I know you married me for a green card, Maya, and I know you think this marriage is just paper, my 76-year-old husband whispered from his deathbed inside Oakhaven Manor, his skin gray as ash.
The image of the unscarred face in the glass, the incompatible blood types, the hair follicles in my hand – it all pointed to one terrifying conclusion: the man who died in Arthur Pendelton’s bed was an imposter. But if he wasn’t Arthur, who was he? And where was the *real* Arthur?
My eyes kept drifting to the hidden safe behind the atlas in the library. Arthur, or the spectral entity mimicking him, had pointed directly to it. A secret safe implied secret knowledge.
But getting the sample to Dr. Lindqvist was my priority. I couldn’t risk leaving the house through the front gate, even if I could get out of my room. The Pendeltons were undoubtedly watching the main exits. The narrow gap Clara mentioned was my only option.
Before attempting escape, I decided to revisit the library once more. The hair sample felt heavy in my pocket, but the ghost’s guidance to the safe still nagged at me. What if it was a clue for *me*, personally?
Creeping back into the library, I used my penlight. The moonlight was gone, replaced by a gray, overcast dawn. The air in the room was strangely still.
I pushed aside the heavy atlas. The small wooden door of the hidden safe was still there. I ran my fingers over its intricate carvings. No handle, only the keyhole.
I looked around the dusty shelves, feeling for a hidden latch, a loose book. Nothing.
Then, I noticed it. A faint, cold draft, snaking up from beneath the floorboards near the massive oak study desk. And a sound. A faint, rhythmic *tap… tap… tap…* like something knocking gently from below.
It wasn’t the ghost. It was too regular, too physical.
I knelt, pressing my ear to the polished wood. The tapping was undeniable, coming from directly under the desk. A sense of urgency, of warning, pulsed through me.
I searched for seams in the floorboards, for any sign of a loose panel. Under the heavy, ornately carved leg of the desk, almost completely concealed, I found it. A faint line, almost invisible, outlining a square section of floor.
I dug my nails into the crack, then found a loose, rusty nail. Carefully, I worked it free. Another. The wood was old, water-damaged in places, making it weaker. With a soft groan of protest, one of the floorboards began to lift.
Beneath it, not a cellar, but a small, dark crawlspace. And another faint, rotten-wood smell.
I pushed the board aside, revealing a deeper cavity. My penlight beam pierced the darkness. A sealed brick alcove. It looked like a tomb, or a forgotten pantry.
My heart hammered. This felt less like a safe and more like something far older, far more sinister.
I leaned in, my light cutting through the thick dust. Inside the alcove, wrapped in a brittle, aged tarpaulin, was a shape. Too long, too narrow to be anything but…
I scrambled to pull at the edge of the tarp. The fabric, stiff with age, cracked as I slowly peeled it back.
What I saw made a strangled gasp escape my throat.
Human skeletal remains. Laid out neatly, almost respectfully. The bones were yellowed with age, but unmistakably human. And on the fourth finger of the left hand, still grasping the bone, was a ring. A signet ring.
Its crest was unmistakable. The Pendelton family crest. The same crest emblazoned on the iron gates, on the silverware, on Arthur’s personal stationery.
And etched into the corner of the tarpaulin, faded but legible, were three numbers: “1994.”
The real Arthur Pendelton. Murdered. Thirty years ago. And the spectral entity in the mirror, showing me an unscarred face, had led me here. It wasn’t Arthur’s ghost; it was the ghost of the *real* Arthur, showing me his own hidden grave. The man I married was an imposter and a killer.
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