The next morning, the sun didn't so much rise as leak through the sky.
Light didn't shine. It crept—thin and hesitant—over the twisted spires of Grinridge House, slipping through heavy clouds and landing on the warped shingles like a whisper. Inside the house, it filtered through dusty curtains and thick glass panes, casting long, trembling shadows across the wooden floors.
In the hallway just beyond the second-floor landing, a tall grandfather clock stood crooked in its alcove. Its pendulum hung motionless. Its face read 3:47, and had been doing so for who knew how long.
Mina stopped in front of it, arms folded.
"That clock's wrong," she said, not expecting a reply.
But Aria was suddenly beside her. "No. It's not just wrong," she said. "It's stuck."
They stared at it. There was still a ticking sound—faint but constant. Each tick was too sharp, each tock too slow, as if the sound belonged to a different room entirely.
Neither girl spoke again. They just stood, breathing in sync with the broken rhythm.
Breakfast came without warning.
None of them had an alarm, and there were no bells. Still, each girl awoke within minutes of the others and made their way downstairs to the long dining table in the cold stone hall. Their shoes echoed across the tile, but the sound was swallowed quickly by the walls.
Mr. Calden was absent.
In his place stood a tall woman with a high-collared dress and a lacy white apron. Her dark hair was tied in a low, tight bun, and her face had no expression. She moved with the silence of someone who had never been taught footsteps were meant to make sound.
On the table were bowls of porridge—gray and thick, like paste—along with milk that looked a little off and hard-boiled eggs resting in silver cups. There were no knives. Only spoons. The milk had a skin forming over it.
Lina tried to smile at the woman.
"Good morning," she offered, sitting slowly.
No response.
The woman moved down the table, pouring water into small cups. Her eyes didn't blink.
"What's your name?" Lina asked.
The woman looked at her—but not with attention. With absence. Her eyes seemed to slide through Lina, like a camera lens not set quite right.
"She's like a doll," Reya whispered. "Only... not pretty."
The woman didn't react. She simply poured, then moved on.
"Okay," Aria muttered, "I am officially uncomfortable."
After the silent meal, the girls were told they could explore the house and the immediate grounds, so long as they did not pass the main gate. A warning repeated in Mr. Calden's voice in their heads: "The forest does not like you."
So they wandered.
The mansion was impossibly large inside. The layout didn't make sense. Halls twisted. Staircases split and rejoined like river branches. Some doors opened into linen closets filled with ancient toys, others to empty bedrooms, some to walls of bricks.
They stuck together. No one wanted to be alone.
It was Reya who discovered the garden.
She had paused in the sunroom—if it could be called that. Most of the glass was either fogged or cracked, and the plants inside were withered but watchful. In the corner behind a velvet curtain, she saw something glint.
A green door. Dusty. With a brass plate above the knob.
"Garden – Locked After Sunset."
Her hand hovered over the handle.
Something in her chest said no.
But her curiosity said yes.
She turned it. It clicked.
"Guys," she called. "Come here."
What lay beyond the door should have been a garden.
It was more like a painting. Or a memory.
Despite the chill in the air, the garden was in full bloom. Roses in impossible colors—midnight blue, ghost white, crimson so deep it almost bled—lined the curving gravel paths. A tall hedge maze loomed on one side. A fountain made of gray stone sat at the center, and in it: a crouching woman carved from marble, her hands clutched tightly over her ears.
Sofi tilted her head. "What kind of statue is that? She looks like she's... scared."
"She's not scared," Mina said. "She's listening."
They approached the statue. Her face was frozen in a half-scream, lips parted just enough to suggest words once spoken. Her eyes were wide. Startled. And the hands—not just pressed to her ears, but digging into them.
Birds chirped overhead, but something was wrong with the sound.
It was too clean. Repetitive. The same few notes. Over and over.
"I don't like this," Tara whispered, her fingers tightening around her crutches.
A butterfly landed on her shoulder. It didn't move its wings. Just perched.
They wandered the garden, trying to convince themselves it was normal. Aria paced the hedge line. Lina looked for other statues. Sofi checked behind every rosebush. Tara mostly stayed near the fountain.
Time passed—or didn't.
It was impossible to tell.
Then they heard the slam.
The door.
The green door.
They turned in unison.
It was closed.
Reya ran back to it. She grabbed the knob, twisted.
Locked.
"What does that mean?" Lina asked, voice starting to tremble.
"It means," Aria snapped, "we're being watched."
A loud crack echoed.
They spun toward the fountain.
The statue.
It had split.
Right down the center.
From the woman's mouth poured thick black liquid—not water. It dripped, slowly at first, then in steady gulps, staining the stone basin below.
"What the hell is that?" Sofi shouted.
Tara backed away, her leg trembling. She nearly dropped a crutch.
"I want to go inside," she said. "Now."
"Let's find another way," Mina said quickly. "There has to be more than one exit."
They scattered.
But the garden had changed.
The path they came in on no longer existed.
Aria led one group down a gravel path that suddenly turned to mud. Reya tried to retrace her steps and ended up at a wall of white roses—taller than her, closing in on all sides. Lina climbed a bench to see over the hedge and saw nothing but more hedge.
"This can't be real," she whispered.
Back at the fountain, Tara was alone.
Or so she thought.
The sound of the birds had stopped.
Now there was only that dripping.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
She adjusted her crutches and turned to leave—but paused.
Her left foot... it tingled.
She shifted.
For a split second, she forgot.
And she stepped.
Without the crutch.
It was only a small movement—but the leg moved. The muscle responded. There was no pain.
Her heart thudded.
Then she grabbed the crutch again.
Not now.
Not here.
Not with them watching.
Eventually, they all found one another again—drawn back by instinct or fear.
The fountain was quieter now. The black liquid had slowed.
The statue had changed again.
Where once her hands clutched her ears, now one had dropped. Her face was smiling.
Very faintly.
Tara looked at the others.
"This place," she said softly, "it's watching us."
Reya pointed.
The garden door stood open.
The brass plate above it was blank.
Not one of them moved at first.
Then Mina walked through.
Then Aria.
Then the others followed.
Tara stepped last, casting one final glance at the statue.
There was a new inscription at its base—wet, as if freshly carved.
It read:
"Do not forget. You are the noise."