THE ATTIC KEY

Morning crawled into Blackwater Hall like it regretted coming back. The sea outside was gray and tired the kind of tired that doesn’t end with rest.

Noah’s voice wouldn’t stop echoing in my skull.

“They won’t say their name.”

“Her name was Hanna.”

I’d spent the night trying not to see her face, but imagination is cruel. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw a locked door and the look on someone’s face when they realize no one’s coming.

Noah didn’t come to breakfast. Julian did.

He looked like something washed ashore ;unshaven, eyes bloodshot, still in yesterday’s clothes. He poured whiskey into his coffee like it was milk, and I let him pretend it was normal.

When I spoke, my voice didn’t sound like mine.

“Noah’s daughter, Hanna did you know her?”

Julian froze mid-sip. He didn’t look at me. His hand trembled slightly, running through his hair like he could erase the question.

That’s when I realized I had the upper hand.

“She was a child,” I said. “And your brother-”

“Don’t.”

The word cracked through the air like a whip. I didn’t flinch. “Don’t tell me I’m wrong.”

He didn’t. Couldn’t. His silence was its own confession.

When he left, I noticed the keys hanging from his belt one small and ornate, the kind made to keep a secret. Everyone knew Noah kept most of the keys in the house; Julian only carried a few, for show or for guilt, I wasn’t sure which.

That’s when I remembered. Weeks ago, Julian had told me in passing, voice thick with whiskey:

“Don’t touch anything and don’t try to sneak in the attic. It’s haunted.”

I’d laughed then. But now, the words sat in my chest like ice.

I knew what I had to do and where to go. The word sat heavy in my chest like something alive.

The attic.

Every whisper, every look, every warning since I’d arrived here suddenly made sense. The locked doors. The whispers that stopped when I entered a room. The way Noah’s eyes always flicked upward when someone mentioned the past. I didn’t care if it was haunted. I’d been haunted long before I came to Blackwater Hall. Noah’s room smelled like dust and old smoke. The air was thick enough to choke on. I started searching everywhere; drawers, boxes, shelves. My hands moved faster than my thoughts. My pulse drummed behind my eyes. When I lifted the pillow, something cold brushed my fingertips. The key. I slipped it into my pocket just as footsteps creaked outside the door.

Noah.

He stood there, shoulders heavy, eyes rimmed with exhaustion.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, his voice frayed but steady.

“I wanted to know more about Hanna,” I said quietly.

He hesitated then looked at me like I’d torn open a wound he’d spent years trying to sew shut.

“My Hanna… she wanted justice,” he said, voice trembling. “She went to the police. To the label. To everyone who said they cared. You know what they told her?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

“They said she misunderstood. That he was drunk. Famous. Troubled. They told her to move on.” His jaw shook. “So she did. Right off a bridge, three months later.”

He didn’t cry. He looked like someone who’d long since drowned in his own grief.

“She left a note,” he whispered. “One line: I just wanted someone to believe me.”

My throat burned. My stomach turned to acid. That sentence different handwriting, same story.

Noah looked toward the gray light outside. “After Levi died, the managers wanted it gone the photos, the tapes, everything. But Julian refused. Said keeping them was justice. But justice doesn’t live in this house, Ava. Only ghosts.”

He turned back to me. “You should go. There’s nothing for you here.”

He was wrong. There was everything.

When the clock struck eleven, I took my phone for light and slipped out of bed. The hallway was dark and damp, the wallpaper peeling like skin. At the end of the east corridor, the wardrobe loomed. Behind it, the door waited quietly and patiently.

The key turned with a metallic sigh.

The smell hit first dust, mildew, and something sickly sweet, like rot wearing perfume. The bulb flickered when I pulled the cord. The light stuttered across the room, revealing boxes, broken furniture and then the wall.

Dozens and dozens of Polaroids. Pinned in neat, perfect rows. Smiling girls. Teenagers. Their joy caught mid-laughter, suspended forever. Each one labeled carefully: Amelia. Sophie. Claire.

And there was Hanna.

Her smile was smaller. Softer. Sadder. Like she knew something the other girls didn’t.

My stomach lurched. My knees hit the floor. The room spun. The air felt thick and wet heavy with something I didn’t want to name. I pressed a hand to my mouth, but the sobs forced their way through anyway. Sharp, ugly sounds that didn’t even feel like mine. The faces blurred as tears filled my eyes. I could taste the salt of them, taste bile. My chest hurt not like heartbreak, but like panic, like drowning in a memory.

Because I’d been her.

The same fear. The same silence. The same disbelief when no one believed.

I wanted to rip the Polaroids down, smash the bulb, burn the whole room but my body wouldn’t move. I just shook, clutching my chest like I could hold myself together by force.

Then a creak behind me.

Julian.

He stood in the doorway, pale and shaking.

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” he whispered.

I turned, voice cracking. “You kept them. You kept all of this and you did nothing.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s my cross to bear.”

“Then why are they still here?” My voice broke. “Because you’re too much of a coward to burn them?”

“Noah made me promise,” Julian said. “He wanted proof. He said one day someone would need to see the truth.”

I was shaking so hard I could barely speak. “You let Levi take those pictures you let him hurt those girls you’re more of a monster than your brother ever was! You did nothing!”

He stepped closer, tears streaking through the dust. “I thought silence was mercy for my brother. I thought I was protecting what was left of us! Our name, our family… But all I did was protect the rot.”

Something inside me shattered.

“Do you know what it’s like?” I sobbed, voice breaking apart. “To beg for help and be told you imagined it? To watch everyone move on while you stay stuck in that moment?”

Julian didn’t move. His eyes filled. “You’ve lived this didn’t you” he said softly.

A bitter laugh ripped from my throat. “It doesn’t matter. It never does. Not when you’re a woman.”

His voice trembled. “That silence, that shame… you understand her.”

The tears wouldn’t stop. My whole body felt raw, skin too tight, heart too heavy.

“Understanding doesn’t make it better, Julian! It doesn’t bring her back!”

He broke then, his hands trembling, tears spilling freely.

“I know,” he said. “And I’ll never forgive myself. But you have to tell it. Write it. For her. For all of them.”

I could barely breathe. My voice came out as a whisper between sobs. “You think writing can fix this?”

“No,” he said quietly. “But truth is the only thing we haven’t buried yet.”

We stood surrounded by faces of the forgotten.

Before I left, I looked at Hanna’s photo one last time. Her eyes seemed to follow me not haunting, just waiting.

“I’ll tell her story,” I whispered. “Even if it has to kill your name and everything you love in the process.”

Julian nodded, tears cutting through the dust.

When I reached my room, my legs gave out. I sank to the floor, shaking uncontrollably. My body still remembered the attic and the smell, the faces, the rot. I could taste the grief. It felt like it had weight. My laptop screen glowed faintly in the dark already awake.

One new email waited.

Just one line:

“Now you’ve seen her.”

- Noah.