Eleanor stood at the top of the stairs, heart still hammering from the climb. The music had stopped the moment she reached the landing.
The silence now felt like mockery.
She swallowed and moved toward the master bedroom—the same room where her grandmother had died, if the stories were true. But truth in this house was like light: filtered, faded, and full of shadows.
The door creaked open on its own.
Inside, dust floated like ash in the cold light seeping through the cracked window. The curtains, once red velvet, had faded to a sickly gray. The bed was untouched. Just like she remembered. And there, on the vanity—
—the music box.
It sat exactly where it always had, centered and pristine amid the dust. A delicate porcelain ballerina balanced en pointe on a marble pedestal inside its glass case. Arms raised. Head tilted. Eyes closed.
Eleanor's stomach twisted.
"It's not possible," she whispered. "You burned."
She had seen the fire. She remembered it—embers falling like snow in the hallway, the box glowing red before the lid slammed shut. Her mother said it was just a nightmare.
But there it was. Not even a scorch mark.
She took a slow step forward. The floor groaned beneath her, as if warning her not to come closer.
"I'm not afraid of you," she said. But her voice shook.
The ballerina hadn't moved, but something felt wrong. Off. Like the figure was frozen in the middle of motion.
She looked away for only a second—just to glance at the cracked mirror above the vanity.
And when she looked back…
The ballerina's arms had changed.
They were in a different position. Lower. Curved.
Eleanor gasped and stepped back. "No," she said, shaking her head. "No, I saw—"
She turned the glass case slightly. The ballerina didn't move.
Her own reflection in the mirror stared back, pale and wide-eyed. And then she saw it—barely there, almost invisible under the skin of her left wrist:
A crack.
Thin and pale as porcelain. Hairline. Impossible.
Eleanor ran her fingers over it. It didn't hurt. But it felt… hollow.
"I'm losing it," she whispered. "I'm tired. That's all. One bad dream on top of another."
Then the music box clicked.
One slow wind.
Clink.
The melody began again—but slower this time. Dragged out. Distorted. And underneath the tune, buried in the notes, she heard something else.
Not a note.
A word.
Eleanor.
Her blood went cold. The sound was faint, barely more than a breath, but it was there. Her name. Whispered beneath the melody.
Eleanor.
She stepped back toward the door.
And then—
The ballerina opened its eyes.
Just a flicker. A blink. But Eleanor saw it.
The house had kept its promise.
It had waited for her.