The Missing Page

The fire in the drawing room had burned low, casting soft flickers across the wood-paneled walls. Sloane sat on the edge of the rustic sofa, still coated in dust from the passage, her coat draped over one arm, the weight of the sketchbook heavier than ever against her side.

Theo poured two glasses of brandy and handed her one without a word. His fingers brushed hers as she took it. They didn’t speak for a moment, just listened. To the pop of embers. To the hush in the corners of the room that felt too deep.

“Did you ever think the house was… alive?” Sloane asked, voice low.

Theo took a slow sip, then sat beside her. Not too close. But not far.

“Not alive,” he said. “Just aware.”

She nodded, absently, eyes fixed on the fire. “When I started writing The Crimson Letter, I thought it was fiction. I had no outline, no plan. The words came all at once like they already existed.”

“And then it disappeared,” Theo said.

“Yes.” Her jaw tensed. “It wasn’t just stolen. I think… it wanted to be lost.”

Theo set his glass down. Reached for something on the nearby side table. An old leather portfolio she hadn’t noticed before. He unfastened it gently and withdrew a single page. Yellowed. Fragile. Folded down the center.

“I found this tucked inside one of the bindings in the west wing,” he said. “Hidden. Like someone meant for it to be found… but not too easily.”

Sloane took it from him with both hands.

A drawing.

Delicate but purposeful. A spiral staircase descending into a dark void. A child standing at the base, her face blank. And beside her, a second figure. A woman in a long coat, with a red scarf. The outline was unmistakable.

She felt the breath leave her lungs.

“I’ve drawn this,” she whispered.

“I know,” Theo said. “I saw the sketch in your book.”

“But this isn’t mine.” Her fingers trembled as she turned the paper over. “I didn’t make this. Not consciously.”

“Then someone else did. Maybe even before you started writing.”

Her gaze shot to his.

Theo’s expression was unreadable. “You said the words came to you like they were already there. What if they were?”

“You’re saying I didn’t write it?”

“I’m saying you were remembering it. Or channeling it. The story, this place, it was never just yours.”

Sloane looked back down at the drawing. “Then whose is it?”

“I think it’s hers.” He pointed to the child in the image. “Lenore.”

She shook her head. “But that doesn’t make sense. I made her up.”

“Or you thought you did.”

The fire popped, a sudden sharp crack that made both of them flinch.

Sloane set the page down carefully beside her sketchbook, then picked up her own drawing, nearly identical. The same spiral staircase. The same child. But in hers, there was a third figure in the shadows. Unfinished. Watching.

“I thought I was writing a story someone stole,” she murmured. “But what if the story was never meant to be written at all?”

Theo leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees. “What if it’s meant to be drawn?”

The thought chilled her.

Because deep down, she already knew.

“The manuscript cut off mid-sentence,” she said. “I thought I’d been robbed. But maybe… maybe it wasn’t finished because it couldn’t be.”

Theo turned to her, eyes dark but steady. “Or maybe that was the end. Not with words, but with this.” He tapped the edge of the old drawing.

Sloane stared at the fire again. It blurred. Her chest felt tight.

“Why me?”

“You tell stories no one else can,” Theo said, voice softer now. “Maybe because they’ve always lived in you.”

She looked at him then.

Really looked.

The heat between them wasn’t new. It had always been there, even before the west wing. But now it felt dangerous in a different way. Like something waking up.

“I thought I was going mad,” she said.

“You’re not.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can,” he said, “because I see it too.”

He didn’t move immediately. Just reached for her hand, tentative, warm. She let him take it.

The moment lengthened, slow and taut. Her heart thudded hard behind her ribs. When he leaned in, he didn’t rush. His lips brushed hers like memory, not discovery.

And still the house held its breath.

The kiss deepened. Not urgent, but inevitable. Her fingers curled into his shirt. His hand slid to the nape of her neck. The fire flickered in the grate, gold licking over both of them like a witness.

Then—

A faint rustle behind them.

Not wood. Not wind.

Paper.

They broke apart slowly. Both turned.

On the floor, just beyond the table, a second page had slid loose from the folio. Neither had touched it.

Sloane bent and picked it up with trembling hands.

Another drawing.

This time it was the door.

The one behind the staircase.

And written faintly at the bottom in a child’s uneven hand:

“She has to open it. Not him.”

Sloane looked up, throat dry.

Theo was already staring at her.