The Room that Wasn’t

The rain had stopped by dusk, but the air still smelled like wet stone and scorched lavender. Sloane peeled off her cardigan just inside the west hall, the sleeves still damp from the garden. Her boots left soft, muddied impressions on the faded runner as she passed the tall windows. Light flickered somewhere behind her but she didn’t turn.

She wasn’t ready to see Theo again. Not yet. Not with the image of the garden still clinging to her skin like mist.

Instead, she quietly moved through the house as if searching for answers to questions not asked. Her fingers skimmed the edge of the bannister, the carved walnut rails worn smooth with time. Her shirt clung faintly at the back, and she felt the trailing memory of the cold in her spine.

The house was quieter now. Not silent but listening.

She stopped in front of the mirror at the base of the staircase. A strange habit. She barely could recognize herself anymore, loose hair, collarbone rising with each breath, a flush still high on her cheeks from the garden, from Theo. Her throat was dry. She touched it without thinking, felt the press of her own pulse.

She didn’t know what unsettled her more, his words… or the way his presence still lived under her skin like a half-finished sentence.

Some part of her had wanted him to follow.

She turned left instead.

The west wing. Unused. Dusty. Half-boarded in places. She remembered it as a place of half-written stories and furniture draped in canvas. But tonight, something pulled at her ribs. A feeling that she hadn’t walked this hall in years… and also that she had never truly left it.

She paused at a narrow door, one she didn’t remember being open before.

Inside, the room was small. Barely furnished. One chair. A vanity. A child’s dress with nothing on it but a string of buttons sewn into the spine. The wallpaper was peeling at the seams, pale gold roses swallowed by mildew.

She stepped forward, breath catching.

There was a scent like chalk rising in the dust.

And on the vanity was a comb. Still full of long strands of black hair.

Her own.

Her heart stopped.

No. That wasn’t possible. She hadn’t been in this room. She didn’t even remember it existing. But the comb was unmistakable. It had been hers. It had vanished years ago. One of a hundred little things she’d assumed lost in a move, or borrowed and forgotten.

She backed away slowly, fingertips cold.

Behind her, the door clicked softly shut.

Sloane turned quickly!

And Theo stood there.

His shirt was half-unbuttoned, still rain-damp. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, forearms dusted with the scent of cedar. There was a look in his eyes she hadn’t seen in years, something sharp with memory. Something almost possessive.

“This room—” she began, voice tight.

“It wasn’t always here,” he said quietly.

She stared at him.

“I don’t remember it,” she whispered.

“You’re not supposed to.” He stepped closer. “But the house does.”

Her back met the vanity. She didn’t remember moving. Theo stopped a breath away. The air between them thickened. Not with fear. With heat. With things unsaid and half-imagined.

He reached out slowly, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek, his fingertips grazing the edge of her jaw.

She didn’t pull away.

“You never stopped drawing this place,” he said. “Even after you left.”

“You never stopped hiding it,” she replied, low and breathless.

His hand hovered near her face for a moment longer. Then dropped. As if he remembered himself. Or maybe as if the house had intervened.

A silence settled between them, not awkward, not strained. But charged. Her skin buzzed.

Then something flickered in the mirror.

She saw it.

Just for a second.

Not their reflection but something else. A child. Standing in the corner. Pale. Silent. Watching.

Her breath faltered.

She turned toward the room.

It was empty.

Theo’s jaw tensed. “You saw her.”

“I did.”

He didn’t ask how she knew it was a girl.

She faced the mirror again.

And this time, the only thing reflected back

was the room behind them, wide and waiting.

And the door she had just entered?

Gone.