Chapter 3 - The Sleepwalker
The fourth night was the worst.
The storm that had been gathering along the coast all afternoon finally broke around midnight. Heavy, violent sheets of rain lashed against the glass of the master bedroom, the wind howling through the old stone chimneys like a choir of lost souls.
I lay in the center of the massive bed, the covers pulled up to my chin, my eyes wide as I stared at the dark ceiling.
Edmund was in his corner.
He had arrived at exactly eleven o'clock, dragged his wooden chair to the spot by the balcony doors, and sat down without a word. The only difference tonight was that he had removed his coat, revealing the crisp, white linen of his shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms to expose pale, jagged scars that looked like claw marks running from his wrists to his elbows.
The city lights were gone, swallowed by the thick, black storm clouds, leaving the bedroom in near-total darkness. The only light came from the occasional flash of lightning that illuminated the room in brief, terrifying bursts of blue and white.
During those flashes, I could see Edmund’s face.
He wasn't sleeping. His eyes were wide, dark, and utterly unfocused, staring not at me, but at the empty space just above my head. His hands were clenched so tightly in his lap that his knuckles stood out like white stones in the dark.
I wanted to speak to him. I wanted to ask him about the scars, about Madeline, about the whispers in the library. But the sheer, cold intensity of his presence kept the words trapped in my throat.
Eventually, the exhaustion of the day and the rhythmic, violent sound of the rain against the glass wore me down. My eyelids grew heavy, the dark room fading into a deep, heavy sleep.
But my sleep was not peaceful.
I dreamed of water. Deep, cold, black water that filled my lungs and pulled me down into the dark. I dreamed of a voice—a soft, frantic whispering that called my name from the top of a long, winding staircase.
"Evelyn... Evelyn, look down."
In my dream, I was walking. I was climbing a flight of cold stone steps, my bare feet making no sound against the rock. The wind was whipping my hair across my face, the smell of sea salt thick in the air. I reached the top of the stairs, looking down into a vast, empty abyss where a single, white figure was floating, her arms reaching up toward me.
"Evelyn..."
A sharp, violent hand grabbed my shoulder, ripping me out of the dream with a force that made my teeth rattle.
My eyes flew open.
I wasn't in the bed.
The air was freezing, a wet, salty wind blowing directly into my face. I was standing on the wet stone of the balcony, the rain drenching my thin lace nightgown, my bare feet gripping the cold, slippery slate.
My hands were resting on the low stone balustrade, my body leaning forward over the fifty-foot drop to the jagged, wave-beaten rocks below.
Edmund was holding me.
His large, powerful arms were wrapped around my waist, his chest pressed hard against my back as he pulled me away from the edge with a desperate, terrifying strength. He was breathing heavily, his white shirt completely soaked, his dark hair plastered to his forehead.
"I've got you," he gasped, his voice cracking with a raw, primal terror I had never heard in him before. "I've got you, Evelyn. Step back. Please, God, step back."
I couldn't move. My legs felt like lead, my mind still half-trapped in the cold, dark water of my dream. "Edmund?" I whispered, my teeth chattering violently from the cold.
He didn't answer. He simply lifted me off my feet, carrying me back into the warm, dry air of the bedroom. He slammed the French doors shut behind us, locking them with a heavy brass bolt, and carried me directly to the bed.
He laid me down, wrapping the heavy duvet around my shivering body, before dropping to his knees beside the mattress. His hands were shaking as he pushed the wet hair away from my face, his eyes wide and dark with a panic that seemed to strip away every layer of his cold, billionaire facade.
"You were walking," he whispered, his voice trembling. "You opened the doors. You were... you were looking down at the rocks."
"I... I was dreaming," I sobbed, the reality of how close I had come to the edge finally crashing through my mind. "I heard a voice, Edmund. It was calling me."
Edmund’s hand froze against my cheek. The warmth in his eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, hollow horror that made him look like a corpse.
"You heard her," he whispered.
"Who?" I asked, my voice shaking. "Who was calling me, Edmund?"
He didn't answer. He stood up slowly, his body going rigid as he stepped away from the bed. He looked at the locked balcony doors, then back at me, his face resolving into a mask of pure, unadulterated guilt.
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"I shouldn't have brought you here," he said, his voice barely louder than a breath. "I thought... I thought if I watched, I could keep it from happening again. But it’s already started."
Before I could ask him what he meant, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving me alone in the dark with the sound of the rain and the terrifying certainty that the ghost of Madeline Moore was not just a memory—it was a force that was slowly pulling me toward the edge.
