The Veil-Taker at the Umbral House: Part Four
He waits not outside, nor within, but in the place where both admit they are the same. Lenora pressed her hand to the mirror; it yielded like skin. Three taps answered from the other side. Her trembling stilled—on that side, her stillness looked cleaner. Entire.
A Serial Horror by Avaline Rose Quinn — Part Four
❖ ── ⚔ Part Four ⚔ ── ❖
From the diary:
February 14
Love is the wrong word. But there is a kind of hunger that studies you. He waits not outside, nor within, but where the two admit they are the same. If you answer, he will give you back what you have misplaced. If you do not, he will take what you cannot keep.
“What have I misplaced?” Lenora asked the glass. “What have I kept?”
From somewhere behind the mirror—the other house, laid over this one like vellum on vellum—something moved. It had the shape language would choose if language were given a bone. The candle guttered. The reflection did not.
She lifted her hand and the glass was not cold. It yielded as skin yields; not with warmth, precisely, but with recognition. Three taps against her palm from the other side, in time with the remembered rhythm. Her hand trembled. The mirror answered by stilling her tremor in its depiction of her hand. Her stillness looked better on that side. Cleaner. Entire.
The next morning, she walked down to the village and asked an old man at the post for the meaning of a word she had no wish to own.
“Morth—” She could not bring herself to complete it.
He regarded her, then the sky, which had chosen the precise gray particular to bad ideas. “Morth is death, miss. In the speech my mother had before suits came to count our words. Veil is… veil. You don’t belong here.” He said it kindly. “The house keeps who listens. That’s what makes it polite.”
Lenora thanked him and went home before the rain, because there are women who listen and there are women who return.
❖ ── ⚔ To be continued… ⚔ ── ❖
Return tomorrow—at 2:17 AM EST sharp—for Part Five of The Veil-Taker at the Umbral House.
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