The Letter Unsealed

The envelope still laid on the desk like a heartbeat.

Sloane stood above it, arms folded, eyes locked on the crimson wax seal that hadn’t cracked since the moment it appeared. The fire had burned low, shadows stretching long across the room. She’d returned from the garden cold and muddied, her thoughts tangled with Rhys’s words, with the soft hiss of his voice warning her against the letter without ever truly forbidding it.

She hadn’t seen him again since.

The envelope hadn’t moved. But it felt different now. Heavier somehow, as though time or the house had pressed something into its paper walls.

Sloane’s fingers hovered over it, hesitant.

She’d spent years chasing clarity. Years burying the bitter taste of betrayal, silencing her voice with whiskey and old drafts no one would read. But the presence of the letter made one thing impossible to ignore.

Some part of her had never stopped waiting for this moment.

With a slow breath, she broke the wax.

The parchment inside was thick, its edges frayed like it had been handled a hundred times before. The ink was deep black, written in sharp, elegant script she didn’t recognize at first but her pulse responded before her mind did.

Theo’s handwriting.

She swallowed.

‘You once asked me why some stories are better left untold.

This is the one I could never write, because to write it would make it real.

Now I fear it’s too late to forget.

There’s something in this house, Sloane. Something we both called to. It answered me first.

But I think it’s answering to you now.’

Sloane sat down slowly, the letter trembling in her hands.

‘You should have never come back.

But now that you’re here… you have to finish what I couldn’t.’

The final line was scrawled faster, almost frantic.

‘Before it takes you too.’

She stared at the page, rereading the words until they blurred.

It wasn’t an apology.

It was a warning.

The knock at the door came so softly she almost missed it. Three gentle raps. Not like Theo’s, sharp and purposeful. This one was hesitant. Lighter. Almost… familiar.

She rose and opened the door.

No one was there.

Except—

A child’s shoe.

Tiny, aged leather, the kind a girl might have worn in another century. Its laces were frayed. A streak of dried mud marked the sole. Sloane’s stomach turned cold.

She looked up and down the hallway. Empty.

But as she bent to examine the shoe, she heard something. Not from outside her room but within.

Laughter.

Soft. High-pitched. A child’s giggle, fleeting and sweet.

She turned, heart hammering.

The sound was gone.

Only the letter remained, still warm where she had held it, the ink smudged slightly at the corner where her thumb had pressed too hard.

She didn’t sleep that night.

Instead, she moved quietly through the halls, driven not by fear but by a compulsion she couldn’t name. Each creaking floorboard felt familiar. Each shadowed doorway whispered of something half-remembered.

The house had begun to feel alive.

Alive in a listening way.

Breathing.

Waiting.

Downstairs, she found Theo in the study, a whiskey glass cradled in his hands. He didn’t turn as she entered, but he must’ve known she would come.

“You read it,” he said.

She nodded. “Is it true?”

He drank. “Would it matter if it weren’t?”

Sloane crossed the room, arms stiff at her sides. “Why would you write me that now?”

“Because,” he said, setting the glass down, “you’ve already felt it.”

She said nothing. Because he was right.

The laugh.

The letter.

The sense that the walls were bending around her when she wasn’t looking.

He ran a hand through his hair, it is longer now than she remembered, streaked with grey near the temples. “You were always better than me at seeing through illusions.”

“Don’t flatter me.”

“I’m not,” he said, his voice tired. “I’m trying to prepare you.”

“For what?”

Theo looked at her then. Really looked.

“Rhys.”

She froze. “What about him?”

“I didn’t hire him.”

Sloane’s mouth went dry. “Then who did?”

“I don’t know,” Theo said. “But he showed up three months ago. Knew the land. Knew the layout of the house. Acted like he’d always belonged. I assumed… maybe I had forgotten him.”

“You forgot a man living on your estate?”

He shrugged. “There are rooms here I haven’t opened in years. Gardens I stopped walking through when I stopped writing.”

Sloane crossed her arms. “He said he’s always been here.”

“Then maybe,” Theo said slowly, “he has.”

Silence thickened between them.

The fire cracked. A gust of wind rattled the windows. Somewhere above them, the sound of footsteps, soft padding, drifted through the ceiling.

Sloane turned toward the stairs.

“What are you going to do?” Theo asked.

She didn’t answer.

Because she didn’t know yet.

But the letter had changed something.

And the house had stopped hiding.