The first night in the Ashcroft House was too quiet. No hum of electricity. No creaking of floorboards. Only silence, thick, suffocating silence.
Elise sat upright in the bed of her assigned room. Everything around her looked antique but oddly pristine: the velvet drapes, the glass vanity, the lace canopy above her bed. All untouched by time.
But her eyes kept drifting back to the doll.
It sat upright on a chair in the corner, porcelain skin flawless, red dress perfectly pleated, black glass eyes locked on her. It hadn't moved, of course not. Yet it felt as though it had. The faintest twitch of its neck. The subtlest tilt of its head. Or was her mind playing tricks?
She tried to sleep again, hugging the blanket. The doll's stare bored into her back.
Midnight.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The grandfather clock in the hallway struck once.
Then again.
And then stopped.
Elise opened her eyes. Something was different. The room was darker than before.
She sat up.
The doll was now at the foot of her bed.
Her breath caught in her throat.
No sound. No footsteps. No explanation. It was just… there.
She forced herself to speak. "Who moved you?"
The doll said nothing.
Of course it didn't.
But just as she leaned forward, trying to convince herself she had sleepwalked and placed it there, its head turned.
Click.
The noise was soft, like a mechanism shifting inside its neck.
Then, its lips parted.
"You're late," it whispered in a small, childlike voice.
Elise didn't scream. She couldn't. Her throat locked, her body frozen.
"I waited," it said again, more clearly this time. "You should've come sooner. The others did."
"What… what are you?" she whispered.
The doll tilted its head. "A mirror. A memory. A mouthpiece. I say only what you've already buried."
The room grew colder. Her breath fogged in the air. Shadows pooled around the edges of the room like ink.
Then the doll smiled. A crack ran down its cheek.
"You're next, Elise. Just like them."
Before she could react, the doll dropped motionless. Its porcelain head rolled to the floor and shattered.
Light returned.
The shadows disappeared.
Everything was back to normal.
But the shards on the floor remained.
And so did the cold.