When I struck a match and lit the candle, I saw that my bedroom door was open. It wasn’t open a crack as if the latch hadn’t caught. It was standing wide open, and I could sense something lurking just out of sight. For a moment, I sat there frozen, like a doomed girl in a horror movie, watching for whatever it was to step out of the darkness and into my room.
Then the spell broke, and a burst of energy shot through me. If something was coming, I wasn’t going to sit there and wait for it. I threw back the blankets, bolted to the bedroom door, and slammed it shut. My fingers didn’t fumble when I turned the lock.
I took a few steps back and stood there in my underwear, facing the door, gulping down air as my skin turned to ice. My fingernails dug into the candle, and wax dripped down my hand. I expected to hear a rap on the wood or to see the knob twisting. Everything remained still and the room stayed silent. But I knew what I’d heard. Someone was out there. And I had no intention of ever sleeping in the rose room again.
With the door shut and locked, I wrapped a blanket from the bed around my body and started a fire. It was cold, and my hands were shaking so badly that I kept snapping matches in half. Thankfully, there were embers hidden beneath the ashes, and the twigs that I’d tossed onto them caught fire quickly. As soon as the blaze had pushed the darkness into the corners of the room, I took a look around. There was no sign of an intruder. I checked beneath the bed. Then I threw open the curtains in case someone might be hiding behind them, and discovered French doors with a Juliet balcony on the other side of the glass. The storm had passed and the moon was shining. My windows looked out over the gardens in front of the manor—and the hedges that lined the drive. They were shapeless mounds at that point—nothing human about them—and the world outside seemed perfectly safe and serene.
But I didn’t doubt myself. I knew what had happened. My mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, and I hadn’t let my imagination run wild. I dug through the vanity until I found some paper and a pen, and with my bottom half tucked under the bedcovers, and a tattered cashmere throw wrapped around my shoulders, I wrote everything down. I wanted to make sure I had a record. I knew that without one, details would blur, facts might get twisted, and the story could spiral out of control.
Hours later, I woke to a blinding light. I’d set my writing aside and fallen asleep with the curtains open, and now the sun’s rays were bouncing off the white blanket that covered the world outside. As my eyes gradually adjusted, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. In the daylight, my room didn’t feel frilly or fussy. The furnishings were fit for a princess—but one who’d died ages earlier and left them behind. The velvet on the chair was threadbare in places, and the finish on the vanity had worn thin. On their own, every piece would have looked slightly shabby, yet they came together beautifully. If my written account of the night’s events hadn’t been lying there right beside me, I could have convinced myself it had all been a dream.
But it hadn’t. I remembered being scared out of my wits, and I would have asked to move to another room—if not for the painting on the walls around me. The forest that had frightened me the previous evening had transformed into fruit-filled trees and flowering meadows. The artist who’d painted the summertime landscape had been gifted. The plaster was damaged in places, but what remained of the artwork was impossibly lovely. At first, I thought the paint must have darkened over the years. Then I spotted the moon high on the wall and the stars on the ceiling, and I realized the mural showed a night scene.
My attention was drawn to an image directly across from the bed, and I climbed out from beneath the covers for a closer look. A small white boat was crossing a wide blue river. The name on the side of the boat was printed in letters too tiny to read, and there didn’t seem to be anyone inside the vessel.
I circled the bedroom, studying the rest of the mural. In the distance there appeared to be mountains. Eventually I found a few houses—clustered together as though they belonged to a town. Nearby was a tiny storefront with a sign that read maxwell & mason, general merchandise, louth, new york. I searched for signs of life in the village, but the windows were all dark. There were no dogs in the yards or birds in the trees. The only living creature I spotted was a girl in a long white dress on her way to the village. She seemed eager to get there. Her long hair flowed behind her as though she’d broken into a run.
I leaned in to study the girl more closely and saw that her face had been drawn in remarkable detail. She didn’t appear that much older than me. It was odd to see her there, all alone on a dark country road in the middle of the night, wearing a dress that wasn’t made for running. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were wide with excitement. Wherever she was going, I thought, it was somewhere she longed to be.
That was the moment I decided I needed the room to be mine. It didn’t make sense, and I couldn’t explain it. A few hours earlier, I would have rather been anywhere else. But with the sun shining, the room felt right—like it wanted me there. Like I wasn’t crazy for coming. For the first time in ages, I almost felt hopeful. My life in Manhattan was over, but I might have a reason to keep going in Louth.
The clothes I’d left hanging by the fire were damp but wearable. I pulled on my jeans and sweater and set off down the stairs in search of my uncle. But when I reached the bottom of the grand staircase, I paused. The urge to explore was too strong to resist.
I opened a door that I knew must lead to the burnt wing of the house, and stepped into a parlor. I lifted the collar of my sweater up over my nose, though the wool couldn’t mask the stench of smoke. The fire had spared the room’s floor and walls, but a dark black stain crawled across the ceiling as if searching for the door. The temperature plunged as I walked from room to room, and the damage grew worse the farther I went. Eventually, it was impossible to tell what function the rooms had once served. The plaster had burned off the walls, exposing the stone underneath, and the ceiling was little more than a matrix of charred wood. In places I could see into the floors above. At one point I came across a small mound of snow in the middle of a room. I looked straight up and caught a glimpse of the sky. At the far end of the wing, the glassless windows were all boarded up.
“Good morning,” someone said, and I nearly leaped out of my skin. I spun around to see Miriam standing there, her hands shoved into the pockets of a long denim skirt. Her graying brown hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail, and her sweater bore several prominent holes. She may have been smiling, but the expression seemed forced. I didn’t blame her for being a bit wary of someone like me.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said. “I guess you figured out that the power’s back on. The plow came through early this morning, and Boris dropped off your things. I went upstairs to let you know, but you’d already set out to have a look around.”
“Sorry—” I started nervously.
“It’s okay,” she assured me. “I would have wanted to check it out, too.” Then she paused for a moment to take in the room. “It may be hard to believe, but this was once the most beautiful library. I saw a picture of it in a magazine. The walls were lined with shelves filled with leather-bound books. Your uncle had built quite a collection.” She stopped, her mouth twisted as if the library’s destruction were too much to bear. “Do you know what happened?”