The Door Below

The sound came again.

A low creak, unmistakable. Not random. Not wind.

A door opening.

Sloane turned toward the hallway, the air shifting around her like a held breath finally exhaled. The fire in the drawing room dimmed behind them, the flames curling low, as though the house wanted them to leave the warmth.

Theo was already moving.

He didn’t speak, just crossed the room and opened the door to the corridor. The light from the antique fixtures on the walls flickered. Not out, but dimmed, as if watching them pass.

Sloane followed him into the hall, her sketchbook tucked under her arm, the brandy left untouched on the table. Her feet made no sound on the runner, but her pulse thundered.

They moved past the grand staircase, past the ornate frames and faded portraits. The sound had come from the far side of the corridor, near the west wing, but deeper, where the plaster showed cracks like veins and the wallpaper curled at the seams.

Theo stopped at a narrow arch she hadn’t noticed before.

Half-covered by an old cabinet that had been shoved against the wall.

He pushed it aside with effort, wood scraping against wood. Dust plumed into the air. Behind it, an arched door stood partially open, its edges stained and splintered with time.

Sloane stepped closer.

The door wasn’t on any blueprint she remembered. It had no frame, just stone, like it had been part of the original foundation. Older than the house. Older than them.

Theo looked at her. “It’s you she wants.”

Sloane nodded. She reached out and touched the wood.

It was cold. Damp. Breathing.

She pushed the door open.

The scent of earth and mildew rose instantly, cool and sharp. A narrow staircase unfurled below them, spiraling down, cut from stone, the edges worn smooth by decades of footfall.

No light.

Just darkness, waiting.

Theo took out the flashlight he’d tucked into his coat earlier and clicked it on. The beam was weak, barely enough to cut the dark.

“I’ll go first,” he said.

Sloane caught his arm. “No.”

He blinked at her.

She said it again, quieter. “The drawings. The message. She has to open it. Not him.”

Theo hesitated, then handed her the light.

She led the way down.

Each step groaned underfoot. The walls closed around them, stone breathing cold against her shoulders. The beam quivered in her grip, catching glints of old cobwebs, rusted hooks in the stone, old nails with nothing hanging from them.

Twenty steps down.

Then thirty.

Then—

The staircase opened into a narrow corridor. The air was heavier here. Sloane could taste metal at the back of her throat. Something deeper than dust.

Theo moved beside her. The silence between them wasn’t awkward. It pulsed.

At the far end of the corridor stood a second door.

Lower. Heavier. Made of iron, or something like it. No handle. Just a faint groove where a keyhole might’ve been, now filled with wax.

Sloane stepped forward.

She knew this door. She’d drawn it three times. The same warped iron. The same low arch.

She reached into her coat and pulled out the sketchbook.

The page was already open, the one she hadn’t drawn yet.

The iron door. And beyond it was a room. A child’s bed.

A shape beneath the covers.

A girl.

Theo stood behind her. “Is that…”

Sloane nodded. “Lenore.”

A chill ran up her spine. Not fear. Something older.

She pressed her palm to the metal.

Nothing happened at first.

Then, the iron warmed beneath her hand. A groan echoed behind the walls, like an engine trying to remember how to breathe.

The door opened inward.

They stepped into a narrow chamber. Low-ceilinged. Damp. The walls were made of stacked stone, barely mortared. Shelves lined the left wall, but everything had crumbled to dust. To the right: a child’s bed. Still intact.

And someone had been here.

Not recently, but not centuries ago either.

On the wall above the bed, scratched into the stone, were letters.

Faint, but still visible.

LENORE

Beneath it, a second line: She watched and watched and no one saw her.

Sloane stepped closer. There was something on the bed. A small, cloth-bound book. She picked it up carefully, fingers trembling.

It was a child’s diary.

Inside were pages in faded pencil, simple, awkward handwriting.

“I dream the same dream again. She’s wearing red and she doesn’t see me. I try to speak but I don’t have a mouth. Mama says dreams are nothing. But she’s wrong. The lady in red is real. She’s the one who buried the rest.”

Sloane turned the page.

“They said I was too quiet. But they didn’t listen. She did. The one who sees me.”

Her fingers tightened on the paper.

She turned to Theo, voice hollow. “She saw me before I was born.”

And then the light dimmed.

Not the flashlight, the room itself. The corners darkened. The bed vanished behind a veil of shadow.

And the sketchbook in Sloane’s hand began to change.

Lines appearing on the blank page.

A staircase. This one spiraling upward.

At the top — a mirror.

A single word beneath it, appearing as if drawn by invisible hand:

Look.