The Secret Room
Daphne
Iknew it in my bones: any delusion that Emrys was a harmless madman who talked to bats and turtles and played the violin was dangerous.
And yet, he was fuel for my curiosity. I couldn’t stop thinking about his words.
How his face changed when he heard the word freedom.
Was this longing? Sadness? Something darker?
It irked me he called Vexley and Cagliostro my masters.
Emrys knew nothing about what it was to be a woman beyond these walls.
Wicked men were holding my life and my freedom in their hands, and all I could do was pretend to obey and wait for the right time.
Give them their moment of power, and then do whatever the hell you want. I’d better use the same tactic on him.
I lingered in the empty greenhouse, basking in the warmth and the scents of damp earth and blossoms. A cricket was chirping somewhere in the green depths, and there was some soft snoring–probably Nibble had settled already for his daily nap.
It was not only Emrys. This whole place was dangerous. It was a trap laid bare and had a way of playing with my wishes and desires, flooding my mind with visions of how things could be.
I shook my head, ignoring the sudden urge to sit at the rim of the marble fountain, feed the two turtles that curiously peeked at me, listen to that cricket and the bat snoring.
Dangerous. If I let my guard down and succumb to these temptations, I might end up ensnarled by the quiet of these halls, wandering the ever-changing corridors forever.
“Get yourself together, Daphne,” I murmured. “Fortune favors the brave.” It was time to go back and continue my search for clues. The Unbidden remained quiet when I hurried back to the glass door of the solarium. Eyes delved into the back of my head. Something from the lake was watching me.
I entered the manor through the bright solarium. It was unchanged. The ferns slightly nodded when I walked by. I rubbed my hands to warm them and peered at the room beyond. It looked different. Two unfamiliar passageways led into the manor’s bowels. Which one would take me to Emrys’s study?
“You know what I want, don’t you? I said.
My shoes clicked against the checkered floor.
Two corridors. Which one to take? I took another step and smelled them.
The air in the right one was stale, laced with the scent of books and candle wax.
The one to the left was emitting a metallic scent and buzzed with an odd energy.
Right appeared to be the safer choice. If I could return to the library and then search the first floor, that would be something.
If this house lets me do this. Taking a deep breath, I chose the right one.
The bright morning light faded behind me.
Worn-out carpets muffled my steps. The scent of old wood and wax got overwhelming.
Thick candles replaced the stained glass gas lanterns on the walls, their waxy tears building stalagmites on the floor.
It was quiet, but there was a whisper of a distant draft behind the walls.
Chills ran down my neck. God only knows what secret passages were inside them.
Once again, eyes dug into my back as if the manor itself was a living, breathing being that liked to play with its prey like a bored predator.
Thick velvet curtains stood in my way. I parted them and walked into a grand door.
Very well. What was beyond? I took a candle from the bronze wall sconce. Hot wax trickled over my fingers, but I didn’t make a sound. Holding it high above my head, I entered the room.
The darkness inside seemed to defy all natural laws.
It framed the flickering light of my candle, but the circle of timid light in my hand was uneven as if the gloom were taking tiny bites out of the flickering halo.
This looked like a once opulent ballroom.
Crystal chandeliers draped with spiderwebs glimmered in the candlelight, and intricate mosaics graced the floor. And at the center of it: a dusty piano.
My heart leapt.
A piano!
I couldn’t resist the instinct to run my fingers over the yellowed keys.
The tones sliced through the silence, sharp and incredibly vivid; they rolled between the furniture covered with stained white sheets.
Carefully placing the candle on top, I settled in the chair.
What was I doing? I had a task, but this—this piano was calling me.
How long had it been since I last played?
How long had it been since I did something I enjoyed without risking a punishment?
My hands took control, and soon, a bittersweet melody that had been living in my head forever spilled into the silence.
It swelled down the tricky corridors, filled the empty rooms, and startled the spiders in the corners.
A smile stretched my lips, and I surrendered to the melody, humming with my eyes closed.
The manor seemed to hold its breath. Listening.
It felt good—it’s been forever since I had an audience.
Arthur had done his best to “cure” my passion for music, destroyed my piano and punished me every time he caught me singing.
Now, I could only laugh at his pathetic attempts to smother this passion.
Little cruel men like him didn’t understand that it was impossible.
The last note rolled like a silver coin in the silence, and I opened my eyes. Darkness was still around me, the daylight locked away by heavy brocade curtains covering the tall windows, but the gloom was different. It was smug, like a cat at a fireplace, nodding at me with a content smile.
“Did you like this?” My voice came a little shaky.
For some unknown reason, a weight lifted from my shoulders.
I could still play. I still enjoyed it. “Help me learn more about Emrys and his secret, and there’ll be more!
” The Unbidden was quiet in my head, but I chuckled at my own words.
I was bargaining with a house! Distant whispers and a soft draft moved the candle flame and I looked around.
There was nobody, just deep shadows. That draft again.
Colder, more insistent. It nearly smothered my light.
Calling me. Where was it coming from? I pushed myself up, picked up my candle and followed the invisible fingers, luring me forward.
There was something on the wall. I brought the candle forward and inspected it.
That was a door camouflaged by the gilded ornaments and silk wallpaper.
A tiny, inconspicuous door I wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t opened beneath my fingers.
The smell of damp stone wafted from the depths beyond it, but there was also some odd, cold shimmer.
Something was beckoning me to enter. A promise lingered in the air—there was an answer, a secret waiting to be revealed.
I stood for a moment, hesitating. Should I enter or return to the solarium?
Running won’t bring much. I prepared to descend into the darkness and threw one last look over my shoulder.
Sweet Lord –
I was no longer alone.
The candle flickered in my shaking hand. The temperature dropped so fast that my exhale came out in a white huff. I threw a look over my shoulder.
A boy no older than twelve sat at the piano.
Something in his posture reminded me of Arthur—the way he was before my parents passed away–young and vulnerable.
But his shape was glowing with a faint light, his clothes and haircut bleeding into the darkness when he moved.
The ghostly boy was hitting the keys with rage.
No sound came from the instrument. But in my head spilled a chaotic melody of anger and terror.
“He knows you are here,” the Unbidden whispered. The spectral boy stood up from the piano chair, his back still turned.
I held back a scream, the candle nearly slipping from my sweaty fingers. No way I was waiting for him to discover me. I pushed the narrow door open, and to my terror, it screeched loud. Too loud.
Dear God, he must have heard me!
Ice crawled down my spine. I didn’t need to turn around. I knew he was behind me. His icy breath grazed my neck.
“Sweet Mother Mary,” I whispered, turning around.
The boy was so close I could see every detail of his old-fashioned suit and his wide, angry, terrified eyes. He seemed to try to tell me something, but his lips…
His lips were stitched with thick black thread. Blood trickled from every tiny hole. He reached for my hand, as if trying to stop me.
My stomach rolled when I looked closer.
The worst was the deep hole in his chest. His elegant shirt was cut open, and someone had carved his heart out.
The fear that made my limbs shake was swept away by something unexpected.
Pity.
Who did this to a child?
A mystery for later. I turned on my heel and dashed into the unknown beyond the door, cupping my candle—my only connection to the world outside. The boy didn’t follow, but I could sense his sad eyes on my back.
“To be betrayed by those who were supposed to protect you isn’t that the most tragic fate. You know that very well, Daphne,” the Unbidden said.
“What happened to him?” I asked, still running down the steep stone corridor. My heart was still hammering in my throat, but I was regaining my composure.
“His father did that to him. He traded his life for knowledge no mortal should possess.” My steps slowed. Poor child! This could have been me if I had stayed home, at Arthur’s mercy.
The answer was so unexpected that I nearly stumbled on my long skirt and tumbled down the rough stone floor. The Unbidden spoke in riddles or sarcastic comments but never answered my questions. We never had any sort of dialogue.
“Wait, you can answer my questions now?” I said. “Who was his father?”
Was it Emrys? They told me he was a dangerous man, but to be that cruel—
It simply didn’t add up.
The Unbidden cackled. “I always could answer your questions. I just didn’t want to.” Then, it went silent again.
The steep corridor led me deeper. I stumbled more than once over the uneven floor and had to lean on the rough, damp wall. The passage narrowed, ending at a door.
It was a heavy iron-banded door, its dark wood scarred with deep gouges. Something had once tried to claw its way out—or in. Unease gripped me, but I reached for the handle anyway.
It was unlocked.
The moment I stepped inside, the air shifted.
A chamber stretched before me, vast yet suffocating, its arched ceiling blackened with soot as if something had burned here long ago. Heavy iron candelabras, gutted with melted wax, sprang into life when I stepped in, their flames low and flickering as if disturbed by an unseen breath.
At the center of the room lay a ritual circle, etched into the black stone floor in a faded silver script, its runes pulsing softly—dying embers of something once powerful. Symbols I didn’t recognize curled along its edges, too old, too ancient for any human tongue.
My throat tightened. This place was… wrong.
The air hummed with magic.
An old book, torn in two, lay in the center of the circle.
Its pages flittered around, picked up by the draft.
I stepped into the circle and picked up one of them.
It was old, older than any book I’d seen, written in a language I’d never seen.
The page seemed to have been torn in a fit of rage, crimson droplets sprinkling the even letters.
Somehow, I knew it. “Are these the wards keeping Emrys inside?” I asked, unsure who’d answer. The Unbidden uncoiled in my mind like a viper.
“You’re not so stupid after all,” it hissed.
My fingers shook as I looked at the page in my hand.
The ink was golden, faded, but still gleaming in the candlelight. And there, across the illustration—
Emrys.
Not as I had seen him, holding the violin bow or peeling apples for turtles in the greenhouse.
No—this was a being wreathed in shadow and fire, his mighty wings spread over an ancient battlefield.
I picked another page. He was standing before kneeling kings and queens, their golden crowns lowered in reverence.
Another page—
A different time. Different people. Primitive tribes with painted faces, cowering in caves. Their hands lifted toward the sky where a winged figure loomed, radiant and terrible.
The brittle page crumbled slightly in my trembling grip. My mouth was dry.
Sweet Mother Mary, what was he?
I rubbed my temples. The Unbidden stirred, rising like mist at the edges of my mind.
“They worshipped him once.”
I swallowed. “What… what is he?”
There was no need to answer.
A god. Ancient and forgotten.
A soft laugh, a ripple of amusement, and something darker. “You see what he was before. Now he’s not what he was meant to be.”
Damned Unbidden and its riddles.
I paced across the circle. The echo of a once mighty spell—the one which scorched the walls—still lingered.
“He tried to break free. He failed.”
“Now he rots.”
“Trapped. Just like me.”
It was the first time I heard the Unbidden talk like this. Emotional. I dropped the page, my breath uneven. The air felt heavier now, thicker as if something unseen had stirred.
“He said he cannot leave. That the wards are keeping him in. Who trapped him? And why?”
The Unbidden let out a sound similar to a sigh. “That’s why I don’t respond to your inquiries, Daphne. They’re so limited. Who do you think trapped him here?”
I wrapped my arms around myself. It got so cold. “The one who…sent me to steal his secrets? Cagliostro!”
The hairs on my arms stood up. A whisper—not from the Unbidden. From behind me.
The candles flickered violently, casting long, stretching shadows that moved when I did not.
I was not alone.
A breath on the back of my neck—cold as the grave.
I ran.
I bolted opposite the door, my skirts catching on the jagged stone floor.
The tiles shifted, and I yelped.
The floor beneath me groaned.
Then it collapsed.
A split-second sensation of falling—air rushing past me—
“Ah, sweet little Daphne. Now you’ll understand. Now I’ll get what is rightfully mine—a Draymoore child! You outsmarted me before. But not now, Daphne. Not now. Now, I’ll be free.”
And then I landed in water. When the cold weight squeezed the air from my lungs and darkness swallowed me, the Unbidden laughed and laughed.