Chapter 7 Eliza
Eliza
The next morning, the stillness of Blackwood Manor was loud and thick, as though the house itself were holding its breath.
I lay awake in bed, staring at the dark ceiling, my thoughts tangling and sprawling like the plants that twisted through the neglected garden.
There were no sounds except the occasional creak of the house settling and the rhythmic crackling of the glowing fire in the hearth I’d lit in my desire to make the space feel cozier.
Even the fire seemed to be fighting a losing battle against the chill of the house.
If I could have figured out how to get enough light in the conservatory at this wee morning hour, I’d have settled my anxieties and calmed my nerves with work.
But it was three in the morning, and I didn’t want to startle anyone else in the house, even if I could have talked myself into stepping into the creaky hallway.
The room Jasper Blackwood and Sourpuss had put me in was large and bare, with cream walls decorated with lines of wainscoting and the occasional black-framed photo.
There was a window to the right of the mahogany bed and a Victorian dresser with detailed carvings, dark wood finishes, and a mirror framed with floral motifs.
My eyes, heavy with sleep, took in the plasterwork ceiling, tracing the rose medallions and cornices, hoping it would lull me back to the comforts of sleep.
I hadn’t noticed it before I fell asleep, but now the smell in the room was damp, moss and earth, as if the overgrown gardens had crawled their way to my room.
Maybe it’s just old firewood, I told myself.
The wind outside moaned, pushing through the trees against the house.
A scraggly, bare branch caught on the glass, in a sound that confirmed for me that my haggard nerves were not going to let me go back to sleep.
I pulled the crunchy duvet up over my chest as I registered the faintest scent of Chanel No.
5 clinging to the air again. I couldn’t rid myself of the unease that clung to the space.
I’d always been someone who craved logic, explanations.
But here in this place, I couldn’t seem to make sense of anything—how I felt eyes on me when I was so clearly alone, the weird scents that were so out of place, the… general feel of the house.
I’d spent the last two hours awake, trying to lose myself in making lists of supplies and plants for the conservatory.
I hadn’t been able to tell what all was there originally, but I would ask if Hester Blackwood had kept some sort of log.
As of now, the plants seemed as if they grew in defiance of their long neglect and their hateful new owner who had left them to die.
Maybe they were silent witnesses to the whole thing—a morbid thought that I pushed away.
The soil was rich and dark, teeming with life and decay in equal measure. The conservatory was beautiful in its ruin, and already I’d grown fond of it, though was still incredibly intimidated. I’d never done a project so complex.
The firewood popped like a gunshot, and my nerves were so tense that I nearly cried out.
The manor—this sprawling, brooding fortress—felt alive with secrets that I wasn’t supposed to learn, things that I’d be punished for knowing.
I still couldn’t figure out why he’d insisted on me living here to do this when he clearly didn’t like anyone on the property.
Jasper Blackwood. It felt wrong to call him anything else—certainly not Jasper.
His full name carried weight, like a warning shot.
Omit a syllable and it was as if you’d missed the danger entirely.
Like Madonna, but in reverse: ominous instead of iconic.
It was a name you spoke whole or not at all.
He was a mystery. Handsome in a way that felt almost cruel, distant in a way that made it impossible to know what was going on behind his stern, cold eyes—eyes that seemed to hate everything they landed on—except for when he had almost smiled yesterday.
It was barely even a smile—was it a smile?
—but it had changed his face and made me question if he truly was as terrifying as everyone thought.
He was a weapons dealer who had murdered his parents and had bought off everyone of consequence.
My thoughts drifted again, teasing me at the edge of sleep, when I heard it—a faint rustling, fabric brushing against something.
It was so soft, I dismissed it as the wind moving through the trees outside.
It had been howling steadily for at least an hour as a storm passed.
I heard the sound again, and my heart bottomed out. It was in the room with me.
Pulse racing, I sat up quickly. The firelight flickered wildly in warning as it cast long, devious-looking shadows against the walls.
Instantly everything felt wrong—the air, the silence, even the dim glow from the hearth.
It was tinged with something that words wouldn’t let me explain.
Quickly, my eyes moved across the room, searching for whatever might have disturbed the stillness, searching for the thing that didn’t belong.
And then I saw it—her.
The figure from the conservatory was at the foot of my bed—an ethereal presence, illuminated faintly in the dim glow of the firelight.
Every muscle in my body jolted before locking up, my heart stuttering in my chest. Shock and fear stabbed through me in unsuspecting waves; the bed felt unfamiliar and damp beneath me, and I couldn’t seem to find anything to ground myself.
In that moment, I couldn’t tell if my arms and limbs were my own or not.
I trusted nothing, especially not my sight.
I clamped my eyes shut hard before forcing them to open again, terrified of what they would reveal.
The ghostly woman was tall and slender, draped in a flowing red dress that pooled around her like satin splashes of blood, the fabric the same color as the vital fluid.
Her skin was smooth and pale, almost fully translucent, and her hair—long and dark—flowed around her shoulders in soft, glossy waves.
Her delicate hand fastened tightly around her throat as if she were being choked.
The scariest part was the expression on her face.
She seemed my age, maybe a few years older.
It was difficult to tell, but she definitely had decades more wisdom and desolation in her eyes.
The eyes themselves were large, dark, and mysterious; shadows pooled under the lids, as though they had known nothing but tears for a long time.
Her pupils were wide, glassy, and unfocused, as if she could barely see past what was in front of her, lost in the echoes of a pain that wouldn’t leave.
There was an unnatural stillness in them—too quiet, too empty.
Still, they appeared to glimmer with the weight of memories that lingered.
Even the ghost woman’s lashes appeared to be damp with unshed tears, the skin beneath slightly swollen, showing a life spent in grief.
The sadness that poured from her felt like it had been carried for decades—maybe more.
After a moment, when she didn’t make a move to attack me, confusion pushed through the edge of fear in my veins as we continued to stare at one another.
Her expression was delicate, almost fragile—like a thread ready to snap.
There was no anger or bitterness, only a soft kind of yearning, the kind of sorrow that wraps itself around one’s chest and makes it difficult to breathe.
It was the look of someone who felt as though they’d been hollowed out by tragedy but who still longed for something they’d never have.
Her crimson lips quivered slightly, humanizing her.
My eyes widened and strained with tears.
It seemed as if she was trying to form a word but couldn’t seem to find the strength.
A single shining tear fell from her eye, down her cheek.
She seemed too numb to wipe it away or too weary to care.
In some strange, aching way, I wished I could take that sorrow from her, if just to see what this enigmatic creature looked like as her eyes lit up.
For a long, breathless moment, we just stayed there, staring at each other.
Her face was serene, if sad, but there was something unnerving about the way her dark eyes seemed to look through me.
It was obvious she could see parts of me I didn’t understand, and my insides trembled, as if they knew something I didn’t.
The room felt so cold, and the fire was almost out.
I wanted to scream, to call out for someone to help me, but my throat was still tight, and the words wouldn’t come.
It was as if my body didn’t belong to me anymore in this whirlwind of heart-stopping fear.
Was she making it so I couldn’t cry out?
What else was she going to do to me? Though her appearance was brittle, she was magnetic—even the shadows in the room lengthened toward her, either in reverence or fear.
Something threateningly powerful sat beneath her translucent skin, indicating to me that she could kill me without moving if she wanted to. Would she need to?
Suddenly, she moved, and I startled, shoving myself back against the hardwood of the headboard.
She glided silently across the floor, her gaze never leaving mine as she got closer.
I wanted to scream until I was hoarse as I ran out of the room, but I couldn’t move.
When she reached the left side of my bed, a pale hand lifted, her thin fingers pointing toward the door, soft at first, then a firmer instruction.
There was a motherly quality to her sad eyes that tugged at something deep within me, and I found myself wanting to please her. It wasn’t a command, not quite. More like a gentle invitation, but one I didn’t dare ignore.