Prologue
The house felt like it had been waiting for me.
Its windows stared through the fog—tall, black, hollow—like eyes that never blinked. The wind pulled at the overgrown ivy and rusted gates, opening them wider with a long, groaning creak, as if the estate knew I had returned. As if it had been whispering for me all along.
I shouldn’t have come alone.
But alone is all I’ve ever been. Until the letter came. Until her name—Eveline Sinclair—was dragged out of whatever grave my family buried her in.
My grandmother. A stranger. And apparently, the reason this house—the entire estate—now belongs to me.
I didn’t want it.
But something pulled me here anyway. A sense of unfinished business, maybe. Or the haunting need to understand why everything about my bloodline feels like a locked door no one wants to open.
Now I’m here. And I can’t shake the feeling that someone else is, too.
The path crunches beneath my boots as I walk toward the front steps. Ivy claws at the stone, the front door looms, and the wind turns colder. Sharper. Like it’s warning me.
I pause.
There’s no one behind me, but my spine prickles. I feel it. That hum in the air. That pressure.
Like I’m being watched.
I grip the brass key in my pocket tighter and press forward. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this suffocating silence. This dread curling around my ribs like a second heartbeat.
This place isn’t empty. It remembers me—even if I don’t remember it.
And in that moment, I make two mistakes.
I open the door.
And I believe the worst thing waiting inside is the house.
