Whispering Shadows

In the back-of-beyond, somnolent village of Ravens brook, deep in the heart of a forest of towering oaks and twisted pines, stood a timeworn mansion beside the edge of a mist-covered lake. Blackthorn Manor was its name, yet for years, it had remained unvisited, its windows boarded up, the gardens overgrown. The villagers, even so, spoke of it only in whispers—as if uttering the name might awaken something sinister.

Nobody really knew what had happened at Blackthorn Manor, though the rumors were many. Some believed it was haunted by the ghost of a woman who had drowned in the lake; mournful cries resounded through the night. Others insisted that strange lights flickered in the windows on moonless nights, as though the mansion itself was alive and watching.

It was an autumn evening, and the rain lashed down, when a stranger arrived in Ravens brook. He was a tall man, dressed in a long, dark coat; he wore a wide-brimmed hat that cast somber shadows over his face. Introducing himself as Dr. Elias Blackwood, historian and scholar of the occult, he stated that he came to unveil secrets hidden in Blackthorn Manor.

At first, the villagers did not want to talk to him, but he finally wore them down. They told him of the house's strange noises and people disappearing mysteriously and of cries that seemed to come from the very center of the lake. It was through these stories that Dr. Blackwood got inspired to explore the mansion, even though the people of the village warned him against doing so.

He tramped out that same night, under the full moon, to Blackthorn Manor, with nothing but his lantern and notebook for company. As he came up to the mansion, the trees whistled back at him in the wind, and fog swirled, ghostly fingers curling around his legs and the edges of his coat. He pushed open the creaking front door to have the wind whisper in his ear, revealing a once-grand, by now decaying, entryway.

Dr. Blackwood felt a chill as he came in. The air was thick with dust, and the smell of mildew seemed to fill every little corner of its own accord. His footsteps echoed ominously in the silence, and, with the aid of the lantern light, they extended long shadows upon the walls as he made his way through the manor.

He heard a soft whisper, almost imperceptible, like the rustle of leaves in the wind as he ascended sweeping staircases. He paused, listened hard, but as often as he heard, it had ceased when he tried to hear. Shaking his head at his folly, he continued on, but with every step, the whispering resumed.

Whispers seemed to come from the walls, as if there was a supernatural presence that was trying to have a talk with him. He felt some indefinable kind of dread, but still, Dr. Blackwood pushed further forward. At the end of a long, dark corridor stood a door. He turned the handle slowly with shaking hands.

The door creaked open to a small room, ill-lit by one bulb, with an old, dust-covered wooden box in the center. Now, whispering rose to a chorus of voices attempting to urge him on to open up the chest. With a racing heart, Dr. Blackwood went down on his knees beside the chest and warily lifted the lid.

Inside he found a sheaf of yellowed papers, tied together with a frayed ribbon. The whispering suddenly ceased as he reached for the papers, and the room fell silent. A cold shiver ran down his spine, but he overcame his apprehension and began to study the documents.

They were letters in a graceful, flowing script, pertaining to the rituals forbidden, dark magic, and of a pact with an ancient, malevolent being. The further Dr. Blackwood read, the more he realized that none other than the very woman who had once resided in Blackthorn Manor wrote the letters—the very one said to have drowned in the lake.

Letters found in the attic of his new home unleashed a shocking truth—that she didn't die in some accident or other. Instead, she had willfully surrendered herself to the entity of the lake: shadows and whispers for eternal life. But something went wrong in the pact; instead of immortality, her soul got stuck within those mansion walls and was condemned forever.

As Dr. Blackwood read the last letter, a blast of cold air went through the room, snuffing out his lantern. The darkness closed in around him, and he felt something behind him, something cold, otherworldly. Slowly, he turned around, his breath catching in his throat.

A ghostly woman stood at the door, hollow-eyed, full of sorrow. Her lips moved without a sound, yet the whispers returned—into the mind of Dr. Blackwood, the grisly realization that his pact was not yet fulfilled, and the entity in the lake still claimed its due.

Before he could do anything, shadows coalesced in the room, twisting about him, like tendrils of smoke. The last thing Dr. Blackwood heard before he was completely swallowed by the darkness was the soft whisper of the woman's voice:

"Run."

But it was too late. Whispers claimed him as it had done many times before.

And, once more, the legend of Blackthorn Manor deepened into shade in the village of Ravens brook.