Chapter 1 Hemlock House #2
The Blue Room is warmer than any other place I’ve ever slept, hotel or human. Still, there’s something in the radiator’s hissing—a metallic undertone, a whiff of scorched dust—that sets my teeth on edge.
I unpack nothing. I perch on the bed and stare at the row of decorative steamer trunks, at the ceiling painted midnight, at my reflection in the streaked oval of the vanity mirror.
My hair is wild from the wind. I push a fingertip over the scar in my brow and debate filling it in with makeup, then remember there’s no one here to care.
The air inside tastes like furniture polish and secrets.
Another tray of food had arrived this morning at seven o’clock sharp. I had expected stale cereal or a wilting croissant, but instead there was a perfectly poached egg, sausage, brown toast, and blood-red preserves, along with a tiny metal pot of coffee so strong it could strip paint.
The neatness of it all made me weirdly uneasy.
The tray appeared while I was in the shower, just waiting for me on the desk when I emerged, a polite feat of logistics suggesting not only Mrs. Whitby but another ghostlike staff member lurking about.
I searched the hall outside for signs of activity, but found only silence and the lingering suggestion of movement behind the stained glass of the transom window.
I ate. I drank the sinister, bitter coffee and let the caffeine judder through my nerves. I changed into real clothes, the kind meant for archiving and restoration and impressing dead relatives, rather than travel. But I have a sense nothing would impress Mrs. Whitby.
Someone knocks. Not timid, not thunderous—just a flat, practical sound. I open the door. Mrs. Whitby stands precisely on the threshold, hands clasped, lips pursed in what might be concern or constipation.
“Will you join me for a tour of the house?”
A demand in question’s clothing. “Sure.”
We walk. She leads with brisk, mechanical steps, and I follow, footsteps echoing like ping-pong in a gymnasium.
The upstairs corridor is a runway of faded runners and ancestral mugshots.
She points them out with dry pride. Lord Harold, who built the West Wing on a dare, Lady Sibyl, who collected rare orchids and rarer lovers, Sir Rowan, who hunted wolves for sport and probably people, too, judging by the look of him.
I study the faces. They’re all arranged in a single file, each more dissatisfied than the last. My favorite is a woman in blue velvet, glowering as if she’s just been told she has to pose forever.
The plaque reads “Maud Vale, 1844–1871.” I remember my mother saying that all the women in our family looked the same.
I check: strong chin, wide brow, the same thin, suspicious mouth I see in the mirror every day.
“She died young,” I say, nodding at the portrait.
Mrs. Whitby’s eyes don’t quite meet mine. “They often did.”
I glance down and notice the impeccably clean baseboard. The house is so vast I can’t imagine how it’s kept up. “And you do all the work yourself?”
“I prefer things to be done properly,” she says. “The full-time help is for the grounds, the kitchen, and the animals, but we do have a maid most of the time.”
We stop in front of a window so old and warped I can barely see the view. I try anyway, and catch the distant sparkle of the river through the trees. “Is that—?”
“Yes. The river is cold all year. Don’t go near it after dusk.”
I almost laugh at the paranoia, but her face tells me she’s not joking.
The hallway doglegs into a gallery. The ceilings vault overhead like the insides of cathedrals.
Here, instead of portraits, there are display cases set into the wall: daggers, pocket watches, a set of baby shoes bronzed to a dull shine, and, in the last alcove, a delicate little music box.
I reach for it; Mrs. Whitby’s hand closes over mine before I even realize she’s moved.
“Please,” she says. Not angry—almost pleading. “Some things are not to be touched.”
I slide my hand away and wipe it on my slacks. “You’re serious about the rules.”
She withdraws, face composed. “Rules are what keep the house standing, Miss Vale.”
Downstairs, the house transforms. Despite the age, the stairs feel sturdy under my feet. The landing opens to a foyer bigger than my entire apartment. This isn’t the same one I entered through yesterday. How big is this damn house?
Here the cold bites. There’s no radiator, only a grate where a fire used to be.
“Now that you’re here, we can open these rooms up. Set fires each day. At least for the time being.”
I want to say that’s not necessary, but I also don’t know what I will want to explore when I have time to do it on my own—without Mrs. Whitby watching like a hawk. I simply nod.
The floor is flagstone, slick as ice, and every step stirs little cyclones of dust. To the left is the library, so overstuffed with books that several have escaped onto the floor and are stacked in teetering columns. I want to linger. Mrs. Whitby does not.
To the right, the salon, curtains drawn, every piece of furniture entombed in a cocoon of white sheet. A few have gone gray at the corners, and in the faint light I imagine bodies lurking beneath, ready to pounce. The grand piano is a monstrous thing, its keys exposed like the teeth of a corpse.
“Who played?” I ask, waving at the keys.
“Many people. Your aunt, sometimes, when she was young.”
“Before she cut everyone out?”
A pause, longer than usual. “Maeve was never suited to company.”
She leads me onward. The dining room is a mortuary for chairs.
There must be eighteen of them, all high-backed and identical, marching down the table’s length.
The table itself is covered in a velvet runner so faded it’s more pink than red.
Above, a chandelier droops with the weight of its own crystals.
I imagine them crashing down in a rain of glass and blood.
The fireplace here is actually lit, though the flames barely compete with the shadow.
Mrs. Whitby gestures at the table. “This is where dinner will be starting tonight. Eight sharp.”
I lean over a chair and glance at her sidelong. “Will there be a quiz?”
She pretends not to hear.
She shows me the kitchen. It’s less of a kitchen and more of a Victorian war room—everything iron, enamel, and scarred wood.
There’s a rack of knives longer than my forearm, and copper pots so polished they reflect the ceiling.
Mrs. Whitby points out the larder, the servant’s staircase, and a small bell set into the wall.
“If you need me,” she says, “ring three times. For the kitchen, two.”
“I remember.”
She only makes a little “hmm” sound and keeps walking.
We pass through a series of side corridors, each narrower, gloomier, and more labyrinthine than the last. The walls press in.
There are more portraits, these painted with a less skilled hand: blurred, smudged, their eyes always following.
Some are children, their faces pinched and old, their hands holding objects—rosaries, dead birds, a single, severed lock of hair.
I get goosebumps. Not metaphorical, either—my skin prickles, every follicle standing at attention. “You know, if you wanted to murder me, you’re doing an excellent job setting the scene.”
Mrs. Whitby stops, turns, and for the first time she almost smiles. “If I wanted to murder you, Miss Vale, you would not have reached the Blue Room.”
I snort. It echoes.
We pause in front of a door with an inset glass panel. On the other side: total darkness.
“What’s in there?” I ask.
“Cellar.”
“Is it haunted?”
She weighs the question, then says, “No more than the rest of the house.”
A draft creeps up from under the door. My scalp tightens. “I’ll take your word for it.”
She leads me back to the main stairs, then, without ceremony, leaves me alone. I hesitate, then wander back to the Blue Room, past the glares of dead relatives and the patient ticking of a clock I don’t remember seeing before.
I flop on the bed, read the letter again. It’s boilerplate.
Maeve Vale leaves all her property, real and personal, to her only living relative, Nora Vale, provided she assumes residence at Hemlock House within thirty days of death.
The rest is legalese, an address, and one handwritten addition: “The house requires you.” I run my finger under it and wonder if it’s the lawyer’s joke, or something my aunt wanted to say from the beyond.
Outside, the wind whines. I close my eyes and imagine the faces in the hallway, each one watching, waiting. I could call the office. I could call my step-mother. But my phone is dead and I find I don’t want to hear anyone else’s voice right now.
Then, from somewhere below, a masculine yell and the slam of a door. It echoes up through the bones of the house, hard enough to rattle the radiator. I sit up, heart doing a little polka in my chest. I wait for footsteps, a verbal response, a door creaking open. There’s nothing.
The silence that follows is complete.
Welcome home, Nora, I think to myself.