Chapter 4 The Seam Between Worlds

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Chapter Four: The Seam Between Worlds

The stone groaned.

Dust spilled from the seams in the wall as the hidden door yielded, the gown at its base like a tribute laid at a tomb. Evelyn stumbled back, watching in breathless awe as the masonry slid away, revealing not a hallway-but a passage that seemed to descend into the very bones of the manor.

Cold air breathed from the dark.

She didn't hesitate. She lit a candle from one of the brass sconces and stepped forward.

The air grew colder with each step. The stone stairs curled downward, narrow and worn, as if carved by hand and foot over centuries. The walls bore gouges, strange scorch marks, and something worse-scraps of silk caught on stone edges, brittle with age, like shed skin.

When she reached the bottom, the passage opened into a vaulted chamber.

Her candlelight flickered over mirrors.

Dozens of them.

Tall, tarnished, and rimmed in ornate frames, they stood in a ring, some cracked, others veiled in cobwebs. Each reflected not her-but flickers. Shivers of movement that didn't belong. Shadows just beyond the glass.

And in the center of the chamber, a dress form stood.

Upon it-what remained of a gown.

It had once been beautiful. That much Evelyn could see, even through the rot. The skirt was collapsed, boning exposed like ribs, and the fabric was tattered with time and moisture. But there was no mistaking it.

This had been Lilian's dress.

Not a bridal gown. A mourning one.

And someone had stitched words across the hem in thread so dark it had bled into the fabric:

> Remember me as I was, not what they made of me.

Evelyn swallowed hard.

"Lilian," she whispered.

The mirrors shivered.

Then one by one, their surfaces shifted.

No longer reflections-now memories.

Each pane revealed moments, hazy and flickering like old film: a girl with dark hair laughing in a sunlit room; Lilian standing at a window, writing in a small journal; the same girl-running. Crying. Clutching a torn letter.

And then-Lord Thorne.

Younger. Less polished. Angry.

In one mirror, Evelyn saw him seize Lilian by the wrist.

In another, Isadora appeared-watching. Always watching.

The scene changed again.

Lilian screaming.

The door to her room locked from the outside.

Firelight.

A hand dragging fabric into the hearth.

And then-

Darkness.

Evelyn staggered back, the candle trembling in her hand.

"Why are you showing me this?" she whispered.

The mirrors didn't answer.

But the dress did.

From the center of the rotting bodice, something glinted-barely visible.

Evelyn stepped forward, hands shaking, and parted the fabric.

A locket.

It was shaped like a heart, but not the delicate kind found in trinket shops. This was heavy. Cold. Black iron. Bound shut with a single stitch of silver thread.

She reached for her embroidery scissors and cut it free.

The thread snapped.

The locket fell open.

Inside: a curl of dark hair. And a note.

> To whoever finds this, you must finish what I could not. The gowns are warnings. The house is a wound. He stitched me into its story-but stories can be unpicked.

-L. F.

The candle flickered violently.

And then extinguished.

Evelyn gasped.

Pitch-blackness swallowed the room.

She turned wildly, her breath coming fast. Her heart thundered in her chest.

Then-a whisper. Not from the mirrors, or the dress.

But from inside her own mind.

"Unpick the past... before it unpicks you."

---

She surfaced in the dressing room like a woman returning from a dive too deep.

Her hands were numb, her cheeks damp with tears she didn't remember shedding. The hidden chamber had vanished behind its stone wall, the bridal gown once again lying limp at its base.

But the locket remained.

She clutched it in her palm and didn't let go.

That evening, she lit every candle in her suite and brought the journal of fragments to her bedside. She spread the notes, sketches, and messages across the quilt and began organizing them, as though trying to solve an equation with no known outcome.

The common threads were clear.

Lilian had loved Alaric-or thought she had.

He had promised her something-marriage, perhaps. Belonging.

But something had changed.

Isadora arrived soon after.

A rival?

Or a rescuer?

Had she been Lilian's friend? Or the final nail in her coffin?

Evelyn stared at the sketch Isadora had drawn of Lilian's face-blank eyes, mouth ajar.

There was pain in the strokes.

But also guilt.

And fear.

She turned to the gown Alaric had shown her on the first day-the one worn the night Isadora died.

The death gown.

Was it a confession?

Or a curse?

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At midnight, Evelyn crept through the east wing again. She needed answers-and not from ghosts or dresses.

From him.

She found Lord Thorne in the study, illuminated by the dim glow of a brandy decanter and the dying fire. He didn't look up when she entered, as though he'd been expecting her.

She tossed the locket onto the desk.

He stared at it.

Then looked at her.

"You found her," he said.

"She wasn't lost," Evelyn replied. "You just buried her deep enough that no one could hear her scream."

He exhaled through his nose. "I buried nothing. It was the house. It chooses. It keeps what it wants."

"She trusted you."

He nodded slowly. "Yes. And I failed her."

"Why me?" Evelyn demanded. "Why bring me here?"

Alaric rose, slow and deliberate, and crossed to the window. Rain beat against the glass.

"You're not the first," he said. "But you're the first to listen. The others came to appraise. To covet. You came to understand. The gowns speak to you."

He turned, his face unreadable.

"And because you look like her."

Evelyn froze.

"What?"

"Not identical. But enough. The same defiance. The same hunger in your eyes. The manor saw it first. It always does."

She stepped back.

"Are you saying this place is alive?"

"I'm saying it remembers," Alaric said. "Every betrayal. Every kiss. Every death."

"And Isadora?" she whispered. "What did she do?"

His gaze flickered.

"She tried to free Lilian. But she was too late."

Evelyn swallowed. "What happened to her?"

He didn't answer.

But his eyes said it all.

She became part of the story too.

---

That night, Evelyn dreamed once more.

But this time, it wasn't a nightmare.

She stood in a ballroom bathed in moonlight.

Lilian danced alone at the center, arms wrapped around a figure made of shadows. Her hair was unbound. Her dress was ash and roses.

When she saw Evelyn, she smiled.

"You found the seam."

Evelyn stepped forward. "What do you want from me?"

Lilian tilted her head.

"Unpick it."

Evelyn looked down. In her hand-thread and needle.

She looked at the walls.

They were made of gowns.

Layer upon layer of dresses stitched together to form a prison of silk.

And somewhere, behind it all, a heart still beat.

She began to pull.

Thread by thread.

Stitch by stitch.

And the walls began to unravel.

---

Evelyn awoke with the sensation of fabric in her hands.

Morning light streamed through her windows. The locket lay open beside her pillow. Her journal had fallen to the floor, pages splayed.

But the final page held something new.

A sentence scrawled in her own handwriting-but she hadn't written it.

> The seam is weakening. Finish it, or be sewn inside forever.

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