Part 7: Convergence

Two may whisper and call it Love. Three may entwine and call it Sin. Yet Truth maketh no such reckoning, but only waiteth to be nam’d.

— Testament of Elias Harrow, 1764

They found each other slowly, though not by choice.

Naomi came first, her shoes clicking too fast on warped floorboards. Her blouse looked crisp enough, but her lips were too red, her cheeks still flushed. She smoothed her sleeves as she walked, a nervous tic disguised as fussing. The draft behind her seemed to push her forward, guiding her steps toward the flicker of other lights.

Marcus and Jade appeared next, side by side. They reeked faintly of smoke and sweat, clothes disordered. Marcus slapped the wall as they entered, the echo stretching too long down the corridor before fading. Jade toyed with an unlit cigarette, rolling it, tapping the filter against her thumbnail.

Clara arrived last, Dylan at her side. She clutched the flashlight too tightly, knuckles pale. One button of her blouse hung loose at the collarbone. Dylan’s candle burned straighter than it should have in the drafty air, flame unnaturally steady.

For a moment they stood frozen, the silence thick, as though the house itself was listening.

Naomi spoke first, her tone sharp. “Took you long enough. What, did everyone just wander off for fun?”

Marcus smirked. “Better than listening to you complain about asbestos.”

Jade struck a match with a rasp, cupped the flare, and lit the cigarette. She exhaled smoke in a thin ribbon. “You look flushed yourself, Naomi. Something scare you?”

Naomi’s mouth tightened, but she said only, “Drafty halls. Nothing else.”

Dylan’s voice was even, though his throat worked before he spoke. “It seems the house ... enjoys scattering us. And then drawing us back.”

As he said it, a candle guttered — not his, but one mounted on the wall behind them, its flame dipping low as if in assent.

The silence stretched, heavy with things unsaid. Each of them held their pose, as though they hadn’t already been touched, exposed. But the house knew better.

They moved on together, the corridor narrowing around them. Every footfall seemed to land on the same pulse, as though the floorboards had learned their rhythm. With each step, the sound echoed twice: once from their boots, and once, deeper, from somewhere beneath the floor.

The candles shivered in their hands. Clara thought she saw her flame lean toward the others, bowing and straightening in time with the low thrum in the walls. Marcus laughed too loudly at it, muttering, “Drafty old place. Needs better insulation.” But when a wall-mounted sconce beside him flickered in perfect sync with his laugh, the grin faltered.

A door they hadn’t touched sighed shut behind them. Another creaked open farther down the hall. They froze, all five pairs of eyes fixing on the shifting wood.

“Don’t you dare,” Naomi hissed at Jade. “You dragged us into this, and now—”

Jade snorted. “Dragged? Please. You wanted to come. You wanted to prove you weren’t scared.”

“Scared?” Naomi’s voice cracked higher than she meant. “What’s happening isn’t normal—”

“Nothing in this house is normal,” Clara whispered. Her beam of light slid down the wall, catching movement in the corner of her eye. Something shifting, withdrawing. She clutched Dylan’s sleeve, her voice thin. “Something’s moving.”

Marcus jumped at her whisper, then tried to laugh it off, louder this time. “It’s rats. Or pipes. Or whatever old houses do.” But his eyes kept darting to the walls, his knuckles tight around the flask he still carried.

Dylan lifted his candle higher, his tone even. “Let’s not feed shadows with nerves. These things—creaks, draughts, echoes—they prey on us only if we let them.”

His voice was calm, but his hand trembled. The flame should have quivered with it. Instead, it stood straight, unnervingly still, as if listening.

Of course she thought it. Fear and wanting are neighbors; in a house like this they share a bed.

Because there it was now — a staircase spiraling downward, where there had been only blank wall an instant before. Steps of stone, slick and waiting.

The heartbeat swelled in their chests, rattled their teeth, pressed into their bones. The house had opened another path. And though no one spoke of it yet, they all felt the same tug.