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Before Amy could stop herself, she followed them.
They descended into the basement in a knot of light beams and nervous chatter. The temperature dropped sharply and bit her bare arms. The heavy scent met her halfway down—salt, damp stone, and the unmistakable tang of seaweed.
Her heart skipped. The ocean was too far for the air to carry such freshness. Yet it was here. It flooded the corridor like a rising tide.
Shivering, she forced herself to sound steady. “Maybe a burst pipe? Or groundwater coming through the old foundation.” Yet another unexpected expense to cover.
The techs arrayed their equipment with eager precision—EMF meters flashing, slick black sensors recording everything. The basement filled with the thrum of their gear.
As she walked toward the far wall, her fingertips brushed the cool stone, clammy as sea glass from the cold North Atlantic. She imagined she could hear the faintest lapping beneath the hum—like water kissing rock.
A trick of nerves, she told herself. Just nerves.
“You feeling that?” one cameraman muttered, eyes wide. “Temperature dropped again.”
The EMF meter whined softly, lights pulsing red to green, red to green.
Amy’s breath quickened. Whatever else the crew might be, their excitement was genuine—and infectious. She wasn’t sure what they were sensing, or if this was all made up for the show, but the house’s silence was too deep now, the smell too strong, the air too heavy.
Something was here.
Someone from the crew called her name, and she startled violently. Laughter rippled through the group, too bright, too loud.
Amy forced a smile and backed toward the stairs. “You’ve got this covered,” she said. “I’ll be upstairs.”
She climbed without looking back, half expecting a cold hand to close around her ankle.
By the time she reached her office, her hands were shaking. She shut the door, though the creak of it sounded too much like breath. The small desk lamp cast a warm puddle of light across her scattered notes, but the rest of the room remained heavy in shadow.
She turned on her laptop, pulling up spreadsheets. The ghost hunters were chaos incarnate—but if the hauntings were real, she dreaded the thought of it. A haunted mansion wellness retreat? The words didn’t even belong in the same sentence. Still, without them, this project and her pride would have ground to a halt weeks ago. She needed them, madness and all.
A deep sense of dread slipped into her veins, heavy and cold, like an anchor dropped into the sea.
A soft knock at the door snapped her head up. Mason’s grin slid through the gap before she could answer.
“Sorry,” he said, leaning against the frame. His energy was still bright from the thrill. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Wow, what a night, huh?”
Amy swallowed the lump in her throat. “A lot going on?”
“A lot?” His laugh was low and delighted. “Amy, it was electric! Doors slamming, power surges, that voice we got last night—and now this? This house is a goldmine. The audience is going to eat this up.”
His enthusiasm filled the room until there wasn’t space for her dark thoughts. She forced herself to nod. “I suppose that’s good news.”
Mason prowled nearer, eyes alight. “Good news? It’s miraculous. You’ve got one of the most active sites I’ve ever seen. The energy here is astounding.”
She didn’t answer him. Mason didn’t notice. Amy turned away as he continued talking about expanding the filming schedule. His voice faded into the static hum of her thoughts.
Out the tall window, the ocean glimmered silver under the moon, cold and endless. The silky dark dread that had begun as a prickle behind her ribs spread through her chest, heavy and still. It coiled there, as though something beneath her skin recognized it, not the fear alone, but the memory of fear.
Of waiting.
Outside, a gust off the sea brushed the panes, carrying wisps of fog. The air pressed thick with the echo of a heartbeat that wasn’t hers.
The house had been sleeping, she realized, slumbering through decades of quiet. Under the disturbance of renovation, under the careless curiosity of cameras and strangers, it had opened its eyes.
Whatever had been bound here was now awake. And it knew her.
Somehow, impossibly, it had always known her.
