. The tapping paused, then resumed, slower, deliberate, as if testing her resolve.
“That’s not Thomas,” Margot said, her voice flat, almost resigned. She didn’t look up, didn’t need to. “That’s not anyone.”
Eleanor’s skin prickled, a wave of gooseflesh rising on her arms despite the heavy wool of her coat. She wanted to argue, to insist it was a loose shutter or a branch against a window, but the rhythm of the tapping felt too human, too intentional. Her mind flashed to the sealed east wing, to Mr. Crowe’s cryptic warnings during their brief meeting earlier that day—how he’d avoided her gaze when she’d asked what lay behind the locked doors, his hands trembling as he shuffled the papers of the will. “Don’t concern yourself with that wing, Mrs. Harcourt,” he’d said, his voice thin as paper. “Your father’s instructions are clear. It remains closed until the appointed time.”
The appointed time. The phrase echoed in her skull now, a taunt. What time? After the will was read? After the seven nights? Or was it tied to something else, something none of them understood yet? She shook her head, trying to dislodge the thought, and turned to Margot. “We need to find Thomas. I’m not standing here listening to—to whatever that is. Come on.”
Margot hesitated, her gaze lingering on the ceiling, as if she could see through the plaster to whatever made the sound. Then she nodded, a jerky, reluctant motion, and followed Eleanor as they moved toward the staircase. The air grew heavier with each step, thick with the scent of dust and something sweeter, cloying, like overripe fruit left to rot. Eleanor’s boots echoed on the worn treads, each creak of the wood beneath her a small betrayal, announcing her presence to whatever listened. She kept her eyes forward, refusing to look into the shadowed corners, though she felt them watching, felt the weight of unseen eyes pressing against her back.
At the top of the stairs, the corridor split in two directions—west toward the bedrooms, east toward the sealed wing. The tapping had stopped, replaced by a suffocating silence that seemed to hum with anticipation. Eleanor paused, her hand resting on the chipped banister, the wood slick and cold under her palm. “Thomas?” she called, her voice carrying down the hall, but there was no answer, just the faint echo of her own words bouncing back. She glanced at Margot, whose expression had shifted again, her lips pressed into a thin line, her eyes darting toward the east wing’s heavy oak door, reinforced with iron bolts that gleamed dully in the lamplight.
“Don’t even think about it,” Eleanor snapped, catching the direction of her sister’s gaze. “Crowe said it’s locked for a reason. We’re not breaking in.”
Margot’s mouth twitched, a half-smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “And you trust Crowe? That old vulture? He’s been Father’s lapdog for forty years. He knows what’s behind that door, and he’s not telling us. Don’t you want to know, Ellie? Don’t you want to see what Father was hiding all this time?”
Eleanor’s throat tightened. Of course she wanted to know. The curiosity gnawed at her, a persistent ache she couldn’t shake, but so did the fear—the bone-deep certainty that whatever lay beyond that door was not meant to be disturbed. She shook her head, her voice firm despite the tremor in her chest. “Not yet. Not until the will is read. We stick to the rules, Margot. That’s how we get through this.”
Margot’s half-smile faded, replaced by a look of raw frustration. “Rules,” she muttered, spitting the word like it tasted bitter. “Father’s rules. Always his rules. And look where they got us.” She turned away, her shoulders hunching as she started down the west corridor, toward the bedrooms. “Fine. Let’s find Thomas. But don’t pretend you’re not curious. I see it in you. Always have.”
Eleanor watched her go, her own hands clenching at her sides. Margot was right, damn her. The curiosity burned, a coal in her chest, but so did the dread. She lingered a moment longer, her gaze drawn inexorably to the east wing door. The iron bolts seemed to pulse in the dim light, a silent challenge, and for a fleeting second, she imagined herself crossing the hall, testing the lock, prying it open. What would she find? Dust and decay, or something worse? Something alive?
She tore her eyes away, forcing herself to follow Margot. The corridor was narrower here, the walls pressing in, lined with portraits of Ashworth ancestors whose painted eyes seemed to track her every step. The air was colder, too, a damp chill that seeped into her bones, and the smell of rot grew stronger, mingling with something metallic, like old blood. She quickened her pace, catching up to Margot just as her sister stopped outside Thomas’s old room, the door ajar, a sliver of darkness peeking through.
“Thomas?” Margot called, her voice softer now, almost tentative. She pushed the door open wider, revealing a room untouched by time—dusty shelves lined with books, a narrow bed with a sagging mattress, a cracked window letting in slivers of moonlight. But no Thomas. Just the faint rustle of curtains stirring in a draft that shouldn’t have been there, not with the window shut tight.
Eleanor stepped inside, her boots scuffing against the warped floorboards. The air was stale, heavy with the scent of mildew and something sharper, like burnt paper. Her eyes scanned the room, landing on a small desk in the corner, cluttered with papers and an old inkwell, the pen still resting in its holder as if Thomas had stepped away mid-sentence. She moved closer, drawn by a compulsion she couldn’t name, and saw that the top sheet was covered in scrawled notes, the handwriting jagged, frantic. Words jumped out at her—listen, walls, below—before Margot’s hand clamped down on her wrist, pulling her back.
“Don’t,” Margot hissed, her voice tight with something that might have been fear. “Don’t read it. Not yet. He’ll know if you do.”
Eleanor yanked her hand free, irritation flaring. “He’ll know? What does that even mean? He’s not here, Margot. And if he’s hiding something, I damn well want to know what it is.”
Margot’s eyes narrowed, but before she could answer, a new sound sliced through the quiet—a low, keening wail, faint but unmistakable, rising from somewhere deep in the house. It wasn’t human, not quite, but it carried a weight of anguish that made Eleanor’s chest ache. She froze, her breath hitching, as the sound grew louder, threading through the walls like a needle through fabric. Margot’s face paled, her earlier defiance crumbling, and for the first time since Eleanor had arrived, she looked genuinely afraid.
“That’s not Thomas either,” Margot whispered, her voice barely audible. “That’s… that’s something else.”
Eleanor’s mind raced, grasping for explanations, but none fit. Not pipes, not wind, not even an animal trapped in the attic. The wail was too raw, too full of intent. She backed toward the door, her hand brushing against the frame, the wood rough and splintered under her fingers. “We need to find him,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. “Now. Wherever he is, we’re not splitting up again.”
Margot nodded, a quick, jerky motion, and together they stepped back into the corridor. The wail faded as they moved, but the silence that replaced it was worse, heavy with expectation. They checked the other bedrooms—Margot’s, with its easel and half-finished canvases smeared with violent reds and blacks; Eleanor’s old room, stripped bare except for a cracked mirror that reflected nothing but shadow; even Felix’s, though he hadn’t arrived yet, the bed unmade as if he’d left only hours ago. But Thomas was nowhere. The house seemed to swallow him whole, hiding him in its labyrinth of corridors and locked doors.
They descended the stairs again, the air growing thicker, the smell of rot now tinged with something acrid, like smoke. Eleanor’s heart thudded against her ribs, each beat a reminder of the seven nights stretching ahead, each one a gauntlet she wasn’t sure she could run. They reached the ground floor, the hall stretching before them once more, and Margot stopped suddenly, her head tilting as if listening to something Eleanor couldn’t hear.
“There,” she said, pointing toward the kitchen at the back of the house. “I hear him. I think.”
Eleanor strained her ears but caught nothing beyond the distant drip of a leak somewhere in the walls. Still, she followed, her boots echoing on the stone floor as they passed through the dining room, its long table shrouded in dust, and into the kitchen beyond. The room was cavernous, its iron stove cold and rusted, the air sharp with the tang of old grease. And there, at the far end, stood Thomas, his back to them, hunched over the sink as if washing something they couldn’t see. His shoulders were tense, his movements slow, deliberate, and for a moment, Eleanor thought he hadn’t heard them enter.
“Thomas,” she said, her voice cutting through the quiet. “What the hell are you doing? We’ve been calling for you.”
He didn’t turn immediately. His hands stilled, water dripping from his fingers into the basin with a hollow plink-plink-plink. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, rough, as if dragged from somewhere deep. “Didn’t hear you,” he said, still facing away. “Was busy.”
“Busy?” Margot snapped, stepping forward, her boots scuffing against the flagstones. “The house is groaning like it’s alive, something’s tapping upstairs, and you’re—what, washing dishes? Turn around, Tom. Look at us.”
Thomas exhaled, a long, shuddering sound, and finally turned. His face was pale, almost grey in the dim light filtering through the grimy window, and his eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with exhaustion. But it wasn’t his appearance that made Eleanor’s breath catch—it was what he held. In his left hand, clenched so tight his knuckles were white, was a small, tarnished key, its teeth jagged and worn, as if it had been used a thousand times. He saw her looking and quickly shoved it into his pocket, but not before she caught the faint tremble in his fingers.
“What’s that?” Eleanor asked, her voice sharp, lawyer-sharp, the tone she used to cut through lies. “The key, Thomas. What’s it for?”
He didn’t answer. His gaze flicked to Margot, then back to Eleanor, and for a moment, she thought he might bolt, might disappear into the house again. But then he shrugged, a jerky, unconvincing motion, and muttered, “Nothing. Just… something I found. Old thing. Doesn’t open anything.”
“Liar,” Margot said, her voice low, dangerous. She took another step closer, her eyes locked on his pocket. “You’ve been hiding things since we got here. Since before that, probably. What’s it open, Tom? Tell us, or I swear I’ll—”
“Enough!” Eleanor cut in, her patience fraying at the edges. She stepped between them, her hands raised, though her own nerves were strung tight as wire. “We’re not doing this. Not now. Whatever that key is, whatever you’re not saying, Thomas, it can wait until Felix gets here. Until the will is read. We stick together. That’s the only way we get through this.”
Thomas’s jaw worked, a muscle twitching in his cheek, but he nodded, slow and reluctant. Margot glared at him, her hands balled into fists, but she didn’t press further. The tension hung between them, thick and suffocating, and Eleanor felt the weight of the house pressing down again, its walls seeming to lean in, listening.
“Come on,” she said finally, her voice quieter now, though no less firm. “We’ll wait in the drawing room. All of us. No more hiding. No more disappearing.”
They moved as one, back through the dining room and into the drawing room, where the fire had died to embers, casting long, flickering shadows across the faded wallpaper. Eleanor sat first, choosing a high-backed chair near the hearth, her hands clasped tight in her lap to hide their trembling. Thomas took the sofa, his posture stiff, one hand resting over the pocket with the key. Margot paced, unable to sit, her boots scuffing against the rug with each restless step.
The house was quiet now, unnaturally so, as if holding its breath. But Eleanor knew better than to trust the silence. She felt it, deep in her marrow—the certainty that something had shifted tonight, that Thomas’s key, whatever it unlocked, was a piece of the puzzle their father had left behind. A piece that might destroy them all before the seven nights were through. And as she stared into the dying fire, the embers glowing like eyes in the dark, she realized with a cold, sinking dread that she wasn’t just here for the will. She was here for answers, whether she wanted them or not, and the house would have its due.