The morning light crept in slowly, filtered through the sheer curtains embroidered with vines. Eveline lay awake before the sun had fully risen, listening to the silence of Greymoor. It was kind of silence that didn't feel empty—it felt watched.
She rose without ringing for help. She preferred her own company, even in unfamiliar places. Especially them. She slipped into a pale green day dress and pulled her hair into a loose twist at the nape of her neck, the way her mother used to do before dinner parties — before everything had become quieter, colder, and so very far away.
"Some silences are chosen," she thought as she tied her ribbon, "and some are
Downstairs, breakfast had been arranged in the conservatory — an elegant space of glass and shadow. The air still smelled faintly of rosewater and ash, like a fire had burned there once and been politely forgotten.
Mrs. Pembridge appeared again, her apron crisp, her expression unreadable.
"Will you be needing anything, Miss Thorn?"
"Only honesty," Eveline said without thinking, and then gave a small, awkward smile. "And perhaps some tea."
Mrs. Pembridge blinked, not unkindly, and gave a faint nod. "Of course. Lady's grey, with lavender and lemon, just as requested."
It was curious. Eveline hadn't requested anything. Not yet.
After breakfast, Eveline wandered the east hallway, where portraits stared from their faded frames. The oil paintings were not labeled, but she imagined she could tell who had been kind, who had lied, who had mourned.
"Eyes do not age gracefully in paintings," she whispered. "They remember more than they were meant to."
She paused at the last frame. A man with a worn navy coat, chin lifted just enough to suggest pride, not vanity. His eyes were soft but sad — like someone who had known too much too soon.
"He used to write letters," said a voice behind her.
Startled, Eveline turned. A young man — perhaps in his late twenties—stood just a few steps back. He was tall, slim, dressed in muted browns, and held a stack of old books. His hair was slightly disheveled, as though he had run a hand through it one too many times out of habit.
"I beg your pardon?" she asked.
"The man in the painting. Lord Rowan Greymoor. He used to write letters. Hundreds of them. Some to no one. Some he never sent."
Eveline looked back at the painting, then back at the man, "You knew him?"
"No," he said, "but I've read him."
The young man introduced himself as Thaddeus Bellamy, the estate's librarian and unofficial archivist. He had been living in the west wing for over two years, cataloging the Greymoor letters—a task, he confessed, that would likely outlived them both.
"They say Lord Rowan was obsessed with correspondence. Not just love letters— though those are the ones people look for. He wrote about time. Memory. Dreams. What it meant to feel forgotten in your own life."
"And what happened to him?"
Thaddeus hesitated, then said with a slight shrug, "He vanished. On the evening of June 7th. Right before the war. The clock stopped at five fifty-nine. He was never seen again."
Eveline's breath caught.
"June 7th," she repeated. "That's today."
The silence that followed was different. Nit heavy—precise.
Later that day, after lunch and the polite attempt at unpacking, Eveline asked to see the library. It was tucked behind the drawing room, and it smelled of ink and something drier—like ash that had tried to forget it was fire.
Books lined the walls, floor to ceiling, some in glass cabinets, others leaning like old friends. Thaddeus had laid several leather-bound journals on a long oak table. He stepped back, nodding at them.
"These were written in the final two weeks before Lord Rowan disappeared. Most are dated. All of them… strange."
Eveline sat, brushing her fingers across the spine of one volume. She opened it gently, as though waking it. Inside were pages of flowing script. Words folded into metaphors, questions without answers, sentences that read like memories unspoken aloud. One line was underlined twice:
"There is a place between hours where the past just waits, just long enough to be remembered."
Another page later:
"If you receive this, it means you've returned. And if you've returned, the hour has come again."
A shiver ran down her spine.
She turned the last page—and gasped.
There, in unmistakable handwriting, was her name.
"Eveline."
"How could he have written my name?" she whispered. "He died before I was even born."
Thaddeus glanced over. "Not everyone who disappears is dead. And not everything written is from the past."
Eveline closed the journal carefully. Her heart felt too large for her chest, as though something old had remembered her name before she'd learned it herself.
"This place is not haunted," she thought, "It is remembering. And I… I might be the memory."
And from the clocktower outside, hidden in its hush, the time remained still.