Lyra stumbled back.
The boy in the mirror didn't move.
He simply stood there, eyes locked with hers, his expression unreadable. The candle in her hand guttered violently, shadows writhing across the walls. She blinked—and the boy was gone.
Her own reflection returned, pale and wide-eyed.
Lyra's hands trembled as she stepped away. Something about his presence lingered in the room—not just imagined, not a trick of the light. It was real. She felt it in her bones.
Who was he?
Before she could think too hard, a dull thump echoed somewhere above her—like something heavy being dropped upstairs.
She froze.
Another thump. Then silence.
With the candlelight low and wavering, she moved back into the hall and looked up the staircase. Dust swirled in the air, catching golden flecks of light, and yet—she could've sworn she saw a shadow dart around the curve of the banister.
Her voice was a whisper. "Hello?"
No answer.
Only the creak of the house settling… or something moving where it shouldn't.
Lyra gritted her teeth, forcing her feet forward. She had always been the type to chase the unknown rather than flee it. And something about this place, about the boy, stirred not just fear in her—but curiosity.
The upper floor was colder. Each room she passed seemed locked in time: an abandoned nursery, a tiled bathroom with a clawfoot tub stained with rust, a bedroom with lace curtains frozen mid-sway.
She paused outside a door at the end of the hall. It was different from the others—painted black, the handle shaped like a twisted vine.
She reached out, expecting it to be locked.
It opened with a soft click.
---
Inside was a study—ornate, preserved, almost untouched by time. A fire had once burned here; the ashes in the grate were gray but recent. The windows were covered with heavy velvet drapes. A large desk dominated the center, littered with letters, some addressed to names she didn't recognize.
She lifted one.
The ink was faded, the handwriting elegant.
> The boy appears again. Always through the mirror. He speaks in riddles, or not at all. I fear what he carries inside him, what was done to him. And what that means for me.
We were warned: the soul does not forget. It returns to finish what was left undone.
She swallowed hard.
Behind her, the floor creaked.
She turned—and there he was.
The boy.
No longer in the mirror.
Standing in the same room.
Real.
His eyes were too old for his face. He said nothing. Just watched her. Like he was waiting.
Lyra stepped back. "Who are you?"
Still, he didn't answer.
Then—his lips parted.
"I'm the one they couldn't bury."
A sharp breath escaped her.
"I—what does that mean?"
He tilted his head slightly, as if listening to something far away.
Then his voice, quieter this time: "You've opened the house. Now it remembers you."
And just like that, he was gone.
Not vanished—just… no longer there.
The room fell still. The candle flickered out.
And for the first time since she arrived, Lyra felt it.
The house was awake.