Chapter 6 A Mirror Of Her Making

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Chapter Six: A Mirror of Her Making

The needle slipped again.

Evelyn sucked in a breath as the thread pricked her fingertip, a bead of crimson welling beneath the skin. The gown beneath her hands was softer than any she'd touched-aged silk, fragile as breath-but it drank her blood eagerly, like it had been waiting.

She recoiled, pressing her hand to her chest, heart hammering.

It had been days since she'd begun the unseaming.

Not merely the literal undoing of the gowns-but something deeper, more dangerous. She no longer worked in the daylight hours. She could only begin once the house fell still and the walls whispered low.

The dresses had once hung in a row like mourners.

Now, they lay scattered across the floor of the seamstress's chamber, reduced to dismembered patterns, faded stitches, and lengths of time-worn lace. Each gown gave way to memories-not just Lilian's, but others. Forgotten women. Lost voices. It was as though Silkenmoor bled history from its hems.

But with each unraveling came visions.

And not always her own.

She saw through Lilian's eyes more clearly now. Felt her pain. Her terror. Her tenderness. Sometimes it struck Evelyn in the middle of mundane tasks: brushing her hair, folding linens, pouring tea. She'd look up and the reflection staring back wasn't quite her own.

Alaric noticed it, too.

He'd grown more distant-more haunted. Their encounters were terse and charged, as though he feared what she was becoming.

Or what the manor was shaping her into.

She hadn't dreamed in two nights.

Not properly.

But last night, something else had occurred.

A mirror-one she had carefully covered-had cracked without cause.

It hadn't shattered.

It had... split.

And this morning, in the east corridor, she had found a child's shoe tucked into the wall.

No child had ever lived at Silkenmoor.

She was sure of that now.

And yet...

---

Rain lashed the windows as Evelyn paced the seamstress's room. Thunder grumbled beyond the moors. Each flash of lightning illuminated the chaos she'd made-thread spools unraveled across the floor, paper patterns torn like wings, and fabric whispering with every breeze.

She stood before the last dress.

The bridal gown.

It had changed.

Subtly.

The roses in the embroidery had bloomed more fully. The silk had paled into something closer to bone. And beneath the hem-a new thread had appeared, red as arterial blood, stitching its way upward like ivy.

She hadn't sewn it.

She was certain.

And yet, it had her stitch pattern.

Her tension.

Her mark.

Something moved in the mirror behind her.

She turned-

Nothing.

Just her own reflection.

And yet, her reflection did not breathe in time with her.

Evelyn approached the glass slowly.

Her reflection tilted its head a moment later.

Behind it-the room was darker. Older. Candlelit.

Then the figure in the glass smiled.

But Evelyn did not.

A whisper trickled into her ears, barely audible over the storm.

> "Sewn souls cannot rest. Free me."

Evelyn's knees buckled.

The air thickened-hot and stifling. Her candle flared and died. Shadows pooled around the bridal gown like ink in water.

Then-

Footsteps.

From the hallway.

Real ones.

Measured. Deliberate. Heavy.

Evelyn stumbled for the door, wrenching it open.

No one.

Only the long corridor, painted gold with firelight.

But down the hall-Lord Thorne stood in the frame of his study, shirt sleeves rolled up, waistcoat unbuttoned, a drink in his hand.

Watching her.

"You should not be there at night," he said, voice low.

Evelyn didn't respond.

Instead, she walked toward him.

"I'm unraveling your legacy," she said. "And it's bleeding."

He didn't flinch. "It always bleeds, eventually."

She stepped closer. "Why me?"

"You already know."

Her jaw clenched. "I'm not Lilian."

"No," Alaric said quietly. "But you are the echo that calls her name. And she's listening."

A shiver danced down her spine.

He looked tired-more so than ever. Like he hadn't slept in years. He gestured for her to follow and disappeared into the study.

She hesitated.

Then stepped inside.

---

The study smelled of old books, leather, and bergamot. The fire was low. Thunder rattled the leaded windows.

Alaric poured a second glass of brandy and offered it wordlessly.

She took it, though her hands trembled.

He gestured to a chair.

Evelyn sat.

He didn't.

"I should have told you more," he said at last. "But every time I tried, the house... interfered."

"Isadora," Evelyn said softly.

A pause.

"She knew," he confirmed. "But she was stronger than me. She never feared the truth. Or the price of it."

"What happened to her?" Evelyn whispered.

Alaric's gaze dropped to the fire. "She made a choice."

"Did she love you?"

He laughed bitterly. "She loved what I might have been. But she was never blind to what I was."

"And what are you?"

He met her eyes.

"A thread. Woven into something older than I can name."

The room pulsed-like the house itself had exhaled.

"You say these things like poetry," Evelyn said. "But I need the truth. Not riddles."

"Then come with me," he said.

"To where?"

"To where it began."

---

The west wing had always been off-limits.

Barred by a rusted gate, sealed with a key no one remembered.

But Alaric did.

He retrieved it from beneath a loose floorboard in the study, wrapped in oilskin.

The key groaned in the lock.

The gate creaked open.

The air inside was colder-mustier. The walls were bare. The windows, sealed. They moved in silence past dust-covered furniture, black-draped mirrors, and doors that led nowhere.

Finally, they reached a room that looked more like a shrine than a chamber.

Candles lined the walls, long since melted.

And in the center-an empty pedestal.

"She was never buried," Alaric said.

Evelyn turned to him, breath hitching. "What do you mean?"

"Lilian. They never found her. Only the dress. Charred. Folded on her bed."

Evelyn's heart pounded.

"She was buried here," he said. "Not her body. But her voice. Her truth."

He walked to the far wall and pressed his palm to the stone.

It opened.

Another door.

Another passage.

This one, narrower.

They descended.

The stairs spiraled in tighter loops than the first hidden staircase. The air thickened with dust, and Evelyn felt it cling to her skin, her lungs.

Then-

A chamber.

Similar to the one she'd found before.

But this one was not filled with mirrors.

It was filled with books.

Dozens of them.

Bound in cloth and silk. Leather and hair.

And on every spine-initials.

L. F.

Evelyn stepped forward, trembling.

"What is this place?"

"The archive," Alaric said. "She began it before the end. Sewing stories into bindings. Not just hers. All of theirs."

Evelyn reached for one.

It opened without resistance.

The ink was crimson.

The words familiar.

> "He said he would marry me. That the house would be ours. But when I saw the gown-it was not for me. It was for the woman he chose instead."

Another page.

> "I begged Isadora. She said she knew what to do. That she would take the story back. But the house... it listens. It punishes."

Evelyn closed the book.

She was shaking.

Alaric stood at the edge of the circle of shelves, hands behind his back.

"I let it happen," he said. "I didn't understand. I thought the house gave me power. It didn't. It fed off what I was willing to sacrifice."

"And now?" Evelyn asked.

"Now," he said, "it's asking for more."

---

Back in her room, Evelyn stood before the mirror, locket in one hand, book in the other.

She felt the pulse of the manor now.

A heartbeat beneath the floorboards.

A breath in every windowpane.

She wasn't sure where she ended and the house began.

That night, the bridal gown did not hang from its hook.

It lay in a circle on the floor, as if worn by someone invisible, waiting for her.

She did not resist.

She stepped inside it.

The silk climbed her skin like smoke.

The corset laced itself.

The mirror rippled.

And this time, she stepped through.

---

She stood in the same ballroom from her dreams.

But it was whole now.

Brilliant.

Alive.

Lilian stood across from her, no longer ash and sorrow, but young. Beautiful. And smiling.

"You found it," she said.

"The seam," Evelyn whispered.

Lilian nodded. "This is the last stitch."

The music began-an orchestra unseen.

Lilian held out her hand.

Evelyn took it.

They danced.

The mirrors around them swirled, not with memories-but with futures. Possibilities. Other endings.

"You have to finish it," Lilian said.

"How?"

"Tell the truth. Tear the gown."

Evelyn stopped.

"But if I do... I'll lose this."

"This isn't yours," Lilian said gently. "It never was. The house dresses you in memory. But you are real."

Evelyn looked down.

Her reflection wore Lilian's face.

But her heart beat faster.

Stronger.

She reached to the bodice and pulled.

Seam by seam, the gown came apart.

The ballroom faded.

The music stopped.

The world unraveled-

---

Evelyn awoke on the floor.

The bridal gown in tatters around her.

The final journal page open beside her.

A single phrase had been written:

> "You have one more left to free. Yourself."

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