Prologue
The house had waited twenty-three years.
Rain lashed against the stained-glass windows, turning the world outside into a blur of silver and shadow. Thunder rolled across the cliffs, shaking the ancient walls, but Blackwood Manor did not tremble.
It had weathered storms far worse than this.
A fire crackled weakly in the grand library, casting flickering light over towering bookshelves and portraits whose painted eyes seemed to follow every movement. Dust floated lazily through the air, disturbed only by the slow footsteps of an elderly woman dressed in black.
Eleanor Blackwood paused beside a large oak desk.
Her hands trembled—not from age, but from the weight of what she was about to do.
She opened a leather-bound diary.
Its pages were filled with neat handwriting.
Dates.
Names.
Deaths.
Every prediction had come true.
Only one page remained blank.
She dipped her pen into black ink.
For a long moment, she couldn’t write.
Instead, she looked toward the window overlooking the cliffs.
Far below, the sea crashed violently against jagged rocks.
“You’ve waited long enough,” she whispered to the house.
The floorboards creaked beneath her feet.
Almost as though they understood.
A tear slipped down her cheek before she finally began to write.
July 26
She will come home tomorrow.
The ink shimmered strangely before sinking into the page.
Eleanor stared at the words.
“No,” she whispered.
“I prayed this day would never come.”
A cold breeze swept through the room, though every window was closed.
The candles flickered.
One by one…
They went out.
Darkness swallowed the library.
Then—
Footsteps.
Slow.
Measured.
Not hers.
Someone was walking upstairs.
Eleanor gripped the edge of the desk.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The footsteps stopped.
Silence.
Then came three deliberate knocks.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Not on the front door.
Not on the library door.
From inside the walls.
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“It’s too late,” she whispered.
The house had chosen.
And this time…
It would not let her leave.
