Chapter 6 - The Room That Had Been Sealed for Forty-Seven YearsThe door was hidden behind a tapestry.
Emily would never have noticed it.
Even after months working at Whitmore Castle, she had passed the corridor dozens of times without realizing an entire room existed behind the wall.
Richard pulled the tapestry aside.
There it was.
A narrow oak door.
No handle.
Only a small brass keyhole.
Emily held her mother’s key.
“This room has been locked since 1979?”
Richard nodded.
“My father ordered it sealed after Eleanor disappeared.”
“And nobody opened it?”
“Not that I know.”
Emily looked at him.
“You own the castle.”
“I inherited a castle full of rooms I didn’t want to remember.”
Emily inserted the key.
It turned.
Richard stopped breathing.
The door opened.
Dust moved through the flashlight beam.
The room looked frozen in time.
A narrow bed.
A vanity.
Books.
An old record player.
A pale blue dress hanging from the wardrobe.
Emily stepped inside.
Her chest tightened.
Her grandmother had stood here.
Slept here.
Probably cried here.
On the vanity sat a photograph.
Richard picked it up.
Eleanor and Richard as teenagers.
She had one arm around his shoulders.
Both were laughing.
Richard sat down suddenly.
Emily watched his expression collapse.
“You loved her.”
“She was the only person in this house who was kind to me.”
Emily softened despite herself.
“What happened?”
Richard looked around the room.
“She changed during the summer of 1979.”
“How?”
“She became frightened.”
“Of your father?”
“Of everyone.”
He ran one thumb over the photograph.
“She told me not to trust Daniel.”
Emily turned.
“Victoria’s father.”
“Yes.”
A floorboard creaked.
Emily froze.
Richard did too.
They both looked toward the hallway.
Nothing.
Emily whispered, “Is anyone else here?”
“No one should be.”
Richard reached for his phone.
No signal.
Emily noticed.
“Mine too.”
The lights in the corridor suddenly went out.
Emily’s heart jumped.
Richard stood.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Emily—”
“I’m not hiding in a dead woman’s room while someone walks around outside.”
He almost smiled.
“You sound like Eleanor.”
The words stopped her.
Then came another sound.
A click.
The door swung shut.
Richard lunged toward it.
Locked.
“Damn it.”
Emily stepped back.
“Someone trapped us.”
Richard pounded the door.
No response.
Emily searched the room.
“There has to be another way out.”
“These rooms were designed in the seventeenth century. There are servant passages.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Emily moved toward the wardrobe.
She pulled dresses aside.
Wood paneling.
Nothing.
Then she noticed scratches near the floor.
She pushed.
One panel shifted.
A narrow passage opened.
Richard stared.
“Eleanor used this.”
Emily entered first.
The air smelled of stone and dust.
They moved through darkness using her phone flashlight.
Ten feet.
Twenty.
Then Emily saw something.
A metal box wedged inside a recess.
She pulled it out.
Richard stopped.
“What is that?”
The box was locked.
But the same brass key fit.
Emily opened it.
Inside were documents.
Old photographs.
And a cassette tape.
Richard picked up one page.
His face drained of color.
Emily took it.
It was a birth certificate.
Name: Anna Eleanor Whitmore.
Mother: Eleanor Winifred Whitmore.
Father: blank.
Emily’s eyes filled.
“My mother…”
Richard gripped the wall.
“She was family.”
Emily looked deeper into the box.
Another document.
A handwritten letter.
Eleanor’s handwriting.
Richard recognized it immediately.
He read aloud.
“If anything happens to me, Daniel knows why.”
Richard stopped.
Emily stared.
Victoria’s father.
Richard continued.
“He knows what Charles did. He helped him hide it.”
The next line made Richard’s voice fail.
“Anna must never be brought back to Whitmore Castle.”
Emily felt cold.
Then a noise came from farther down the passage.
Footsteps.
Someone was coming.
Richard turned off the flashlight.
Darkness swallowed them.
A beam appeared around the corner.
Emily held her breath.
The person approached.
Closer.
Closer.
Then a woman’s voice echoed through the tunnel.
“I knew she’d eventually bring the key back.”
May you like
Emily recognized it immediately.
Victoria.
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