Yes. That must be it.
I lie here now, alone in my bed, listening.
Elizabeth cries every night.
She weeps softly, just beyond the walls, as though the house itself is grieving her death. I hear her most clearly when I try to sleep.
Sometimes she whispers my name, beckoning me as though desperate to warn me—or claim me.
Sometimes I wonder if it is she who wishes to drive me insane. Perhaps she is jealous. Perhaps shewishes to bury me beneath these stone walls of Blackthorn with her…
Poe is perched near the panel by the hearth again, staring at it with that knowing tilt of his head. I believe that is where she is. Where she waits.
He knows something. I am certain of it. But my thoughts scatter before I can catch them, slipping through my fingers like water. I feel myself unraveling even as I write this.
I am falling.
I know I am lying safely in my bed, yet it feels as though the floor has given way beneath me. The walls seem nearer than they were yesterday.
And I fear—truly fear—that I will die here, swallowed whole by Blackthorn, while everyone insists I am merely resting.
I must stop now.
The house is listening. —L
Chapter 19
The crying was relentless.
It began, as it did every night, with a sound. It was thin and sorrowful, then progressed into a soft, broken wailing.
Elizabeth was crying again.
The sound curled around the corners of my mind, refusing to let me sleep. My eyes opened slowly, listening.
The fire burned low now, reduced to a soft nest of embers. The shadows had grown longer, the corners of the room sinking into thick velvet darkness. Pale moonlight pooled on the floor like spilled milk, silvering the bedposts and my bare toes as I sat up.
I didn’t think. I simply moved.
The blanket slipped from my shoulders. The air was cool against my arms, but I didn’t reach for my robe. Ipadded to the door, my hand finding the latch as if it had done so many times before. It gave without a sound.
Not locked as I had expected.
I turned, glancing back at Poe’s sleeping form upon the mantle before slipping out quietly.
The corridor beyond was still. Hollow.
But the crying continued–somewhere distant, like the echo of a voice trapped under water.
I followed it.
My feet carried me through the halls with a strange, boneless ease. I was aware of myself, but not entirely in myself, as though I watched from just above my own shoulder. The sconces were unlit, but the moon illuminated the halls in strips and spears of light that only made the shadows blacker.
I passed a mirror. For a moment, I didn’t see my reflection. That should’ve frightened me, but it didn’t.
I simply kept walking.
The sound led me toward the east wing. The air chilled around me. The walls narrowed, and the floor sloped subtly downward. I moved slowly, my hand trailing along the worn wallpaper for guidance.
