Ghosts in the Ledgers

The Grand Idlewild Hotel doesn’t just have history; it wears it like a fine perfume. Its lobby smells of beeswax, old paper, and whispered secrets. I was hired to drag those secrets into the digital age, to scan a century’s worth of guest ledgers and event logs for their fancy new historical database.

It’s painstaking work, but I love it. Each page is a snapshot of a life: a honeymooning couple in 1923, a traveling salesman in 1955, a novelist seeking inspiration in 1988.

And then there’s Room 214.

It’s the only room on the second floor with a heavy, old-fashioned keylock, not a keycard reader. A sleek, brass “Do Not Disturb” sign hangs from the knob, perpetually gleaming. Management’s official line is that it’s a “permanent preservation suite,” kept locked to protect its original, irreplaceable furnishings.

But hotels, like people, have tells. The way the housekeeping cart always seems to speed past it. The slight drop in temperature in the hallway outside. The fact that in all my digging through the archives, I have never found a single photograph of its interior.

My curiosity was a low hum, a background static. Until this afternoon.

I was cross-referencing the digital files with the physical leather-bound ledgers from 1986. A name caught my eye: Alistair Finch, Room 214. Checked in on October 27th. He’d written “Writer” in the profession column. The line for his checkout date was empty. A simple oversight, perhaps.

But then I found the manager’s log entry for October 29th, 1986. *“Police notified. Guest in 214, Mr. A. Finch, cannot be located. Personal effects remain. No evidence of foul play. Room secured.”*

A cold knot tightened in my stomach. I started digging, my fingers leaving smudges on the dusty pages.

1949. Eleanor Shaw, a botanist in town for a conference. Room 214. Checked in October 27th. Vanished. Left behind a single jade hair comb. Log entry: *“Item recovered. Possession held per family request. Room taken out of service for renovations.”*

1912. Samuel Abbott, a railroad magnate. Room 214. October 27th. Vanished. Left behind a silver cigar cutter. *“No leads. Case closed. Room closed for repainting.”*

The pattern was a cold finger tracing down my spine. Every thirty-seven years. Almost to the day. October 27th. A guest in Room 214 vanishes without a trace, leaving behind one small, personal item.

The math was terrifyingly simple. 1912… 1949… 1986…

The next cycle is in three days.

### [JOURNAL ENTRY – ELARA VANCE – October 25th]

**Title: The Hum in the Jade**

I couldn’t let it go. I went to Mrs. Higgins, the ancient, sharp-eyed manager who has run the Idlewild since the 70s. I showed her my findings, my voice a nervous tremor.

She didn’t look surprised. She looked tired. She unlocked a drawer in her desk and produced a small, felt-lined box.

“The items are never claimed,” she said, her voice flat. “Families are too distraught. Or they simply… forget.”

Inside the box, resting on the black felt, were three things: the silver cigar cutter, the jade hair comb, and a modern ballpoint pen from the 1986 case.

“Go on,” she said. “Pick one up.”

I reached for the jade comb. It was cool to the touch, beautifully carved. And then I felt it. A faint, deep vibration, like the lowest string on a double bass being plucked in another room. It wasn’t a sound you could hear; it was a resonance you felt in the marrow of your bones. A cold, persistent energy that hummed against my skin.

I dropped it back into the box, my fingers numb.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“We don’t know,” Mrs. Higgins said, closing the lid and locking it away. “A resonance. An echo of whatever happened to them. The room is sealed. It has been since ’86. We will not be booking it. The cycle ends here.”

But she was wrong. The hotel, in its endless pursuit of revenue, had double-booked. This weekend, the Idlewild is playing host to the “Paranormal Pursuits Convention,” a gathering of ghost hunters, psychics, and cryptid enthusiasts. Every room is full.

Including Room 214.

A Mr. Julian Crowe, famed skeptic and debunker of supernatural phenomena, insisted on the best room in the house. When told it was unavailable, he threatened a lawsuit for false advertising. Flustered, the new day manager, unaware of the room’s history, caved. He was given the physical key.

The cycle isn’t ending. It’s beginning. And the hotel is about to be flooded with people who are either desperate to believe in what’s happening here, or desperate to prove it’s all a fraud.

I am the only one who knows the truth, and I have one day to stop it.

### [SECURITY FOOTAGE LOG – OCTOBER 26th – 11:23 PM]

**CAMERA: 2F Hallway (West)**

*E. VANCE is seen approaching the door to ROOM 214. She is carrying a large leather-bound book (identified as the 1949 guest ledger). She looks over her shoulder several times. She tries the door handle. It is locked. She kneels, examining the lock. She then places her palm flat against the dark, polished wood of the door.*

*Her body jerks slightly. She pulls her hand back as if burned, staring at her fingertips. She looks visibly shaken. She remains there for several minutes, simply staring at the door, before hurriedly leaving the frame.*

### [JOURNAL ENTRY – ELARA VANCE – October 27th – 1:14 AM]

**Title: The Door Has a Heartbeat**

I touched the door.

It’s not just the items. The room itself is… alive with that same cold resonance. Pressing my hand to the wood was like placing it on the chest of some vast, sleeping beast. I felt a deep, rhythmic *thrum*—not a sound, but a vibration—pulsing through the oak. A heartbeat.

The ledger from 1949 was in my hands. I’d brought it as some kind of proof, a shield. As the vibration travelled up my arm, a jolt of something else hit me—not an image, but a sensation. The scent of damp earth and night-blooming flowers. A feeling of profound, dizzying loneliness.

It was her. Eleanor Shaw. The botanist. Her echo is in there, too.

I’m sitting in the archives office now, and I can still feel the dull, cold thrum in my bones. It’s a countdown. Julian Crowe checks in at 3:00 PM today.

### [JOURNAL ENTRY – ELARA VANCE – October 27th – 6:17 PM]

**Title: The Skeptic Checks In**

It’s chaos. The lobby is a sea of people wearing T-shirts with ghost logos and carrying EMF meters. Julian Crowe arrived exactly on time, a tall, arrogant man with a camera crew in tow. He made a grand show of accepting the old brass key from the manager.

“And this is the infamous ‘haunted’ room?” he said loudly, for the benefit of his camera and the gathered conventioneers. “Marvelous. I look forward to a peaceful night’s sleep, utterly devoid of spooks. It’s all nonsense, of course. But excellent for the ratings!”

A woman with intense eyes and a shawl covered in celestial patterns—Aria, a well-known psychic—stepped forward. “There’s a sorrow here,” she insisted, her voice trembling. “A deep, cyclical sorrow. You’re trespassing on a wound.”

Crowe laughed. “I’m trespassing on a very expensive mattress. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

He led his crew upstairs. A crowd of believers and skeptics followed, creating a tense circus in the hallway outside 214. I was there, Mrs. Higgins beside me, her face ashen.

Crowe made a big production of unlocking the door. He swung it open.

The room inside was… normal. A beautifully preserved four-poster bed, a Victorian escritoire, heavy velvet drapes. It was impeccably clean, untouched by dust. It was the most ordinary, and therefore the most terrifying, room I have ever seen.

Crowe smirked at the crowd, stepped inside, and closed the door. The lock clicked shut.

The party in the hallway continued for an hour, but eventually, people drifted away. It’s 6 PM now. The dinner hour. The hallway is empty.

But the humming… it’s getting stronger. I can feel it through the floor. I’m sitting with Mrs. Higgins in her office. She’s clutching the small felt box. We’re waiting.

### [SECURITY FOOTAGE LOG – OCTOBER 27th – 9:47 PM]

**CAMERA: 2F Hallway (West)**

*The hallway is empty. The door to ROOM 214 is closed. At 21:47:13, the hallway’s lights flicker rapidly. The camera feed distorts with digital static for 1.2 seconds.*

*When the feed clears, the scene is unchanged. The lights are stable.*

*The brass “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door to 214 is now swinging gently on its hook.*

### [JOURNAL ENTRY – ELARA VANCE – October 27th – 10:05 PM]

**Title: The Fourth Item**

We knew. The second the lights flickered, we both knew. The humming in the floorboards just… stopped. The silence was louder than the noise had ever been.

Mrs. Higgins, her hand shaking, used her master key to unlock 214. The room was pristine. The bed was made. The air was still and cold.

Julian Crowe was gone.

On the escritoire, sitting perfectly centered on a leather blotter, was his smartphone, still recording. Next to it was a single, personal effect: his expensive silver wristwatch.

Mrs. Higgins picked up the watch. She flinched, but didn’t drop it. She handed it to me.

The metal was icy cold. And it was vibrating, humming with that same familiar, deep, and terrible resonance. The echo of a smug, skeptical man who refused to believe in the thing that was coming for him.

I dropped it into the felt box with the others. The four items now hummed together, a silent, discordant chord of stolen lives.

Mrs. Higgins locked the box and looked at me, her eyes full of a century of weary resignation.

“The room is to be sealed again,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “The log will note a plumbing emergency. It will be remedied. And in thirty-seven years, Elara, one of us will have to be here to make sure the door stays locked.”

She left me alone in the office. I can still feel the cold hum of the watch in the box, a vibration that feels like it’s tuning my own bones to its frequency.

It’s a countdown that started again the moment it stopped.

2057. The Grand Idlewild Hotel will be waiting.