Chapter 195: Plans

Georgia -

I had a plan. One small, simple message—something that would make Adeline see the truth, or at least, make her question it. My mind had been whirring in circles, trapping me in my thoughts, and I finally understood. If she knew, if she knew what Carlisle had done before, maybe she would start to believe. Or, at the very least, she’d start asking the right questions.

The faces in the walls had been insistent lately, their whispers more urgent, their features clearer. They agreed with me. Tell her, they seemed to say. Make her see.

I needed Elena. She was the only one who might still have enough compassion, enough fear of what could happen, to do as I asked. I spent days figuring out how to approach her—how to frame the request, how to plant the seed of doubt in her heart. She was already terrified enough, but I needed to make sure she was terrified of the right things. I didn’t want her to feel too comfortable in her safety, because safety was a lie.

When Elena came with fresh linens that morning, I was waiting. Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine, and I could see how she tried to make her visits shorter each time, eager to escape the dimness of my prison, the intensity of my gaze.

“Elena,” I said softly, my voice steady despite its disuse. Her eyes widened at the sound of my words, like a deer caught in headlights. She could see the desperation behind my eyes, the madness that I was sure had seeped into my bones.

She was afraid of me now. I could see it, that flicker of fear whenever I spoke. But there was something else in her, something that hadn’t been there before—curiosity.

“Georgia,” she said cautiously, her voice trembling. “What are you planning?”

I leaned closer, the silence between us thick with the weight of what I was about to ask. I knew it was dangerous, but it felt necessary. “I need you to leave a note for Adeline,” I told her, my words deliberate. “Just somewhere she’ll find it. Somewhere she won’t be able to ignore it.”

Elena took a step back, looking at me with confusion, with a hint of reluctance. She bit her lip. “What kind of note?” she asked, hesitant.

“The kind that makes her think,” I whispered. “A message she can’t dismiss. It needs to be simple, cryptic, but undeniable. Just one sentence.”

Her fingers trembled so badly the linens slipped. “He’ll kill me,” she whispered. Not a metaphor. We both knew it.

She swallowed hard, her eyes darting nervously around the room. “What should it say?”

I took a deep breath, knowing this would be the hardest part. “Tell her: ‘He buried his last wife too.’”

The words felt foreign on my tongue, as though I wasn’t the one speaking them, but some twisted version of myself. But I had to do it. It was my only chance. It was the only way I could make her see the truth that had been buried beneath layers of lies.

Elena’s face paled, her eyes widening. “Georgia, what are you saying? Carlisle wasn’t married before you.”

I smiled, a cold, hard smile that felt like it belonged to someone else. “Wasn’t he? Are you sure?”

The doubt flashed across her face—just for a moment, but it was there. Elena had been in this house longer than most of the staff. She had heard things, seen things. She knew Carlisle kept secrets.

“You know as well as I do that there are rooms in this house no one enters,” I continued, my voice barely above a whisper. “Papers locked away. Names never spoken. Why do you think that is?”

Her fingers twisted in the fabric of her shirt, a nervous habit I’d observed over our months together. “Even if that were true,” she said slowly, “what good would it do to tell Adeline? It would only hurt her.”

“It would open her eyes,” I said, leaning forward. “Before it’s too late for her too.”

Elena stood still, conflicted, the battle playing out across her face. Finally, she nodded, her expression pale. “I’ll do it. But… Georgia, you know this might make things worse, right?”

I smiled, a thin, tight-lipped expression that felt like a mask rather than a reflection of anything real. “Maybe,” I replied. “But maybe it will make things better, too.”

She didn’t ask what I meant by “better.” Perhaps she was afraid to know.

It wasn’t long after that I heard it—the subtle change in the rhythms of the house, the quickening of footsteps, the whispered conversations that stopped abruptly when others approached. My message had been delivered. The note, placed carefully beneath the jewelry box on Adeline’s vanity, where she would have to find it. The words were scrawled in a hurried, jagged hand, the ink dark and bold. “He buried his last wife too.”

The paper was cold, too cold, as if it had been pressed against stone for hours. The ink smelled faintly of cellar damp. Like it had crawled up from the walls itself.

I had wanted the message to be sharp, clear, almost a warning—something that would break through the fog of her delusions, her idealized vision of Carlisle, and shatter it with the truth of his past. A single sentence, simple yet powerful, like a loaded gun. And it wasn’t just about the message. It was about what came next.

The silence that followed was thick, suffocating. I waited for her to find it, for the confusion to set in, for the panic to rise in her.

The silence curled around us, thick as a burial shroud.

I knew the words would haunt her, whether she admitted it to herself or not. He buried his last wife too. It was undeniable.

The walls around me seemed to vibrate with anticipation, the faces in the moisture patterns watching, waiting. They knew what I had done. They approved. This was for them as much as it was for me.

It wasn’t long before I saw the effects ripple through Adeline. The following morning, as she walked briskly through the house, her face pale, her eyes darting from room to room, I could sense her unraveling. It wasn’t a dramatic outburst. It was the way she held herself, the tension in her shoulders, the way her hands trembled as she touched everything. She wasn’t the same, not anymore.

I positioned myself beneath the floorboards of their bedroom, ear pressed to the ceiling, listening. This was the moment I had been waiting for. I needed to hear her confront him, needed to know if the seed I’d planted would take root.

Adeline’s questions were coming fast, rapid, too fast to be controlled. I could hear her voice from where I hid, barely able to contain the rising panic in her tone. “Carlisle,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I need to ask you something.”

“What is it?” His voice was calm, controlled, the way it always was before the storm.

“I—I found something. A note.” Her voice was halting, uncertain. “It said ‘He buried his last wife too.’ What does that mean, Carlisle?”

Behind him, the mirror flickered. A shadow with my hollow eyes. Did she see?

The silence that followed was deafening. I held my breath, waiting.

“Where did you find this note?” His voice had dropped, become dangerously soft.

“In our room. Under my jewelry box.” She paused, and I could imagine her gathering her courage. “Have you been married before, Carlisle? There was something about the way it was written—like a warning. Like I should know something.”

I couldn’t see them, but I could imagine the scene—the way her hands clenched and her breath caught, the desperation in her voice. Her mind was frantically reaching, grasping for answers, but she was too afraid to see the truth.

Carlisle, I knew, would be quick to dismiss her concerns. He would manipulate her, twist her fears into something she could control, and just like before, she would be his puppet. But now, I could sense the shift in her. The seed had been planted. She was questioning him.

She was questioning him. Just like I had.

I had expected Carlisle’s reaction to be one of irritation, of cold dismissal. What I didn’t expect was the violence in his response.

I heard it in the way his voice cracked, the controlled fury dripping from his words. “What is this nonsense?” he snapped. “Who put that note there?”

His fist connected with the doorframe, wood splintering. Just like he’d done to the last maid who ‘talked too much.’ Adeline flinched—had she heard that story too?

The sound of him slamming a door echoed through the house, followed by the muffled sounds of his violent pacing. It wasn’t a reaction I had anticipated. But it felt like progress. Like the walls that had held me captive for so long were finally starting to crumble under the weight of the truth.

“Someone is playing games with you,” Carlisle said, his voice tight with suppressed rage. “And I intend to find out who.”

“But what about the question?” Adeline persisted, her voice stronger now. “Have you been married before? Please, just tell me the truth.”

“The truth?” His laugh was cold, hollow. “The truth is that someone in this house is trying to drive you mad with these ridiculous suggestions. There has never been another wife, Adeline. You’re the only one. The only one that matters.”

“You’re the only one that matters.” Same words he’d whispered over my grave.

The subtle emphasis he placed on those last words sent a chill through me. It was the same thing he had told me, once. You’re the only one that matters, Georgia. Until I wasn’t.

I heard their footsteps moving away, his faster, more determined, and then Carlisle’s voice dropped to a low, dangerous murmur as he spoke again, this time to someone else, someone I couldn’t see. “It’s that staff of ours,” he growled. “They’ve been talking. They’ve been listening.”

The suspicion was clear, as though the walls themselves were closing in on the people who worked for him. He suspected them, trusted no one. Not even his own household.

I smiled—a crack in the mask—as the walls whispered their approval.

It was working. The message was doing its job. But what would happen next? I couldn’t know. I could only wait, watch, and hope that Adeline’s curiosity would be enough to push her into doing something.

The faces in the wall seemed to smile back at me, their features shifting in the damp stone, their approval evident in the way they lingered, clearer than ever before.

We are with you, they seemed to say. We have always been with you.

The day Elena came to me, her face ghostly pale and her hands trembling, I knew things had shifted. She whispered the words like a confession, her voice low and heavy with fear.

“Georgia,” she began, looking over her shoulder as though afraid someone might be listening. “Carlisle… He’s furious. He said if this keeps happening, he’ll—he’ll make us all pay. He said everyone involved would regret it.”

I felt a chill crawl up my spine, a warning, but also a flicker of satisfaction. “What does that mean?” I asked, leaning closer.

Elena’s voice cracked. “He’s already started watching us more closely. He’s interrogating the staff, one by one. He fired Martha yesterday—accused her of going through Adeline’s things. She’d been here for ten years, Georgia. Ten years.”

Her hands twisted in her lap, her fear palpable. “He’s become paranoid, suspecting everyone. He checks the rooms before he leaves, locks doors that were never locked before. And Adeline—”

“What about Adeline?” I pressed, hungry for any information about the woman who had replaced me.

“She’s different. Quieter. She watches him when he’s not looking, like she’s trying to put together a puzzle. She asked me yesterday if I knew anything about Carlisle’s past, before she met him.” Elena’s eyes met mine, wide with fear. “He’s—he’s going to make sure that no one ever dares cross him again.”

“He’ll make us all pay.” Her voice dropped. “Starting with her.”

I looked at her for a long moment, taking in the fear, the trembling in her eyes. She was terrified, and rightfully so. Carlisle wasn’t just a man; he was a force of nature, a storm that had already begun to tear through everything and everyone in its path.

But I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. And I couldn’t let Elena be either.

“We have to keep going,” I said, my voice low but steady. “We have to make her see. No matter what it costs.”

Elena swallowed hard, her eyes filled with doubt and fear. But in them, I saw a flicker of something else too. A quiet defiance, buried deep beneath the fear. She nodded slowly.

“What do you want me to do next?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

I smiled, feeling a surge of dark triumph. The walls around me seemed to pulse with excitement, the faces watching eagerly, waiting to see what would happen next.

“Bring me paper,” I said. “And a pen. It’s time for another message.”

And blood will write the rest.

And then she turned, and left me alone in the shadows again. But I wasn’t alone, not really. I had my allies in the walls, the spirits trapped in the stone. And now, I had something even more powerful—doubt, spreading through the house like poison, infecting everyone it touched.

The game had begun. And the house was keeping score.