The key was small, no larger than a button, and it had been buried in dust at the bottom of a drawer in Lyra's mother's study. She had nearly missed it—tucked beneath layers of parchment, inside a velvet pouch that smelled faintly of thyme and ash.
It didn't look like much.
And yet, the moment she held it, the Hollow listened.
Not in a threatening way. Not like it had in the beginning, when the walls whispered and the mirrors cried. This was different. Like the house was waiting, curious.
She turned the key over in her palm. Its teeth were oddly shaped—twisted, more like a thorn than a tool.
"Elias," she said, finding him in the bell tower, "I think it's time."
---
They searched for the lock until sunset.
It wasn't in any of the known wings. Not behind the altar room, not in the cellar with the cracked jars of wax and salt. It wasn't under the staircase or behind the loose panel in the dining hall where the previous heir had hidden their letters.
They found it in the eastern corridor.
The wall had no seams—just faded wallpaper and the soft scent of mildew. But when Lyra held the key out, the wallpaper curled away. Not torn, not crumbling. Peeling, like skin shedding for the last time.
Behind it: a small door, no taller than a child, built from blackwood. The lock pulsed faintly, like a slow heartbeat.
Lyra pressed the key into it.
It clicked.
And the Hollow held its breath.
---
Inside was a single room, round and empty. No windows. No furniture. Just smooth stone walls and a ceiling with a hole at the center where the wind whispered through like a sigh.
In the middle of the floor lay a circle of salt.
Untouched. Unbroken.
In its center: a book.
Lyra approached slowly.
The book was bound in pale leather, old and cracked at the corners. There was no title on the front, no markings at all. But when she opened it, she saw the first page, handwritten in her mother's delicate, looping script.
> For the last one.
If you are reading this, then the Hollow has changed.
And you were the one who changed it.
Lyra's hand trembled.
She turned the page.
> I tried. Gods know I tried. But I was too deep inside it. I didn't remember where I ended and where the Hollow began. I gave up pieces of myself until there was nothing left to give but you.
She closed her eyes, breathing through it.
> You don't have to keep it. The pain. The rituals. The hunger.
You can end it, or let it live in peace. I only ask one thing:
Let them be remembered. The ones who came before.
Let the house stay awake, but not alone.
---
When she finished reading, she sat cross-legged on the floor, the book in her lap.
Elias waited by the door, silent.
"She loved this place," Lyra said finally. "Even when it took everything."
"I think she believed it could heal," he replied.
Lyra traced the last sentence again.
Let the house stay awake, but not alone.
She stood.
They left the book there, in the circle, untouched.
They didn't close the door behind them.
---
Years passed.
The Hollow grew, slowly and softly. The garden was filled with laughter now—new caretakers, new stories. The mirror room became a greenhouse. The tower bells chimed at dawn and dusk, not in warning, but in greeting.
And the house never hungered again.
Only remembered.