The road to Elmridge twisted like an old ribbon through the Yorkshire countryside, hemmed in by hedges and the whispering branches of elder trees. Summer was ending, and the wind carried with it the scent of drying hay and far-off rain. Lady Cecily Ainsworth sat alone in her family's carriage, watching the forest pass in and out of sunlight.
She was seventeen. The last of her line.
The wooden interior of the carriage creaked with every bump, and the velvet cushion beneath her shifted slightly with each lurch of the wheels. Her traveling gloves were worn at the fingertips, and she twisted them absently in her hands as the familiar ache of anticipation and dread tightened in her chest. She had only known Elmridge Hall through the words of letters and the fading sketches in her father's old journals. Now, the house belonged to her.
Elmridge Hall, once the summer home of distant relatives, had remained dormant since her uncle's passing. Whispers in the village told stories of its silence—no lights in the windows, no carriages along the drive, only the creaking of empty floorboards and the sway of ivy-laced shutters. The estate had been uninhabited for years—shuttered after a fire, a scandal, or perhaps both. Rumors clung to it like ivy. Some said it was cursed. Others said it merely waited.
Cecily wasn't sure what she believed yet.
The carriage turned past a final bend, the trees parting like a curtain. Elmridge Hall stood at the end of a long gravel path, flanked by towering oaks. Its stone façade was weather-worn and overgrown in places, yet there was dignity in its bones. Turrets framed the central tower, and leaded windows glinted dimly in the evening sun. The sky behind it glowed in streaks of lavender and gold.
As they approached, Cecily's eyes were drawn to the eastern edge of the manor grounds, where something wild broke the symmetry of the gardens. A tangled grove of thorns, hedges, and crumbling statues curved around a forgotten corner of the estate, ending in what appeared to be an old wrought-iron gate. Beyond that, she could see nothing.
She stepped down from the carriage, her leather boots crunching softly on the gravel. The air smelled of lavender and damp stone.
Mrs. Weatherby, the housekeeper, greeted her with a low curtsy and eyes lined with weariness.
"Welcome home, my lady," the woman said in a voice both hushed and reverent. "We've kept the hearths warm."
Cecily inclined her head politely and followed the housekeeper through the grand oak doors.
The manor was dim and full of dust. The furniture was covered in linen cloths, but the stone fireplaces had been freshly swept, and faint warmth pulsed from their embers. Every hallway bore the silence of a place untouched for too long. Portraits of long-dead Ainsworths watched her from their wooden frames, eyes seeming to follow her with grim expectation.
Her room, prepared in the eastern wing, bore the scent of beeswax and old rosewater. A four-poster bed stood beneath the window, and heavy drapes had been drawn back to reveal a view of the garden below.
That same wild corner of the estate drew her eyes again. The overgrown hedges curled around what must have once been a formal garden, now lost to neglect. Yet in its center, she thought she could just make out the suggestion of a circular fountain, long dry.
Night fell slowly, cloaking Elmridge in a heavy hush.
That night, Cecily had the first dream.
She was standing barefoot on a cold stone, surrounded by roses in full bloom. Moonlight spilled down from a sky heavy with stars, painting everything in shades of blue and silver. She turned, and the shadows parted.
A man stood before her.
He was tall and well-dressed in a long coat, his features unclear, as though painted in strokes of fog and candlelight. His hair was dark, and his voice—when he spoke—was kind.
They stood face to face beneath the branches of a great ash tree. Its limbs arched above them like a cathedral.
"I was wondering when you'd return," he said.
Cecily opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. The moment felt impossibly familiar, as if it had happened before—perhaps many times.
They walked together through the garden. The paths were perfect, cleared of vines and wear. The scent of roses drifted through the air, thick and sweet. A marble bench stood beneath the ash tree, and they sat together as though it were a routine they both knew well.
The man smiled gently. "Try to remember me when you awaken."
Her heart surged with emotion. She leaned forward to ask him—his name, where they had met, who he was to her—but the words slipped away, just as his form began to fade.
She reached out for him as the garden dissolved into mist.
Cecily awoke with a gasp.
The early morning light filtered weakly through the drapes. Her pulse thundered in her ears, and the dream clung to her like silk. She pressed her hand to her temple, willing herself to remember.
But his name—whatever he had told her—was gone.
Only the feeling remained.
She rose, wrapped herself in a shawl, and walked to the desk by the window. The garden below looked no less wild, but now it felt different. As if some piece of her had been there already.
She took up a pen and opened the first blank page of a leather-bound journal.
Last night, I dreamed of a man in the east garden. He wore a coat like none I've seen, and his eyes—
his eyes knew me.
He told me something. He said… he said to remember. But I cannot remember what.
I think I've seen him before. I think this was not the first time.
Cecily stared at the page, ink drying in the dim morning light. Her fingers trembled slightly.
From somewhere beyond the window, the wind passed through the hedges like a breath.