There is a peculiar quality to afternoon light in old houses—a sort of honey-thick stillness that turns dust motes into floating stars and makes shadows stretch like cats in sunny windowsills. This particular afternoon light had settled into the unfamiliar corridor like a visiting dignitary, bestowing an air of importance upon even the most mundane objects.

In houses as ancient as Thornbury Manor, such light often knows secrets that the occupants have long forgotten, illuminating corners that were never meant to be found by well-behaved young ladies in crimson dresses. But then, well-behaved young ladies rarely find themselves in stories worth telling.

Sarah, still basking in the triumphant glow of her escape, didn’t immediately notice she’d taken a wrong turn. The manor’s corridors had a habit of wandering off in unexpected directions, like conversations at tedious dinner parties. This one curved gently to the left, though Sarah’s designated bedroom lay firmly to the right, past the portrait of Great-Uncle Bartholomew (the one who famously claimed he’d invented afternoon tea.)

The carpet beneath her feet had shifted from sensible Axminster patterns to something older. The wallpaper, too, had transformed from Aunt Margaret’s preferred cream and gold stripes to a deeper, richer pattern that reminded Sarah of stories she wasn’t supposed to read anymore, now that she was “practically grown up.”

A window seat appeared, nestled into an alcove like a secret waiting to be discovered. Sarah paused, pressing her hand against the cool glass.

“I don’t remember this part of the house,” Sarah muttered to herself, a habit her mother was forever trying to break her of. (“Talking to oneself,” Mother always said, “is the first sign of an interesting personality, and you know how people feel about those.” Though Sarah had noted that her mother talked to herself quite frequently, especially when arranging flowers.)

The corridor continued its gentle curve, leading deeper into what must be the manor’s east wing—the part that was always “under renovation,” though she’d never seen any actual renovating taking place.

A painting on the wall caught her attention—not one of the usual stern ancestors, but a landscape showing a forest path under a full moon.

* * *

The corridor unfolded before Sarah like a secret unwrapped, each step revealing more of its hidden allure. Wandering these forgotten hallways of Thornbury Manor felt akin to flipping through the dusty pages of a never-told story, one she desperately wished to read.

And there it stood, waiting.

Sarah blinked, a gesture that usually restored sense to nonsensical things. The door remained, looking rather pleased with its own implausibility. While its companions throughout the manor were stately affairs of mahogany and brass, wearing their polish like medals of honor, this one appeared to have been borrowed from a more whimsical building altogether. Its silver-white wood gleamed as if it had been carved from moonlight, and where there should have been a proper brass handle (and Aunt Margaret had very specific opinions about proper door handles), a crystal knob caught the afternoon sun with suspicious enthusiasm.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Now, there are three types of enchanted doors in this world: those that lead somewhere fascinating, those that lead somewhere terrible, and those that really ought to be left alone entirely. The trick, of course, is determining which is which before it’s too late. Sarah, who had read exactly the sort of books that proper young ladies shouldn’t, knew this perfectly well. She also knew that crystal doorknobs were rarely a sign of sensible things to come—being not just impractical but too precise, too intentional, as though placed there to entice rather than serve any reasonable function.

The proper course of action would have been to march straight back to Aunt Margaret and report this breach of architectural etiquette. But Sarah had already endured quite enough propriety for one day, thank you very much, and her curiosity had always been stronger than her common sense.

The first whisper slipped through the crack beneath the door like a rumor too juicy to stay put. Sarah froze, one hand half-raised toward the crystal knob. As she listened, the whisper resolved into voices, clear enough to suggest two people deep in conversation just behind the door, their words too muffled to make out but carrying the unmistakable rhythm of an exchange. The voices seemed to be discussing something rather important, though in tones too low to make out the words. Sarah moved closer, wondering if perhaps she’d stumbled upon some forgotten servants’ passage where the staff gathered to exchange the sort of gossip that made Aunt Margaret purse her lips.

But these whispers didn’t sound like the cook complaining about the pudding or the maids trading stories about the upstairs silver. One voice rose above the others briefly—clear as a bell but speaking words that seemed to slip sideways through Sarah’s mind without quite making sense, as if she heard them and then forgot their meaning at precisely the same time.

The proper thing to do when encountering mysterious whispers behind impossible doors is, of course, to walk away immediately. But as previously established, proper things had already had quite enough attention for one day.

* * *

Magical doors—and this was most certainly a magical door, as no ordinary door would dare look so conspicuous in Aunt Margaret’s sensibly furnished manor—have a way of making decisions for you. They present themselves at precisely the moment when one is most likely to make wonderfully terrible choices, usually just after one has already broken several important rules.

And so, with a measured breath, Sarah gathered her courage, as one might gather flowers hastily stolen from a neighbor’s garden, and knocked.

“Hello?” She aimed for the sort of tone one might use when addressing potentially magical doors—polite, but not overly familiar. “Is someone there?”

The whispers cut off with the abruptness of a conductor stopping an orchestra mid-note. The silence that followed was the sort that seems to lean forward, listening intently. Sarah held her breath, straining to hear any response from beyond the door.

Then came the click.

It wasn’t a regular door-latch sort of click. Those were straightforward affairs that announced someone’s intention to enter or exit a room. This click had layers to it, like the sound of several locks turning at once, each with its own opinion on the matter.

The crystal doorknob caught the light and held it, spinning it into rainbow patterns that danced across Sarah’s dress. (The dress, it must be noted, had finally surrendered its battle with propriety and now hung in complete disarray, as if it too, like its owner, had decided that proper behavior was overrated.)

Sarah’s hand hovered over the doorknob for a heartbeat, giving fate one last chance to intervene. Then her fingers wrapped around the crystal and turned. The door swung inward.