he House Beneath the Lake

Every year, on the night of the blue moon, the lake whispered.

Locals said it was just the wind curling over Stillwater Hollow. But Lila had heard it—really heard it—since she was a child: voices beneath the surface, rising only when the moon turned the water the color of broken glass.

She never told anyone. Not even her mother, who had vanished beside the lake when Lila was only five.

Now, seventeen and haunted by more than silence, Lila returned to the hollow. The town of Gracethorne hadn’t changed. The same moss-covered docks, the same crumbling boathouse, and the same lake—black and endless, as though it had swallowed the world whole.

Her grandmother, sharp-eyed and silver-haired, met her at the gate of the old estate.

"You shouldn’t have come back," she said simply.

“I have questions,” Lila replied.

Her grandmother looked out at the lake. “It gives answers no one survives.”

That night, under the blue moon, Lila stood on the dock alone.

She held her mother’s necklace—a moonstone pendant they'd found near the waterline years ago, the only thing recovered after her mother disappeared. It pulsed faintly in her palm.

The lake stirred.

Not waves—something deeper. A pull.

Then she saw it: the roof of a house rising from the water. Slowly, as if remembering itself. A stone chimney. Gables covered in ivy. A circular window like a watchful eye.

The House Beneath the Lake.

Lila had heard the stories. That an entire manor had sunk in the Great Flood of 1814, taking the Briarwood family with it. That no diver could find it. That sometimes, at the edge of drowning, people claimed to see lights glowing beneath the water.

Now it was surfacing.

Compelled by something she didn’t understand, Lila stepped into a rowboat and followed the shimmering shape toward the center of the lake. As she neared the house, mist rolled around her. The moon glowed directly overhead, casting a pale path to the waterlogged front door.

The house wasn’t ruined—it was preserved, as if untouched by time.

She tied the boat to a wrought-iron hook and stepped onto the front porch. The door opened before she could knock.

Inside, candlelight danced across velvet walls and dustless furniture. Portraits lined the hallway: somber faces with eyes that seemed too aware. She passed a grand piano that played a single note as she walked by. The air smelled of lilies and damp stone.

In the parlor stood a woman in a silver dress—translucent, but solid enough to cast a shadow.

“You came,” the woman said. “Just like your mother.”

Lila’s heart pounded. “You knew her?”

The woman nodded. “She asked the same questions. She walked these same halls. And she made a choice.”

“What choice?”

The woman didn’t answer. Instead, she gestured to the grand staircase. “The house remembers what the world forgets. That’s why it sinks. To protect the truth.”

Lila climbed the stairs, each step echoing like thunder in her chest. At the top, a door opened to a room she somehow knew: blue curtains, scattered books, a rocking chair by the window. Her mother’s voice sang from the walls—a lullaby Lila hadn’t heard in over a decade.

And then she saw the mirror.

It wasn’t glass. It was water—perfectly still, framed in gold. And in it, Lila saw the night her mother disappeared.

Her mother had come to the lake seeking answers about her own mother—the Briarwood bloodline, cursed to carry the memories of the drowned. Each generation had one Seer, chosen by the lake to guard the truth. The others forgot.

But Lila hadn’t forgotten. She had inherited.

Tears stung her eyes as her mother’s final moments replayed: standing before the mirror, whispering something, and vanishing into the water.

The woman in silver appeared beside Lila again.

“She chose to stay. To guard the past so it wouldn’t drown others.”

“Why didn’t she come back?”

“Because memory is heavier than death. And truth has a price.”

Lila looked down into the mirror. Now it showed herself. The lake. The house rising once more.

“You have the same choice,” the woman said. “Forget, and return to your life. Or remember… and become part of the house.”

The mirror rippled.

Lila gripped her pendant.

The easy choice was forgetting. Walking away. Letting the secrets rest.

But her mother had stayed—for her.

Lila stepped into the mirror.

She felt no pain—just light. And a wave of clarity.

The house began to sink.

The next morning, the lake was calm. Locals said the blue moon had drawn heavy tides, nothing more.

But some swore they saw a girl standing on the water, silver light in her hair.

The lake was quiet again.

But not empty.

It remembered.