Chapter 6

By the time Friday finally rolled around, Elliot realised the week had passed with a strange kind of gentleness. A calm stretch of days that felt almost like the house had been deliberately holding its breath.

Nothing unsettling had happened since the pen.

No dragging sounds. No unexplained shifts of air. No sense of being watched from behind closed doors.

Just… normality.

And in some ways, that was stranger.

He and Sam had only grown closer over the days that followed. Not with any dramatic declarations or bold moments, but in small, steady ways. Sharing tea in the Silent Lounge. Sitting closer than necessary on the sofa. Passing each other in the hallway with lingering smiles neither of them quite acknowledged aloud. Harper teased them lightly, Jordan teased them relentlessly, and Sam blushed every single time.

David, as always, drifted in and out on his early shifts, tired but polite, barely seeing anyone except in passing.

Somewhere along the way, Harper had told Elliot more about the house. Nothing supernatural or dramatic. Just facts she’d absorbed since moving in.

The house, she explained, had been built in 1886, on land owned by Caldwell’s great-great-something-grandparents who owned the land. That was it. Nothing mysterious. No tragedies, no ominous foundations, no whispered legends. Just a couple with money and a plot of earth.

Except Elliot couldn’t shake the feeling that the ordinariness was only the surface.

This week, that quiet suspicion had guided him and Harper into a casual project; digging, just a little, into the house’s past. Whenever Harper wasn’t at work and Elliot wasn’t on a call, they’d sit together at the dining table with their laptops open, combing through digital archives, census records, and whatever local history websites still functioned from the early 2000s.

So far, they’d only found only the basics. The house was commissioned in 1884 by Thomas and Eleanor Caldwell and completed in 1886 and it had remained in the Caldwell family ever since.

Nothing strange.

Nothing that explained Room 2. Nothing that explained the feeling Elliot sometimes got when the hallway was too quiet. Nothing that explained why forgotten objects, old ones, kept turning up in places they didn’t belong.

Just the mundane skeletons of a long-lived house.

By Friday morning, it all left Elliot with the same unsettles impression. The real history wasn’t in what they found, but in what wasn’t there.

Like something had been scrubbed out. Or simply forgotten.

The kitchen had fallen quiet after Sam had wandered upstairs with her books, sunlight slanting across the counter in long, late-morning stripes. Elliot lingered with his mug, scrolling through his phone while his tea cooled untouched beside him.

He hadn’t meant to open his messages with Sam. His thump had simply drifted there. Muscle memory or maybe wishful thinking.

The last few days’ worth of texts where still open:

Sam: Tell me that desk hadn’t collapsed yet.

Elliot: Not yet. But definitely looked at me funny this morning.

Sam: Bold of you to assume it wasn’t me looking at you funny.

Then a blushing emoji.

Above that, the message he’d sent Tuesday night after she had left:

Elliot: Thanks again for today. I liked it. All of it.

Her reply had come five minutes later:

Sam: Me too. Sleep well, Elliot.

He must’ve read that one a dozen times already, and yet looking at it again made something warm settle in his chest. Unexpected. Uncomfortable, but in a good way. The kind of feeling that made him sit a little straighter and smile at his phone like an idiot.

His screen lit with a new message, the vibration a short, shape buzz against his palm.

Harper: Got a minute? Need to show you something about the house.

He blinked, rereading it. Then another message appeared immediately underneath.

Harper: Come up to my room if you’re free. Jordan’s out on a shoot.

The contrast between Sam’s soft messages and Harper’s clipped, purposeful ones jolted him out of his daydreaming. Harper wasn’t the type to text unless something mattered.

He glanced once more at Sam’s name before locking his phone.

A small, ridiculous part of him hoped she would text again while he was walking upstairs.

He set his mug in the sink, ran a hand through his hair to make himself look halfway presentable, and headed out of the kitchen.

The house felt different at midday. Still quiet, but lazily so, like everything was settling into a rhythm. Sunlight spilled across the first-floor landing in a soft rectangle, catching dust drifting in the air. 

As Elliot climbed toward the second floor, he couldn’t help but notice how narrow the staircase was, how the walls bowed inward slightly, as if the house had been squeezed into shape by time rather than design. It wasn’t unnerving anymore. Just… old.

He passed by Room 3 on the first floor, door ajar. Sam’s door. He couldn’t see the twinkle of the fairy lights that adorned her headboard, but he heard the faint sound of pages turning. He paused for half a second, wondering if she’d heard him,

Then he forced himself onward.

By the time he reached the second floor, he had replayed Harper’s message in his head four time. Something about the phrasing “Need to show you something about the house” carried a weight he couldn’t ignore.

He stopped outside Room 4 and knocked lightly.

Harper answered almost immediately, pulling the door open with one hand while holding her laptop in the other. Her hair was tied up messily, a pencil tucked behind her ear, and she was still wearing the oversized hoodie she’d had on a breakfast.

“Hey, Elliot,” she said, stepping aside so he could enter. “Good. You came.”

Her tone wasn’t anxious, exactly… but it was focused. Intent.

“What’s going on?” he asked, glancing around. Jorsdan’s side of the room was empty, bed neatly made, camera bags piled neatly near the wall.

Harper motioned for him to sit beside her at the small desk shoved under the slanted ceiling.

“I’ve been digging into something since last night. You’re going to want to see this.”

She turned the laptop toward him.

On the screen was an old, scanned document, grainy, sepia-tones, with ornate lettering at the top.

Property Registration – 12 Blenford Road

Date Filed: September 1886

Owner: Thomas & Eleanor Caldwell

Harper tapped the dates with her finger.

“You remember how I said the house had been in the family forever? I found the original build registration.”

She clicked to the next document, another record, and another, each showing the house passing from one Caldwell to the next.

“No sales,” she said quietly. “No transfers. No gaps. It’s been directly inherited for six generations.”

Elliot leaned in closer, heartbeat picking up without knowing why.

Harper added, still scrolling: “And that’s not even the strange part.”

Harper shifted on the edge of her bed, one foot tapping lightly on the wooden floor. Elliot watched her, half expecting her to produce some dusty old ledger from beneath her pillow. Instead, she lifted her phone and waved it meaningfully.

“Last night,” she said, lowering her voice as though the house might be listening, “I got a call from someone I know at City Hall. A clerk who owes me… well, several favours.”

Elliot raised an eyebrow. “You have a contact at City Hall?”

She shrugged, trying (and failing) to look casual. “I do a lot of research for editing projects. You’d be surprised how often I end up pestering archivists.”

That explained far more about Harper than Elliot had ever thought to ask.

“He’s been looking into the house’s early registration documents for me,” she continued. “You know… land transfers, building permits, that sort of thing. Today, he said he found something. He didn’t want to say over the phone.”

Elliot felt the faintest stir of apprehension. It wasn’t fear, not yet. More like the sense of a curtain about to be pulled back. “And he wants you to come in?”

Harper nodded. “He said he’s set aside a table for us. Told me to bring you, actually… apparently is more than one box.”

Elliot blinked. “Boxes? Plural?”

“Oh yes.” Harper’s eyes flashed with excitement. “Thomas Caldwell loved paperwork. And apparently, City Hall loved filing it even more.”

She hopped off her chair with a sudden momentum. “Come on. If we leave now, we’ll get there before the clerks go on their obsessive early tea break.”

Elliot followed her out of the room, unsure whether he was walking toward answers or just more questions wrapped in dust.

City Hall felt like it had been built entirely out of old paper. Even the walls seemed to exhale the scent of archived documents and stale coffee. The receptionist, who looked like she had been laminated herself sometime in the late 90s, pointed Harper down the hallway without waiting for a name.

Her contact, a thin man with thick glasses and a badge that read “MARTIN”, was already waiting beside a cart filled with brown archival boxes stacked in uneven towers.

“You weren’t kidding,” Elliot murmured.

Martin pushed his glasses up his nose. “I told Harper this wasn’t a one-folder situation.” Then, lowering his voice conspiratorially: “Your house had layers.”

That didn’t help Elliot's nerves at all.

They settled at a long table in the records room, a high-ceilinged space filled with echoing coughs, clicking ballpoint pens, and the soft rustle of ancient pages being disturbed after decades of sleep.

Martin wheeled the first box forward. “This is everything we pulled regarding Number 12 and its land parcel. Construction permits, architectural sketches, property transfers… you know the drill.”

Elliot glanced at Harper, who was already digging through the box like Christmas had come early.

The documents painted a simple picture at first. The land was owned by Thomas Caldwell, a businessman with enough money and ambition to build a home from scratch. Construction completed in 1886, overseen by a local builder with famously neat handwriting. Eleanor Caldwell co-signed several of the permits. Notes about the size of the garden, the water connection, the type of bricks ordered.

Nothing sinister. Nothing strange. Just old paperwork from a family wealthy enough to own land and sentimental enough to keep the house in the family for over a century.

But even in the neat columns and careful signatures, Elliot felt something beneath it all. An impression of weight, a history that hadn’t finished telling itself.

“It’s all very normal,” she said, narrowing her eyes at a particularly pristine document. “But… it feels like we’re only getting the version the council saw, not the version the Caldwell’s lived.”

She wasn’t wrong.

The boxes held facts. The house, Elliot suspected, held truths.

They spent hours sifting, reading, and photographing, the day passing in a blur of yellowed paper and faint ink. Eventually, it was Martin who cleared his throat and announced he needed to close up soon.

Harper reluctantly packed away the documents, though her fingers lingered on one or two pages as though trying to extract deeper meaning.

As they left the building, the late-afternoon light slanted across the pavement, long and gold.

“What do you think?” Harper asked as they reached the taxi.

Elliot took a breath. “I think the family left more behind than paperwork.”

Harper nodded slowly. “And I think we’re finally starting to find it.”

The sun was beginning to sink when Elliot finally stepped through the front door of number 12B, the lingering warmth of the day clinging to his clothes. City Hall had smelled of dust and ink and old paper, and somehow, he felt like he’d carried all of it back with him, century-old documents rattling quietly in his mind.

He set his messenger bag on the little table in the entryway and exhaled. The house was unusually still for early evening. No clatter from the kitchen, no muffled music from upstairs. Just the low hum of the fridge and faint creak of old pipes settling somewhere deep within the walls.

He found Sam in the Silent Lounge.

She was curled up sideways on the armchair, knees tucked under herself, highlighter between her teeth as she scribbled something onto the corner of a workbook page. Her hair was tied back loosely, a few strands escaping to frame her face in the soft lamplight.

When she noticed him in the doorway, her whole expression lit up bright and warm and immediate.

“Hey,” she said, straightening in her seat. “You’re back.”

Elliot felt a small, involuntarily smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah. Harper and I were out most of the afternoon.”

Sam closed her book, folding a finger between the pages to keep her place. “Did you find anything?”

“Sort of,” Elliot replied, moving further into the room. “Nothing… dramatic. Just early records. The house was built in 1886 by Thomas and Eleanor Caldwell. They owned the land, had the means, and…that’s basically all anyone bothered to note. It’s stayed in the family since.”

Sam tilted her head, thoughtful. “Thomas and Eleanor,” she repeated softly, as though testing how the names felt in the air.

Something flickered in her expression. Interest, curiosity… and something else Elliot couldn’t quite place. A faint hesitation. A pause that lingered for just a moment too long.

Then she blinked, the moment gone. “It’s still something. Old houses always have stories.”

Elliot shrugged lightly. “Yeah. Just nothing obvious yet.”

Sam’s smile warmed. “Well, you’ll figure it out. You seem determined.”

He laughed under his breath. “I don’t think ‘determined’ is the same thing as mildly obsessed.”

“That’s half the fun,” she said, eyes crinkling. “Besides…” her voice softened, almost shy. “I’m glad you’re back.”

The words hovered there, delicate and genuine, and Elliot felt something in his chest loosen, like a knot unravelling quietly under warm hands.

He stepped further into the room, leaning against the opposite armchair.

“Yeah,” he said, voice low. “Me too.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The soft ticking of the clock in the hallway filled the silence, and the house, old, dusty, and unsettling at time, felt oddly gentle. Almost approving.

Something had shifted again between them, small, subtle, but real.

“So… how was your day?” he asked, keeping it casual, even though the question carried far more meaning than he let on.

Sam looked up immediately, too immediately, and the shy smile that bloomed across her face told him everything before she even spoke.

“Lonely,” she admitted softly. “Quite boring.”

Her fingers idly twisted a strand of her hair. “I missed you.”

Elliot's breath caught, and he tried to respond without sounding like a man who had been waiting hours to hear exactly that. “I… missed you too,” he said, and hated how earnest it sounded, but Sam didn’t seem to mind. She ducked her head for a moment, suppressing a pleased smile.

A charged pause followed, warm rather than awkward.

Then she cleared her throat, her voice dipping into a shy, hopeful register.

“Do you maybe… want to watch a movie tonight?” she glanced up through her lashes. “Just us. Downstairs.”

Elliot nodded a bit too quickly. “Yeah. Definitely. I’d like that.”

Her smile at that, wide and genuine, was worth every awkward heartbeat.

The downstairs lounge was dim except for the soft amber light of the lamp in the corner. Sam had already settled onto the sofa, legs tucked under a blanket, cheeks slightly pink as she pretended not to watch him across the room.

“Your choice,” she said, handing him the remote. “But just know I will absolutely judge you based on it.”

“Oh good,” Elliot replied, dropping on the sofa beside her. “Because I live for performance pressure.”

Sam snorted into her sleeve. “Just pick something before I change my mind.”

He scrolled until they landed on a cosy, low-stakes mystery-comedy. Something calm and warm but with enough plot to pretend they weren’t both deeply aware of how close they were sitting.

As the opening credits rolled, Sam nudged her shoulder lightly against his. “To be clear,” she murmured, “I’m judging your choice harshly.”

“Right. Of course you are.”

Another playful bump. “You chose well. …Shockingly.”

“Oh,” Elliot murmured, “so you do like my taste?”

Sam hummed, drawing her blanket a little tighter around herself and in the process, closer to him. “Let’s not get carried away.”

Their eyes met for a brief moment. That was all it took.

Sam shifted an inch closer. Then another. Their knees brushed. Elliot felt the warmth of her through the fabric.

Half an hour in, she leaned lightly against his side pretending it was just a comfortable position, but her breath caught softly when he lifted his arm to give her more space, letting her rest against him fully.

Her head settled onto his shoulder. “It’s nice,” she whispered, so quietly he almost thought he imagined it.”

“What is?” he whispered back.

“This,” she said. “You.”

Elliot swallowed.

The movie played on, soft dialogue and warm light filling the room while the world shrank down to just the two of them.

A timid brush of fingers against his hand. Testing. Waiting.

Elliot gently curled his fingers back in response.

Sam inhaled sharply, a tiny sound, then laced her fingers with his, shy and certain all at once.

They didn’t speak after that. 

They didn’t need to.

They watched the rest of the movie like that. Pressed close, hands intertwined, the room quiet except for the soft glow of the screen and the slow, steady rhythm of two people melting carefully, beautifully, into something neither of them had quite dared to name yet.

The credits finally rolled, painting soft white light across the lounge walls. Neither Elliot nor Sam moved at first. Their hands were still lightly intertwined, resting between them on the soft cushion, and her head nestled against his shoulder. For a long moment, the world felt suspended. Just the two of them, the hum of the television, and the gentle rise and fall of their breathing.

But eventually, reality tugged them back.

Elliot exhaled, slow and reluctant, and gave her hand the faintest squeeze before gently pulling away. Sam shifted too, blinking as if waking up from a dream. The warmth of her fingers lingered long after he released them.

“Should probably get some sleep,” he said softly, though part of him wanted to rewind the entire evening and relive it.

Sam nodded, pushing a stray curl behind her ear. “Yeah. Probably.” She didn’t sound convinced.

He stood first, offering his hand down to her without thinking. She took it immediately, her fingers slipping through into his as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Her touch felt warmer than it should have, or maybe that was just him.

They left the lounge together, hand joined until they reached the hallway. The house was dark and still, quiet in a way that make their footsteps sound too loud. At the foot of the stairs, Elliot gave her hand a gentle tug, guiding her up the first slight with him.

Sam didn’t let go until they stood outside Room 3.

There, finally, she hesitated, then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him in a soft, steady hug. Ot wasn’t a quick polite embrace. It was warm and lingering, the kind of hug that said far more than either of them dared put into words.

Elliot's breath caught slightly as he returned it, his hands resting at her back. Sam leaned into him fully, almost melting against his chest. The hall light above them flickered faintly, but neither of them noticed.

“Goodnight, Elliot,” she murmured against his shoulder, her voice small but warm, full of something hopeful and fragile.

“Goodnight, Sam,” he whispered back, wishing he didn’t have to let go.

She pulled back just enough to look up at him, cheeks softly flushed, eyes bright with a kind of shy happiness. Then, almost too quickly to catch, she rose onto her toes and kissed his cheek, A feather-light brush, nervous and bold all at once, before slipping into her room with a quiet click of the door.

Elliot stood there for a few seconds longer, hand drifting unconsciously to the spot where she’d kissed him, a stupid grin creeping up his face.

The hallway felt empty without her, but not in a lonely way. More like something had been set in motion. Something small. Something warm. Something that made the old house feel, for the first time, a little less heavy.

As he headed to his room, he couldn’t stop smiling.