The Mirror's Reflection

Chapter 14

The air in the upstairs hallway of the Vance mansion had always felt a little thicker, a little more charged, than the rest of the house. It was as if the very walls held their breath, waiting. Today, however, it felt different. It was heavy, like a velvet curtain about to be pulled back, revealing something I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to see. My footsteps, usually so confident on the worn Persian rug, felt hesitant, each one a question mark against the silence.

I found myself drawn, as I so often was, to the long, dimly lit corridor that led to the master suite, a room I’d only peeked into once, finding it too overwhelmingly filled with the echoes of its former inhabitants. But today, something pulled me forward. Perhaps it was the way the late afternoon sun, slanting through the tall, grimy windows, cast long, distorted shadows that seemed to writhe and shift. Or perhaps it was the faint, almost imperceptible hum that vibrated just beneath the floorboards, a sound I was beginning to recognize as the house’s own restless heart.