The House That Whispers
Black Hollow wasn’t on any modern map. Emily had driven for hours, the last twenty miles down a road so narrow and overgrown it barely deserved the name. The forest pressed close, choking out sunlight even at midday. Her GPS had gone dark long ago, and cell service was a distant memory.
But the letter had been clear. A name—“Black Hollow Estate”—and coordinates scrawled by hand at the bottom of the page.
She hadn’t wanted to come. Not really. But curiosity had outmuscled her dread. A letter from a law office she’d never heard of, offering her a house—a family house, from a great-aunt she didn’t even remember—was too strange to ignore. All travel expenses paid. Keys enclosed. A deed, yellowed and official-looking, sealed with wax.
She remembered her grandmother’s warnings. “That place doesn’t forget,” she’d say, more to herself than to Emily. “It waits. It always waits.”
At the end of the path, the trees opened just enough to reveal it.
The house.
It stood hunched and brooding at the top of a moss-covered slope, ivy crawling up stone walls like veins. Its peaked roof leaned heavily to one side, and several windows were boarded. Others weren’t—and Emily saw, or thought she saw, something move behind one of the upstairs panes.
But when she looked again, the window was dark.
The air was too quiet. No birds. No wind. Even the insects were silent.
Emily approached with a creeping sense of trespass. Her boots crunched gravel. The iron gate creaked open without protest, as if it had been expecting her.
The key turned easily in the lock.
Inside, the air was cold and dry. The foyer stretched up two stories, lit by a dusty chandelier. A grand staircase curved along the wall, its banister carved into the shapes of writhing vines and screaming faces—grotesque, half-melted. Beneath the dust, the wood still gleamed faintly.
The house should have smelled old. Like mildew, rot, mouse droppings.
But instead, it smelled faintly of roses.
Fresh roses.
She explored slowly, every step sending echoes through the stillness. The furniture was antique—expensive, judging by the inlaid patterns and dark polish. Books lined floor-to-ceiling shelves in the study. Dozens of clocks, all silent, all stopped at 3:12, filled one corner room. In the dining room, the long table was set with bone-white china, untouched but coated with dust—except for a single place setting at the head.
It was clean. Gleaming.
A fork rested beside the plate. On the plate, a sliver of raw meat.
Still red.
Emily backed out of the room.
Upstairs, she found the bedrooms. Each one had a different theme—children’s toys in one, long-abandoned; a massive four-poster bed in another; a sewing room filled with half-finished dolls. But one door stood out. It was painted black, its doorknob polished and clean, unlike the rest of the house.
Something about it chilled her.
She didn’t open it.
Instead, she chose a modest guest room at the end of the hall. It smelled the least strange, and the bed looked clean. She unpacked what little she’d brought, more to feel normal than from any real need.
That night, the whispering started.
She’d just climbed under the covers when she heard it. Faint. Just beyond the edge of hearing. Like someone talking from inside the walls. She pressed her ear to the headboard.
“She’s here.”
Emily jerked back.
The voice was low. Male. Wet, somehow—gurgling.
She waited. Nothing.
An hour later, just as she started to drift off:
“Don’t open the black door.”
Her eyes snapped open.
---
In the morning, she searched the walls for vents or old speaker wires. Found nothing. She told herself it was dreams, the stress of travel, the loneliness of the place. That made sense. It had to.
But in the hallway, she noticed something new: a thin trail of wet footprints. Bare. Human.
They led from the black door to her bedroom.
She followed them, hesitant. The prints were dark, almost inky. The smell was coppery—iron. Blood?
She knelt. Touched one.
Warm.
The black door loomed. The prints stopped there. She reached for the knob—
It twitched.
Not turned. Twitched, like it shivered beneath her hand.
She stumbled back. The prints were gone.
Not faded. Gone.
That night, she dreamed of the house.
She wandered its halls endlessly, chased by the sound of ticking clocks. The hands on the walls spun wildly, always stopping at 3:12. She opened door after door, finding herself back in the same hallway, over and over, until at last she opened the black door.
Inside was a mirror.
Her reflection didn’t move.
It smiled.
---
The next day, Emily tried to leave.
She packed. Got in the car. Backed down the gravel path.
But after ten minutes of driving, the trees parted and—
The house.
Again.
She sat in the car, stunned. Turned around. Drove in the opposite direction.
Same result.
The third time, the car wouldn’t start at all.
She was trapped.
By that night, the voices were constant.
Sometimes they cried. Sometimes they laughed.
Sometimes they whispered her name.
And once—only once—she heard her grandmother.
Soft. Tender.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Em.”
---
The third night, she opened the black door.
She couldn’t help it. She had to know.
Inside was a narrow staircase, spiraling down into darkness. Cold air rushed up to meet her. The walls were damp. Old stone. No light switch, but as she descended, candles lit themselves—one by one—lining the walls.
At the bottom was a room.
Circular. Stone. Carved symbols covered the floor, too ancient to read. A table stood at the center. Upon it, a mirror—ornate, gold-framed. Taller than she was.
The reflection in the mirror was not her own.
It looked like her. But the eyes were too wide. The smile too sharp.
The mirror-Emily raised a hand. Emily did not.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The thing inside the mirror smiled wider.
“The house remembers.”
Then the glass cracked—just a thin fracture running from top to bottom—but the sound echoed like thunder.
The candles went out.
Emily screamed.
---
She woke up in bed. The black door was closed again.
A dream?
But her feet were dirty.
And beneath her pillow… a shard of mirror.
She ran to the study. Tore through the bookshelves.
Found a leather-bound volume with no title. Inside: sketches of the house. Diagrams of the mirror. Symbols. Rituals.
And a name.
Isadora Black.
Her great-aunt.
A witch.
A woman obsessed with immortality. Who’d written of a ritual to imprint a soul upon a house. A way to live forever. The subject must die in the mirror room. Blood spilled upon the stone.
“Only then,” she wrote, “may the House Awaken.”
Emily stared at the journal. Flipped to the last page.
There, in fresh ink:
“Welcome home.”
---
She ran.
Through the hallways. Past the clocks. Past the dolls that turned their heads to follow her.
To the front door.
It opened.
Outside, night had fallen. But the air was colder than it should have been. The trees leaned inward.
And at the edge of the driveway stood a woman in a black dress.
Long gray hair. Hollow eyes. Skin stretched tight.
“Isadora?” Emily asked, breathless.
The woman didn’t speak. Just raised one hand—and behind her, the forest moved.
Shapes stepped out. Pale figures. Empty eyes. Mouths sewn shut.
Emily turned to flee.
The house swallowed her.
---
She awoke in the mirror room.
Tied to the stone table.
The mirror stood before her. Cracked.
Isadora hovered at the edge of her vision.
“You shouldn’t have come, child,” she said. Her voice was thick with rot. “You called the house. It heard you.”
“I didn’t—”
“You signed the deed. That was the invitation. The house needs a body. The mirror holds my soul. But it decays, you see. I need freshness.”
Emily screamed, pulled at the ropes. They cut into her wrists.
Isadora lifted a blade.
“This won’t take long.”
The mirror shimmered.
The reflection stared back.
It was no longer Emily.
It was hungry.
---
The pain was fire. The blade kissed her skin. Blood spilled onto the stone.
The mirror drank it.
And from it, the reflection stepped out.
Not glass. Flesh.
Another Emily. Perfect. Cold.
Isadora slumped, suddenly weak. Her hand trembled.
“No,” she whispered. “Too soon—”
The second Emily turned.
Smiled.
And tore Isadora apart.
Emily, the original, screamed. Her doppelgänger reached down, pressed a finger to her lips.
“Shh. You’re safe now.”
Then darkness.
---
She awoke in her room.
Sunlight. Birds outside.
She ran to the mirror.
Her reflection smiled.
Normal.
She was free.
Or so she thought.
Until the first guest arrived.
A distant cousin, another heir.
They asked about the house. Emily smiled.
“It’s quiet. Peaceful.”
But that night, she watched the guest walk toward the black door.
And Emily?
She watched from the mirror.
She screamed.
But no one heard her.
Because now—
She was the reflection.
And the house?
It whispers still.
---
The End.
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