I take a step back. And another. Until I’m standing outside the gates once more. I turn around, about to leave… when I stop myself. What choice do I have? There’s nowhere else for me to go. I spent fifteen years hating my parents for abandoning me. I used to think nothing would ever change that—that no reason would ever be good enough to justify what they did.

But what if there was a good reason? What if they didn’t simply forget about me? Am I really going to pass up a chance to see my family home?

With everything in me screaming not to, I journey back through the gates, more determined now.

I’m not sure what exactly I hope to find. I want to know what happened to them, of course. I want to know how they felt about me. But in this precise moment, something else is driving me. I want to know them. And while I realize that will never be possible, at least not in the most literal sense, I can find other ways to feel some connection to them. I can look at pictures, search for clues as to what they were like. What mattered to them. Whether I’m anything like them at all.

As I trudge up the sloping path, my skin crawls with the uneasy sense that something’s watching me. I twist around, gaze sweeping across the yellowed vines of the large willow tree. A chill skitters down my spine. Something’s in there, I can feel it. For a long moment, I stand there, on edge, preparing to bolt back to the gates when whatever it is inevitably jumps out. But aside from the leaves swaying in the wind…. nothing. No movement. No sound.

Maybe I’m just paranoid. With the look of this place, who can blame me?

Eventually, I continue up the path. Two gargoyles flank the front door, sharp claws clutching the stone wall. Their gazes follow me as I climb the stairs, my apprehension deepening with each step. I halt at the door. Nothing to do now but open it.

My hand trembles as I reach for the knob. But as my fingers tighten around it, a bright blue light illuminates the door’s entire perimeter. With a startled yelp, I leap back. The glowing light disappears as suddenly as it came on.

I wait. When nothing else happens, I tentatively touch the knob again, first with a single finger, then my hand. This time, no glowing light appears. Twisting the handle, I’m surprised—and a bit sorry—to find it unlocked. As I push, the door screeches a long, drawn-out complaint, as though resentful of being opened after so many years left undisturbed.

The noise dies away, leaving an eerie silence in its wake. Before me is a dark, empty foyer, floor so thick with dust that you can’t tell whether it’s wood or tile.

When nothing jumps out, I cross the threshold, wrinkling my nose at the pungent smell of mothballs and mold. I shine my torch in front of me.

Spiders scurry across sweeping, elaborate webs and vanish, retreating into cracks in the walls. The floorboards groan as I edge forward, upsetting decades’ worth of dust. I stifle a sneeze in the crook of my arm.

I step cautiously into a parlor off the foyer. A low, steady ticking fills the room, coming from a large grandfather clock in one corner with missing clock hands. A huge fireplace borders the far wall, facing a long chesterfield sofa that looks about as comfortable as a big rock—probably came from Comfort Row. Emblazoned on a gold plaque boldly above it is the James family crest. I approach it and brush my fingers along the motto Astra inclinant, sed non obligant. Below, in smaller print, is its translation: The stars incline us, they do not bind us.

I sense movement nearby, my gaze falling on the Comfort Row couch. Its cushions stir slightly, as though it were breathing. My heart lurches, and I back quietly from the room.

My attention is drawn farther up the foyer to a door that’s ajar. I peer inside. It’s a circular, oak-paneled study with a large redwood desk in its center. Behind the desk, an open chest overflows with dusty papers and books. I push the door open and cross to the chest for a closer look. The papers are actually letters. I finger through them. The majority are from two people called Oliver and Ruby Hook. My mouth goes dry. The owners of Hook Tavern—the family friends entrusted with my location.

I pick up the topmost letter from Oliver.

Arthur, Wendy—

Need to show you both something. Very important. Meet me tonight at the Old Library.

I start to read another when a heap of dust inside the chest suddenly stirs. Only then do I realize it isn’t dust at all. Well, not only dust. Six tiny legs jut out and scuttle across the chest, before leaping at me. I’m too shocked to move, and it lands on the letter in my hands, besetting both it and me with thousands of dust particles.

With a yelp, I stagger away, blinking my vision clear of the dust collecting in my eyes, and hitting my head on a shelf behind me in the process. Am I wrong, or did the dust creature just snicker?

I leap back into the foyer, slamming the door behind me. My watery gaze cuts to the front door, torn between leaving or exploring further. Curiosity wins out in the end. Swallowing my fear, I climb the steps of the main stairwell, staring into the dark depths above. The second-floor landing reveals a long corridor with a line of closed doors. I look down it, wondering where to start.

A creaking sound breaks the silence. My head whips toward the noise, breath catching in my throat as one door opens wide of its own accord. Against my brain’s better judgement, I approach it slowly.

When I look inside, my fear is forgotten.

It’s the room I was most desperate to find. The reason I dared to enter a haunted manor in the first place.

Somehow… I know its theirs.

My parents’ bedroom is large, furnished with an ornate cedar armoire and a four-poster bed draped with a rich burgundy canopy. At the far wall, a floor-length window bows outward in a crescent, hugging a cushioned reading nook burrowed within. Several articles of clothing are strewn across it.

I look from the clothing to the blankets bunched in a pile on the bed. A breeze licks up my spine.

I’m finding their bedroom exactly as they left it. Why has no one been here since?

Something catches my eye. A red leatherbound journal resting on a side table. I walk over and open it. The handwriting inside is neat but smaller and straighter than my father’s pen.

This is my mother’s journal.

A strange emotion tugs at my heart as my fingers brush over the words.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

January 20

Pollux has been acting up again. We held a small party for Arthur’s birthday this weekend and arrived home to find the place “decorated,” though it might as well have been done by a wild ogre. We had to explain to intrigued friends why a fish tank was used as a punch bowl. And then a dust mutt somehow ended up on Alistair’s head. It took everything to get him calmed down—Arthur had to buy him a new suit. It’s a wonder I’m still sane.

I suppose Pollux finds himself funny. I know he has to occupy himself somehow, but I wish he would take up another hobby. Like knitting. I think he’s very lonely. I hope he’s able to move on soon. I’m not sure how that all works, but I’ll talk with him when I see him again in October.

Hodge has been doing a wonderful job on the hedge—

I leaf through the pages to the back of the journal.

September 15

Things have been so busy. The Council is running Arthur ragged. He and the other guardians were sent out the past three nights in a row. I miss tagging along, but it’s too dangerous now I’m so far along. On a positive note, I’m due in just a few weeks and we’ve finally agreed on a name. We are going to call her Riley Artemis.

Artemis. My chest tightens, a vice grip clenching my heart, as I repeat it aloud, tasting the three syllables on my tongue. Artemis. I didn’t even know I had a middle name. Hell, before last night, I doubted whether James was even my real last name. What else don’t I know about myself?

Now all we have to do is babyproof the manor—

A chuckle bubbles out of my throat. I imagine a heavy sigh as my mother wrote that. This doesn’t sound like the entry of someone resolved to abandon their baby.

I skip ahead to the final entry.

September 24

We had a nice dinner party with Bobak and Hodge last night, now that the dust has settled on Slater’s arrest. I think we all needed that after last week, especially Arthur. The Council has him preoccupied. He thinks something is off with the Elders. I don’t see much reason for concern. I mean, really, it’s never taken much to ruffle their feathers. At last year’s masquerade, Atticus accidentally stepped in a puddle of sick on the floor. I’ve never seen anyone’s face turn so red.

Arthur disagrees. He thinks something’s up. There’s an Elders meeting tomorrow, and he’s determined to find out what’s going on.

An unsettling feeling crawls into my belly, taking root, nesting there—one that has nothing to do with being in a haunted manor. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I was brought to Stornoway Community home just one week after this entry. What did my father discover? Did it have to do with the danger my family was in? Or with the earlier note from Oliver Hook?

I’m willing to bet both.

A rustling noise comes then and I track it to the closet, where a gray sheet—although it might have once been white—has been tossed carelessly over the door. Clutching my mother’s diary to my chest, I creep forward and peek through the crack.

My breath hitches as I spot the culprit. Black, furry—the size of a large dog. Only this isn’t a dog, but something… else. Its black fur hangs disheveled in matted tufts, and it stands on two thick feet, long curving claws hugging the floor. It’s distracted, gnawing on a red cashmere coat, its razor-edged teeth glinting like small spears with each angry chomp.

I step back and cringe when I land on a loose floorboard. The loud creak pierces the silence, and the creature’s hunched form shoots up. My gaze catches on its hands, elongated by claws the size of its fingers, as it drops the coat, gleaming red eyes now homed in on me. Its new and improved meal, mere feet away.

A guttural snarl slips past its jagged teeth. Then… it launches.

Screaming, I rip the sheet off the closet door, unveiling a grimy, full-length mirror—which I think might be trying to speak to me, if such a thing were possible, but I couldn’t make out anything over my hysterical screaming as I throw the sheet over the creature. It trips in the bundle of cloth, giving me time to bolt around it for the exit. A harsh tearing noise slices the air, warning me that the creature is already free.

As I run, something round and flaming, the size of a bracelet, whirls through the air at me. With a yelp, I duck aside, and the thing bounces away toward the creature, which backs off, momentarily distracted.

My foot catches on the threshold, and I crash hard into the hallway, knees banging into the floor. I twist around frantically to find the creature, now recovered, nearly to the door—

I ram my eyes shut, seconds away from being mauled to death—

The door slams of its own accord, and the loud boom that follows jerks me like a physical blow, knocking my eyes open, as the creature inside bangs into it. Shaking more than I ever have in my life, I scramble toward the stairs, a symphony of snarling and clawing and pounding from behind the door playing in my ears.

But at the stairwell, my limbs stiffen. A rhythmic thumping is coming from the bottom, growing louder with each thump! as something large and heavy—and probably not human—clunks up the stairs.

With a faint whimper, I turn and sprint in the opposite direction, passing the door that the creature is still pounding on. I’m relieved that, despite having very capable hands, it doesn’t seem to understand the concept of a doorknob.

I reach the end of the hall just as the thing steps onto the landing at the opposite end. This creature is larger than the first, with scaly skin and black beady eyes that immediately fasten on me. Growling, it bears down like a bear and charges at me, quick as its chunky limbs allow.

In a growing panic, I scurry down an adjacent hall and arrive at a set of boxy steps that I hope leads to the ground floor. Halfway down, a snicker echoes from beneath the stairs.

I look down right as the step beneath me disappears, and then I’m sliding along something smooth and cold, like a metal tunnel. I scream, groping around in the darkness as I try and fail to stop myself.

“No!” I yell, as I lose my grip on my mother’s journal.

After what feels like ages, a faint blue glow appears below me. Next second, I tumble out of the tunnel and onto a cold cement floor. I lie there, hardly breathing. I’m in some sort of cellar. But instead of storing wine or old furniture, this one is home to a host of plants of all different types and sizes and colors. Nearest me is a bizarre plant with long wispy tendrils that glow bright blue. Beside it is a red and yellow plant as large as me. Its pointed center opens and closes rhythmically, as though it’s breathing.

Something creaks behind me and I flinch, whirling around to see a door yawning open, as though by a phantom breeze. I release a shaky breath when a stairwell comes into view. I climb to my feet, legs wobbling, and start for the door.

Then I pause, remembering my mother’s journal. As I bend to pick it up, something long and slimy steals around my ankle like a python. And then I’m on my back, being dragged away, the rough cement floor scraping into my back muscles. I let out a fresh scream of horror when I see that a thick slimy tentacle has slithered out of the center of the red and yellow plant and attached itself to my ankle, pulling me toward the plant, which opens a huge mouth as though preparing to swallow me whole.

Frantically I yank at the tentacle, thrashing uselessly. It won’t budge. If anything, it tightens its hold. I’m a leg’s length from the plant. An arm’s length. I jam my eyes shut, awaiting my fate—

A high-pitched shriek fills the room. The death grip on my ankle disappears. My eyes snap open; the shrieking is coming from the plant. Something has chopped the tentacle in half.

I don’t stick around to see what. Abandoning my mother’s diary, I scramble for the exit, circumventing the other plants, giving them as wide a breadth as possible. I fly up the stairs, thanking the stars when they led me into some kind of rotting scullery room with a window overlooking the grounds. And beside it… a door. Not the door I came through, but I don’t care at this point. All I want is to escape the manor determined to kill me.

I throw it open and race out into the damp, misty air. I’m behind the manor, the grounds like a vast, open moor. In the distance, just beyond a small pond, a jagged cliff drops off to the blanket of pearly gray sea in the distance.

I hurry down the dampened slope, sliding at the halfway point, and land in a large, muddy puddle at the bottom of the hill. As I stand up and brush myself off, a collection of large, narrow rocks comes into view, packed together beneath a copse of trees straight ahead. Just beyond stands a small crumbling building that looks like a crypt. With a jolt, I realize the rocks are tombstones.

James Manor has its own private cemetery.

“No wonder this place is haunted,” I say weakly, scanning the graves. There must be generations of family buried there. And oddly enough, it’s the only portion of the grounds that appears to have been maintained.

My ears pick up voices, growing closer. I turn just as three figures in matching brown uniforms walk out from behind a knot of trees. Before I can throw myself behind an overgrown bramble bush nearby, one of the figures points in my direction.

“There she is!”