The House on the Hill
The first thing Luna noticed about the Thorne estate was that it didn’t like to be stared at.
It sat on the edge of a hill like it had chosen solitude long before anyone decided to live in it. Moss climbed its stone bones. The wind whispered stories through broken shutters and rusted hinges. And even though the sun was out, the house looked... shadowed.
“It’s just for a while,” Selene said, barely glancing at her. “Until I sort things out.”
Luna didn’t reply. She pulled her duffel bag closer and stared up at the house, her new prison.
“You’ll have your own room. That’s more than most girls your age get.”
“I didn’t ask for a room,” Luna mumbled.
Selene’s jaw twitched. “Still dramatic, I see.”
They hadn’t seen each other in over ten years, and this was how they reunited—in silence, in stares, in the backseat of a car that smelled like old perfume and detachment.
Inside, the air was cold. Not just temperature cold—empty cold. Echoes of things that had once mattered but were now forgotten.
Selene led the way without looking back. “Don’t touch anything that isn’t yours. And stay out of the west wing.”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “You’re kidding.”
Selene turned, just once. “I’m not.”
She disappeared down a hallway, her heels clicking like clock hands. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Luna found her room at the top of the stairs. It was bigger than she expected. Cream-colored wallpaper peeled at the edges. A four-poster bed stood in the center like it hadn’t been slept in for decades. Dust floated through the sunlight like it had secrets.
She didn’t unpack. Instead, she sat on the edge of the bed, scanning the room.
The mirror above the dresser was cracked in one corner. A lavender candle sat beside it, unlit. The faint smell of something warm—vanilla? cinnamon?—drifted through the air, though she hadn’t seen any candles burning.
She hadn’t told anyone she liked that smell.
There was a soft tap at the window.
She turned. Nothing.
Luna stood up and walked to the sill. Her fingers brushed against something warm.
A flask.
She picked it up slowly. Unscrewed the lid.
Hot cocoa.
Her heart thumped once. Loud.
“No one knows I drink this,” she whispered.
She looked down at the mug in her hands, then back out the window.
The wind had stopped.
Luna shut the window and drew the curtains. Her fingers tightened around the warm flask, heart ticking faster than she liked.
She sat back on the bed, sipping slowly, trying not to think about how it got there. Maybe Selene left it. Maybe this house came with a weirdly attentive housekeeper. Maybe—
A creak echoed from the hallway.
She froze.
Another one, closer this time.
She quickly set the flask down and tiptoed to the door, pressing her ear to the wood.
Silence.
Then—
“—room’s still untouched.”
It was Selene’s voice.
“And the music box?”
“Locked,” came another voice. Male. Rough, uncertain. “Just like she said.”
Music box?
Luna backed away from the door. Her foot bumped the leg of the bed, but she kept quiet. Whoever the man was, he sounded... uneasy.
She waited a full minute after the footsteps faded before opening the door just a crack. The hallway was empty.
She slipped out and tiptoed to the edge of the stairs. No one in sight.
That night, Luna didn’t sleep. Not because she wasn’t tired. But because something about this place felt... watching.
And the cocoa?
Gone when she woke up. Not a trace. Not even the flask.
She didn’t tell Selene.
She didn’t tell anyone.
