Chapter 14
THE NEVERMORE CHRONICLES
BOOK ONE: BREEDLOVE MANOR
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE ROOM BEHIND THE DOOR
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The door closed behind Beatrice.
She turned immediately.
The corridor was gone.
Not hidden.
Gone.
There was only a wall of dark oak where the doorway had been.
Beatrice stared at it, her breath caught somewhere between fear and disbelief.
She placed both hands against the wood.
Cold.
Solid.
Real.
She pushed.
Nothing happened.
“Wonderful,” she whispered.
Her voice sounded strangely small inside the room.
Beatrice slowly turned around.
The chamber beyond the door was unlike anything she had seen inside Breedlove Manor.
It was not a bedroom.
It was not a library.
It was not a storage room or forgotten passage.
It felt like a place that had been waiting.
The room was circular, with high stone walls disappearing into darkness above her. Narrow windows lined the far side, but there was no moonlight beyond them. Only blackness.
A single candle burned on a small table in the center of the room.
Beatrice frowned.
She had not seen anyone light it.
She stepped closer.
The flame did not flicker.
There was no breeze.
Beside the candle lay several objects.
An old silver key.
A folded piece of parchment.
And the photograph of Evelyn.
Beatrice stopped.
Her hand went instinctively to her pocket.
The photograph was gone.
She looked down at the table.
There it was.
The same photograph she had dropped in the corridor.
Except now the image had changed again.
Evelyn was no longer standing beside the old stone wall.
She was standing inside this room.
Beatrice's stomach tightened.
“That isn't possible.”
She picked up the photograph.
Evelyn's expression was different now.
She was no longer frightened.
She was looking directly at Beatrice.
And beneath her image were four words.
You came back, Beatrice.
Beatrice nearly dropped it.
“Back?”
A soft sound came from somewhere behind her.
She turned.
Nothing.
The room remained empty.
Yet she suddenly felt as though she were no longer alone.
Beatrice looked toward the candle.
The flame bent slightly.
Not toward the air.
Toward the parchment.
She reached for it.
The moment her fingers touched the paper, a sharp warmth passed through her hand.
She pulled back.
The warmth disappeared.
Slowly, she unfolded the parchment.
The handwriting was old.
Elegant.
Familiar.
She had seen it before.
In the letters beneath the dust.
At the bottom of the page was a name.
SERAPHINE.
Beatrice stared at it.
The room seemed to grow colder.
She read the first line.
“If you have entered this room, then the Manor has already chosen you.”
Beatrice swallowed.
“No.”
She continued.
“It will try to show you what was lost.”
Her eyes moved to the next line.
“It will try to make you remember what you were never told.”
She stopped.
A strange pressure formed behind her eyes.
For one moment, she saw a flash of something.
A garden.
White roses.
A woman standing beneath a tree.
Then it vanished.
Beatrice closed her eyes.
“Who are you?”
The room gave no answer.
She looked back at the parchment.
The final sentence had been written in darker ink.
But there was something unusual about it.
The words appeared to have been added much later.
Do not trust the girl in the photograph.
Beatrice froze.
Her gaze slowly moved to Evelyn.
The photograph remained on the table.
Evelyn's face seemed almost peaceful.
Too peaceful.
Beatrice stepped away.
“You told me to remember.”
Silence.
“You called my name.”
Nothing.
“You said you were waiting.”
The candle flame suddenly went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Beatrice held her breath.
Then she heard breathing.
Not hers.
Someone was standing somewhere nearby.
A slow inhale.
A quiet exhale.
Beatrice backed toward the wall.
“Who's there?”
No answer.
She reached into her pocket for the small knife she carried.
Her fingers closed around the handle.
The breathing stopped.
Then came a whisper.
“Beatrice.”
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
She knew the voice.
It was the same woman's voice she had heard beneath the manor.
Seraphine.
Beatrice turned toward the sound.
“Show yourself.”
A faint silver glow appeared at the far end of the chamber.
At first, it looked like moonlight.
Then it began to take shape.
A figure stood within it.
A woman.
Tall.
Dressed in a long dark gown.
Her hair fell around her shoulders.
Her face remained hidden in shadow.
Beatrice could not move.
“Seraphine?”
The woman lifted her head.
“No.”
Beatrice's blood went cold.
The voice was soft.
Almost sad.
“I am the one who remembers her.”
The silver light disappeared.
The room returned to darkness.
Beatrice heard footsteps.
One.
Two.
Three.
They stopped directly behind her.
She turned.
Nothing.
Then the candle reignited.
The room was empty.
Except for the photograph.
Beatrice looked at it.
The image had changed once more.
Evelyn was gone.
In her place was a little girl.
She stood beside the same woman Beatrice had just seen.
The woman was holding the child's hand.
And beneath the photograph was a date.
1794.
Beatrice's breath caught.
She knew that year.
It was the date beneath the unnamed portrait in the Archives.
The little girl from the painting.
The girl no one had remembered.
Beatrice picked up the photograph.
“Who were you?”
The child's face seemed to shift beneath the candlelight.
Then another line appeared beneath the date.
ISADORA VIOLET BREEDLOVE.
Beatrice stared.
The erased name.
The missing branch.
The woman in the portrait.
The girl in the photograph.
They were connected.
She could feel it.
But how?
A sound came from the wall.
Scrape.
Beatrice turned.
A narrow section of stone slowly moved inward.
Behind it was a small alcove.
Inside rested a wooden box.
The same dark oak as the door.
Beatrice approached cautiously.
The lid was covered with the Breedlove crest.
But beneath the crest was another symbol.
A heart.
Not the same symbol from the Founder’s Chamber.
This one had a single line running through its center.
Beatrice reached toward it.
The moment her fingers touched the lid, the room filled with a sound.
A heartbeat.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The box opened.
Inside was a bundle of letters.
Beatrice stared at them.
She recognized the black ribbon immediately.
The same ribbon from the hidden compartment.
She reached for the first letter.
The name on the front was not hers.
It belonged to Isadora.
Beatrice's hands trembled.
She unfolded it.
Only one sentence had been written.
If they erase my name, remember my daughter.
Beatrice stopped breathing.
Her eyes moved slowly across the page.
Daughter.
Who was Isadora's daughter?
The answer came before she could stop it.
A woman's voice whispered from somewhere inside the walls.
“Your mother knew.”
Beatrice dropped the letter.
“My mother?”
Silence.
Then the voice came again.
“She came here looking for the Heart.”
Beatrice stared into the darkness.
“What happened to her?”
No answer came.
Instead, the candle flame stretched upward.
The walls seemed to move.
And suddenly Beatrice was no longer standing in the room.
She was standing in a garden.
White roses surrounded her.
Moonlight covered the ground.
Someone was crying.
A woman.
Beatrice turned.
She saw her.
A younger woman stood beneath the trees, holding a small child against her chest.
Beatrice knew her.
Her mother.
“Mama?”
The woman looked up.
Her face was wet with tears.
But she was not looking at Beatrice.
She was looking behind her.
At something Beatrice could not see.
Then her mother whispered one word.
“Run.”
The vision shattered.
Beatrice gasped and fell against the stone wall.
The room returned.
The candle was burning again.
The letters remained on the table.
But the photograph was gone.
Beatrice looked around wildly.
“Evelyn?”
Nothing.
Then she heard a sound from behind the door.
Three knocks.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Someone was standing on the other side.
Beatrice stared at the sealed doorway.
A voice came through the wood.
Nathaniel.
“Beatrice?”
Her heart leaped.
She rushed toward the door.
“Nathaniel!”
“Open the door!”
She reached for the handle.
Her fingers touched the metal.
Then she stopped.
The parchment.
The warning.
Do not trust the girl in the photograph.
But there had been no warning about Nathaniel.
Beatrice tightened her grip.
“Nathaniel, are you there?”
“Yes.”
His voice sounded urgent.
“Open the door.”
Beatrice looked at the room behind her.
Something was wrong.
She could feel it.
The chamber was silent.
Too silent.
Then she noticed something on the table.
A second photograph.
It showed Nathaniel standing outside the eastern corridor.
But the photograph had been taken from inside the room.
And beneath his image were three words.
He came before you.
Beatrice stepped away from the door.
“Nathaniel?”
“Yes?”
His voice changed.
Not much.
But enough.
The warmth disappeared.
Beatrice's blood ran cold.
The thing outside the door spoke again.
“Let me in.”
Beatrice backed away.
That was not Nathaniel.
Not anymore.
She looked at the old silver key lying beside the letters.
And suddenly she understood.
The room had not trapped her.
It had protected her.
The key was not meant to open the door behind her.
It was meant to open something else.
Something still hidden inside the room.
Beatrice picked it up.
Behind her, the false voice began knocking harder.
“Beatrice!”
Tap.
“Open the door!”
Tap.
“Beatrice!”
Tap.
She turned toward the stone walls.
Her eyes searched the chamber.
There.
A tiny keyhole beneath the Breedlove crest.
Beatrice inserted the key.
The lock clicked.
Something deep within the wall began to move.
And somewhere beneath Breedlove Manor, the Heart began to beat again.
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