No turning back

Chapter 7 – no turning back

Ava Carter POV

Even after Damon pulled me away from the window, my screams echoed through the walls. My body trembled with aftershocks of terror, and his arms around me did nothing to still the chill seeping into my bones. I had seen her. Not just imagined. Not dreamed. Seen.

A woman, draped in a flowing white gown, hovering outside a second-story window, smiling like she knew me.

"Ava," Damon whispered urgently, holding my face in his hands. "What did you see?"

I looked at him, breath ragged, trying to find the right words. "She... she was there. Outside the window. A woman in white. She said my name."

His expression darkened. His hands dropped from my cheeks, and he stepped back like I’d slapped him.

"I told you not to dig," he muttered.

"I didn’t dig," I snapped. "She came to me. She whispered to me through the floorboards. I saw a hidden room, Damon. I saw a picture—she looked like Emilia. You can’t keep pretending this house is just old. It’s more than that. It’s—"

"Haunted?" he finished for me, voice low and sharp. "You want me to say it? Fine. This place is haunted. But not in the way you think."

I stared at him, my anger giving way to disbelief. "You knew. You knew all along."

He turned from me, his jaw clenched tight. "I know enough to stay away from the past. You should have done the same."

The following morning, Damon was gone. Margaret wouldn’t say where, only that he had business in the city and would return late. Emilia barely spoke, her eyes hollow and movements slower than ever. I wanted to press her, but something about her silence warned me to wait.

Instead, I returned to the hidden room. The dust, the cracked porcelain doll, the scrawled message—SHE NEVER LEFT—all remained. I lingered there, trying to piece it together. Was it a ghost? A memory? Or something more sinister?

On the vanity, the photograph still sat crooked in its frame. I studied the girl’s face again. The resemblance to Emilia was undeniable, but the eyes… they were voids. Empty. Like they’d seen too much.

A small drawer beneath the vanity creaked open when I pulled. Inside was a faded journal.

My fingers trembled as I opened the first page.

June 12, 1986.

He said I could never leave. That I was part of the house now. I told him I was afraid, but he just smiled and said the house would take care of me.

I hear her humming sometimes. The one who came before me.

Maybe I’ll hum too. When it’s my turn.

I snapped the book shut. My heart pounded in my ears. This wasn’t just history—it was a cycle. A pattern. And I had stepped into its rhythm without even knowing.

That evening, I sat with Emilia in the playroom. She colored with muted focus, her strokes slow and deliberate.

"Emilia," I said gently, "do you remember the girl in the picture?"

She didn’t look up. "She used to hum when I cried."

My breath caught. "Who is she?"

"I don’t know her name," she murmured. "But she’s always been here. Before Mommy died. Before Daddy brought me back."

Back?

I leaned in. "Do you remember your mother?"

She stopped coloring. A long pause stretched between us.

"She said the house took her too."

I swallowed hard. "And your father? Does he know?"

Emilia nodded slowly. "He talks to her sometimes. At night. When he thinks no one hears."

That night, I stayed awake. Not out of fear—at least not the same kind. It was hunger now. For truth. For answers. I waited until the house fell into a familiar hush, then crept from my room. I moved past the East Wing door, through the secret passage, back to the place where the voices had whispered.

But this time, I heard something new.

Not humming. Not whispers.

Crying.

A soft, pitiful sobbing that broke my heart before I even saw the source.

I moved cautiously toward the sound. My phone’s flashlight flickered, then went out. Complete darkness swallowed me. I fumbled forward, hand to the wall.

Then—

A flicker of candlelight.

I turned a corner and found Damon kneeling on the floor, beside a rotted old crib. A candle burned beside him, casting flickering light over his face. It was twisted with pain.

He didn’t hear me at first.

"Damon?"

His head jerked up. In the dim light, his eyes shimmered—not with anger, but with grief.

"You shouldn’t be here."

"What is this place?" I asked.

He looked back at the crib. "My past."

"Who was she?" I asked softly. "The girl in the picture. The one who never left."

He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling a shaky breath. "Her name was Isobel. My sister. She died in this house. Years before I was born. My parents said she fell. But I’ve always known better."

He paused, eyes fixed on the empty crib. "She was the first one to hear the humming. Then came the whispers. And then... she vanished. They found her body days later. No explanation. No answers."

I moved closer, my voice trembling. "And you think she’s still here."

He nodded. "This house... it remembers grief. It doesn’t let go."

Silence stretched between us, thick with tension and sorrow.

Then he looked up at me. "You’ve felt it, haven’t you? The pull. The sadness. It clings to your skin, seeps into your thoughts. That’s how it begins."

I nodded slowly.

"And Emilia?"

His jaw clenched. "I brought her back here after her mother died. I thought I could raise her where I was raised. But now... I’m not sure I didn’t bring her back to the same death Isobel suffered."

A long moment passed.

Then he stood. And for the first time, Damon—this cold, scarred, emotionally armored man—reached out and touched my cheek.

"I never wanted you to get caught in this. I wanted someone kind around Emilia. Someone good. But this place—it twists goodness."

His thumb brushed a tear from my face.

"I’ve felt you slipping," he whispered. "The house is trying to take you too."

His lips hovered inches from mine. I should have pulled away. But I didn’t.

When he kissed me, it wasn’t gentle. It was desperate. Like he was trying to feel alive. Like he was trying to keep from drowning.

And for one reckless moment, I kissed him back.

When we finally pulled apart, both of us breathless, he stepped back.

"I’m sorry," he muttered. "That was unfair."

"No," I said, voice shaking. "It wasn’t."

Because in that kiss, I saw something raw. Something real. Behind the secrets, the pain, the darkness—there was a man holding on by a thread.

"We need to leave," I whispered. "This house... it won’t stop."

He looked at me, the scar on his face sharper in the candlelight.

"You think it’ll let you go now that it knows your name?"

He wasn’t talking about the house anymore.

He was talking about her.

The lady in white.

The one who hummed when I couldn’t sleep.

The one who whispered through the floors.

The one who stood outside my window.

She didn’t just want to scare me.

She wanted me to stay.

Forever.