The dining table had been cleared, the last trace of tea and toast whisked away by silent staff. The room had quieted again, and only the soft ticking of the antique clock on the wall filled the space.
Elira sat upright, hands folded on the table, her eyes trained on the man seated beside her. Aleksei had not moved much since breakfast ended—his posture still relaxed, head tilted toward her, but with an unsettling stillness that made him feel more like a panther at rest than a man at ease.
He waited.
She inhaled slowly, exhaled even slower.
"All right," she murmured, gaze settling on the silver dish at the center of the table, now empty. "Let me tell you a story about a house. Not this one, don't worry," she added, glancing at him briefly. "Though the resemblance might feel… familiar."
His lips twitched faintly. "I'm not worried."
"Good," she said softly. Then she began.
---
"There was once a house that stood on the edge of a quiet town. An old place, with stone walls and windows that blinked like tired eyes. The townspeople didn't talk much about it. The house was never empty, but no one could quite remember who lived there last.
Every tenant moved in alone.
And every tenant moved out quickly—if they moved out at all.
The current tenant was a woman named Elsie. She was a writer. Quiet, reserved, fond of long walks in the cemetery and even longer cups of tea. She thought the house was charming—antique in all the best ways, with creaky wooden floors, wide staircases, and stained-glass windows that painted the walls in colors during sunset.
She adored it.
Until she heard the sound.
It started on her fifth night.
A low scratching sound, just beneath the floorboards.
At first, she dismissed it. Houses made noises. They creaked, they groaned, they settled into the earth like weary bones.
But this sound wasn't like that.
It wasn't random.
It was rhythmic.
It came every night, at exactly 2:41 AM.
Scratch.
Pause.
Scratch.
Pause.
Knock.
Then silence.
No footsteps. No whispers. Just that same pattern, always beneath her feet.
She began avoiding sleep. She sat on her bed, listening. Sometimes it came from beneath the kitchen. Sometimes from the hallway. Once, from directly under her bed.
She stopped sleeping in her bed after that.
Then things began to disappear.
First, small things—earrings, a teaspoon, a hair clip. She thought she was just forgetful.
Until the night her laptop disappeared. She searched everywhere. Under furniture. Inside cabinets. Even outside, in the garden. Nothing.
When she gave up and tried to pour herself a drink, she found the laptop in the freezer. Open. Still on.
The document on the screen was blank. Except for the words:
"I hear you too."
Elsie left the house for a week. She stayed with friends, convinced herself she was sleep-deprived and hallucinating. She returned, armed with a flashlight, a journal, and her skepticism.
But the house had missed her.
The sounds returned.
2:41 AM.
Scratch.
Pause.
Scratch.
Pause.
Knock.
She began to write it down. To document the pattern. She even set up a recorder.
But it captured nothing.
No scratching. No knocking. Not even the sound of her own breath when she played it back.
Only silence.
Until the seventh night.
That morning, she replayed the audio.
And heard something new.
A voice. Whispering beneath the silence.
She enhanced the recording and looped the section.
It said:
"Dig."
Elsie froze.
That night, she followed the sound. She waited until 2:40. Held her breath.
2:41.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Knock.
She placed her ear to the floorboards.
"Where?" she whispered.
The knock came again. Louder. Urgent.
So she did what the voice asked.
She got a crowbar from the shed.
And she started to dig.
She tore up the boards of her bedroom floor, her hands splintered and aching. Underneath was dirt. Hard, packed earth.
She kept going.
An hour passed.
Then two.
Then her fingers hit something.
Wood.
She cleared the dirt with shaking hands, uncovering a small, coffin-like box.
She opened it.
Inside was a tape recorder. A red ribbon. A photo of herself sleeping.
And a note.
It read:
"It's your turn now."
And just like that… the house was quiet again.
No more scratching. No more knocking.
Just Elsie.
Waiting for the next tenant."
---
Silence stretched after Elira finished.
The ticking of the clock seemed louder now. The room colder.
She dared a glance at Aleksei.
He was still watching her. The corner of his mouth curved ever so slightly upward. Not a smile. Something darker. Something thoughtful.
"You have a very unsettling imagination," he murmured at last.
She shrugged, brushing invisible crumbs from her sleeve. "You asked for stories."
"And you delivered." He turned slightly in his chair to face her more directly. "Tell me—what was in the tape recorder?"
She tilted her head. "What do you think?"
He smirked. "Instructions. For how to become the new voice beneath the floor."
Elira's brows lifted. "Close. It was a recording of Elsie's voice whispering the pattern: scratch, scratch, knock."
Aleksei's smile faded. "And the photo?"
"Taken by someone—or something—that watches every tenant. Maybe the house itself. Or maybe… the last tenant."
He leaned back, tapping his finger against his chin. "And the red ribbon?"
Elira offered a small, unnerving smile. "That's the part I haven't decided yet. Something symbolic. Something left behind by the last storyteller."
A pause.
Aleksei leaned forward again, elbows on the table. "You should know, Elira… the last person who told me stories didn't make it past the second week."
Her eyes widened slightly. "Did they run out of stories?"
He stared at her, unreadable. "No. They ran out of time."
Elira didn't flinch. "Well, lucky for you—I've got time and stories."
His expression didn't change, but the edge in the air seemed to soften. He reached for his cup and took a sip.
"I expect the next one at lunch," he said.
She nodded once, pushing her chair back. "Then I'll go explore. Maybe find a haunted hallway for inspiration."
"Do. But be back by one," he reminded her. "I don't like being kept waiting."
--------
Elira stepped out of the estate's main hallway through a pair of towering glass doors, the morning sun casting pale golden rays across the polished marble tiles beneath her slippers. The air smelled faintly of roses and something else—something older, like the scent of earth long undisturbed.
She squinted against the light and looked around, breath catching as she took in the garden sprawled out before her.
It wasn't a garden.
It was an estate of its own.
Manicured hedges stretched across the land like green veins, forming quiet mazes and flowering arches. Each path was carefully curated, leading to different patches of flora, as though each corner of the garden had its own secret theme, its own quiet purpose. Every bush was trimmed to symmetrical perfection, every flowerbed bloomed as if touched by a painter's hand. Hydrangeas, lilies, and hibiscus thrived in careful sections, and ivy twisted up white trellises near stone benches carved with ancient patterns.
A soft breeze stirred her loose hair, and Elira pulled her phone from her back pocket.
She hesitated only a moment before tapping Dianna's name. As it rang, she looked around to make sure no one was lurking in the shadows with a walkie-talkie or notepad.
The call connected.
"Finally!" Dianna's voice burst through the speaker. Her face appeared on-screen, her curly black hair in a haphazard bun, oversized glasses perched low on her nose. "You better not be kidnapped and smiling under duress."
Elira chuckled and turned the camera around, sweeping it across the sprawling garden.
"Oh wow," Dianna said, voice dipping in awe. "Okay… that's… not what I expected. I was picturing some Dracula castle with crows and fog, not—Versailles."
"Well, Dracula's backyard is apparently thriving," Elira murmured, angling the camera back to herself. "I just got out of breakfast with the Russian mafia boss."
"You're not funny."
"Wasn't trying to be."
Dianna narrowed her eyes. "You're serious?"
Elira nodded, grinning. "Not mafia… officially. But Aleksei Volkov is definitely not just a rich recluse with a hobby for storytelling. The staff, the silence, the routine... it's too polished."
She walked slowly along one of the gravel paths, her shoes crunching lightly as she moved past a row of blood-red roses. She paused to sniff one.
"Anyway," she said, "he laid out my schedule. Breakfast at eight. Story. Free time until lunch. Lunch at one. Story. Free time. Dinner at six. Story. Then I'm done for the day."
Dianna blinked. "He's paying you to tell him stories three times a day?"
"That's right."
"That's either really cute… or really disturbing."
"I'm leaning toward disturbing. But at least the food is good."
Elira turned a corner in the path—and then stopped.
In the center of a circular patch of grass, surrounded by obsidian-black tulips and deep violet calla lilies, stood a statue.
No, not just any statue.
It was tall—nearly seven feet. Made of some dark stone that shimmered slightly under the sun like wet onyx. The figure was unmistakably Egyptian in style, with a tall headdress, lean frame, and the head of a jackal.
Anubis.
The god of death and mummification.
"Okay," Elira muttered, angling the phone toward it. "Now it's a little weird."
"Oh my—" Dianna gasped. "Why is there a statue of Anubis in the middle of a flower garden?"
"I was hoping you could tell me."
"Maybe he's into Egyptian mythology?"
"He doesn't seem like the kind of man who gardens or reads mythology books in his spare time," Elira said.
"Then maybe," Dianna offered slowly, her voice turning thoughtful, "he thinks he's Anubis."
Elira scoffed. "You're insane."
"No—hear me out!" Dianna leaned closer to her camera. "He collects storytellers. He has this mansion with silent guards and scheduled storytelling sessions, and now he has a death god statue in his flower maze. Maybe he thinks he's some kind of judgment god. You know how Anubis weighed the hearts of the dead to see if they were worthy to move on?"
Elira glanced at the statue again. "So… you think he's weighing my heart with stories?"
"I mean… if you tell boring ones, maybe he feeds you to a crocodile god."
"Thanks," Elira muttered. "That's reassuring."
"I'm serious though," Dianna said. "There's something symbolic here. If nothing else, maybe that statue's a warning."
"Or a theme," Elira added. "Everything in this house is curated. The structure. The way it's run. Maybe he just wants to remind himself—or guests—of something."
Dianna rolled her eyes. "Or maybe it's just aesthetic."
Elira stared at the jackal head. The eyes were smooth and empty, but the mouth seemed to smile faintly, like it knew something she didn't.
"Anyway," she muttered, "I'm still alive. No secret rituals. No cloaked figures chanting in Latin."
Dianna raised a brow. "You realize it's only day two, right?"
"Yeah, yeah." Elira turned and followed a branching path lined with white lilies and soft green hedges. "I'll keep you updated. Next time I get a story request involving ancient tombs or curses, I'm calling you before I say a word."
"You better," Dianna said. "And send me your location. Now. And the license plate again. I'm keeping tabs on you like I'm your FBI handler."
Elira laughed and nodded. "Done."
She stopped near a fountain shaped like a weeping angel, water flowing from its eyes into a crystal-clear pool below.
It was beautiful.
Too beautiful.
"This place," she whispered, more to herself than Dianna, "feels like a lie."
"A gilded cage is still a cage," Dianna said quietly.
Elira nodded.
Then she ended the call.
She stood still for a long moment, listening. The wind rustled through the trees. Somewhere in the distance, she heard a soft metallic clang—like a gate being locked, or perhaps just the gardener at work.
She turned back to the main estate, its windows gleaming like eyes, and walked toward it with slow, steady steps.