The morning sun painted the room in sickly gold, too bright for the horrors of the night. Lila sat on the edge of her bed, her fingers trembling as they traced the blood smears on the photograph. Her reflection in the vanity mirror was a mess dark circles under her eyes, lips bitten raw, hair tangled like she'd fought a storm.
"This isn't happening…"
But the black rose petal on her nightstand was real. The foggy writing on the mirror"Tonight, you'll see everything."hadn't faded.
Her body ached, muscles stiff from fear. She dragged herself to the window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. Outside, Ashford Manor's gardens sprawled, beautiful and wrongly normal.
The Investigation Begins1. The Bloodied Photograph
Lila spread the photo on the desk, sunlight revealing details she'd missed in the dark:
Initials Carved on the Piano:
"T.A. & L.H." — Theo Ashford &... Lila Hart? Her breath caught. Her name.
Body Language: Her fingers hovered over the letters, a shiver crawling up her spine. She touched her own cheek, half-expecting to feel the flapper-era curls from the photo.
The Killer's Hand:
A man's ringed hand gripped Theo's shoulder too tight to be friendly. The signet ring (a lion with emerald eyes) gleamed, its owner hidden just outside the frame.
A cold rage settled in her chest. Who were you?
The House's Clues
The manor whispered back:
Rose Petal Trail:
Fresh petals led from her door to the music room, their edges unnaturally sharp. She knelt, picking one up it pricked her finger, a drop of blood sinking into the velvet.
Theo's Presence: The scent of bergamot and rain curled around her. A whisper: "You're close."
The Piano's Secret:
The sheet music had changed overnight. "Our Song" now lay open, the notes smudged as if played too many times. When she touched the page, a cold hand pressed over hers—Theo's, translucent but solid enough to make her gasp.
His fingers laced with hers, guiding her to play the first three notes. The piano's hum vibrated through her bones.
Mr. Holloway found her there, his face grim.
"You've seen it now, eh?" He pointed to the lion ring in the photo. "Master's son wore that. Hated Theo for stealing his bride."
Lila's stomach dropped. She was the bride.
Her knees buckled; she gripped the piano to stay upright.
As dusk fell, the manor pulsed with energy. Lila's sketchbook flipped open on its own, her charcoal drawing of Theo smudging into a new image:
A shadowy figure (lion ring glinting) creeping up behind her at the piano.
Theo's scrawl beneath: "He's coming. Play our song. Trust me."
The air grew heavy, the chandelier trembling. Then a single, discordant note from the grand piano downstairs.
A demand.
A plea.
Cliffhanger
Lila turned to the mirror. Her reflection smiled back with Theo's black-amber eyes.
"Tonight," it mouthed.
Outside, a man's silhouette paused beneath the garden's oak tree, his hands flexing a coil of piano wire glinting in the moonlight.....
The Unnatural Daylight
Morning light streamed through the stained-glass windows of Ashford Manor, casting jagged pools of color across the hallway floors crimson, sapphire, and gold that looked too much like spilled ink and old bruises. Lila stood frozen outside her bedroom door, her bare feet pressing into the cold hardwood.
The house was too quiet.
No birdsong through the cracked windows. No creak of settling floorboards. Just the slow, rhythmic tick of the grandfather clock downstairs, each second dragging like a hammer on an anvil.
Then she saw them.
Black rose petals.
Fresh, velvety, and impossible they formed a deliberate trail down the hallway, their edges curled like beckoning fingers. Lila knelt, her nightgown pooling around her. When she lifted one, its thorn pricked her thumb, a single bead of blood welling up.
"Ouch—!"
The petal dissolved into ash between her fingers.
The Music Room Beckons
The trail led to the music room door the one Mr. Holloway had warned her about. The one that had been locked since 1927.
Except now, it stood ajar.
A sliver of darkness gaped from the doorway, exhaling a breath of aged parchment and candle wax. The scent was unmistakably Theo's.
Lila's pulse hammered in her throat as she pressed her palm to the door. The wood was unnaturally cold, the grain shifting under her touch like ribbons of smoke.
"This isn't real,"she whispered.
The door swung open on its own.
The Piano's Invitation
Moonlight shouldn't have been here. Not at midday.
Yet a single silver beam cut through the room, illuminating the grand piano, its lid raised like the wing of a fallen angel. The sheet music on the stand was blank until a gust of wind (from where?) flipped the pages with a sound like rustling bones.
"Our Song" revealed itself, the notes smudged and faded in some places, dark and fresh in others as if someone had been practicing.
Lila's breath hitched.
The piano bench screeched backward, an invisible hand pulling it out for her.
Then
A single note played. Middle C.
The same note Theo had hummed against her skin last night.
Theo's Presence
The air thickened with the scent of bergamot and rain Theo's cologne. Lila's reflection in the piano's lacquer wasn't alone.
A shadow loomed behind her, tall and broad-shouldered, its edges smudged like charcoal. Translucent fingers hovered above hers, the pinky crooked at that familiar, broken angle.
"Play with me," Theo's voice murmured, not from the room but from inside her mind.
Her hands trembled as she lowered them to the keys. The moment her fingers touched ivory, the piano came alive, her hands moving without her consent, playing a melody she somehow remembered.
The room melted.
1927.
Theo sat beside her at the piano, his laugh lines crinkling, his tuxedo immaculate. "You've got it all wrong, darling," he teased, adjusting her fingers on the keys. "Like this "
Then ...A shadow in the doorway.
The glint of a lion ring.
Theo's smile dying as the wire looped around his throat
Lila wrenched her hands back, the vision shattering.
The sheet music was bleeding ink, the notes of "Our Song" rearranging into a new message:
"He's coming back. For you."
A floorboard creaked behind her.
Lila turned.
The doorway was empty but on the threshold, a single fresh rose petal quivered, as if someone had just stepped on it....
Lila stumbled into her bedroom, her pulse still rabbiting from the music room's visions. The vanity mirror caught her eye streaked with fog, as if someone had breathed heavily against it.
She swiped a hand across the glass.
Her reflection blinked a second too late.
Then Theo materialized behind her, his form wavering like smoke trapped under the surface. His 1920s tuxedo was pristine, but his throat bore a thin, brutal line the mark of the piano wire.
"Lila," his voice echoed, not from the room, but inside her skull, soft as a moth's wing.
She spun around nothing there.
In the mirror, Theo's lips moved:
"Look under the floorboard."
His hand pressed against the glass, palm-to-palm with hers, the chill seeping into her bones. Then he dissolved, leaving only three foggy letters:
"L.H."
Her initials.
The Discovery1. The Loose Floorboard
Kneeling beside her bed, Lila dug her nails into a warped floorboard near the nightstand. It groaned upward, releasing a puff of dust and dried rose petals.
Inside the cavity:
A Newspaper (June 19, 1927):
"Pianist Theo Ashford Found Dead in Apparent Suicide."
The article was smeared with fingerprints (blood or ink?).
A photo showed Theo slumped at the piano but his hands were clean, no sign of the wire.
A Broken Cufflink:
Gold, engraved with a lion's head (emerald eyes plucked out).
The back was monogrammed: "V.A."
Vincent Ashford—the master's son.
Lila's fingers trembled. This was proof.
Mr. Holloway found her in the garden, her hands stained with old newsprint and attic dust.
"You found it, then," he muttered, his rheumy eyes darting to the manor's west wing.
His Confession (Whispered):
"Theo didn't kill himself. Young Master Vincent caught him with his fiancée your face in that photo. Snapped his finger first, then..." He mimed a wire garrote.
"Why cover it up?" Lila demanded.
Holloway's laugh was a dry rattle. "Ashfords own this town. But the house remembers. It took Vincent too found him hanged with piano wire a year later."
He gripped her wrist, his nails biting. "Now it wants you. Either to finish the story... or join Theo."
As Lila fled inside, the grandfather clock struck 3:33 AM (though it was barely dusk).
The piano began playing itself "Our Song" in reverse.
And in the hallway mirror, Vincent Ashford's shadow peeled itself off the wall, lion ring glinting........