Chapter 1 Briarbell Inn

Elowen

The rain had found the hole in the Briarbell Inn’s roof again, and this time it was dripping directly into my best saucepan.

I stood on the kitchen table with one foot balanced beside a bowl of flour, holding a cracked umbrella over my head while I tried to push a piece of folded tin beneath the loose roof tile. 

Water ran down my sleeve and into my elbow, but I ignored it because the saucepan was already half full and I could not afford to replace another ceiling tile before the end of the month.

“Stay there,” I muttered to the roof as I reached higher. “Just stay there for five minutes.”

The roof, naturally, disagreed.

A cold drop landed directly on my nose, and the tile shifted beneath my fingers. I caught it before it could slide away, tightened the wire around it, and finally managed to wedge the tin into place. 

The rain stopped dripping into the saucepan, and I let out a breath I had apparently been holding for the last thirty seconds.

I climbed down from the table and looked around the kitchen.

The Briarbell Inn had looked better when my grandmother was alive. That was the polite way of saying it was slowly falling apart around me.

The wallpaper near the back door was peeling, three windows refused to close properly, the upstairs hallway leaned slightly to the left, and the dining room fireplace had developed a crack that I had been pretending not to notice. 

None of it mattered if I could keep the place running. I had managed for two years, and I was not about to let a little rain decide that I had failed.

I carried the saucepan to the sink and wiped the water from my face with the back of my hand. Then I opened the small notebook beside the stove and added another expense beneath the growing list.

Roof repair.

I stared at the words for a moment before closing the notebook.

“Later,” I told myself.

That was how most things worked at the Briarbell. If something was broken, I fixed it later. If something was expensive, I found a cheaper way. If someone asked whether I needed help, I smiled and said no before they could finish the question.

It was not because I enjoyed doing everything alone.

It was because asking for help had a way of turning into someone telling me I could not handle my own life.

I picked up the tray of clean cups and carried it toward the dining room, already thinking about breakfast service. 

We had four guests staying that week, which was not enough to call the inn successful, but it was enough to keep the lights on. 

Mrs. Vale in Room Two wanted tea without sugar, the couple in Room Five had complained about the mattress twice, and the traveling merchant upstairs had already asked whether the town had a stable.

Normal problems. I liked normal problems.

Halfway through the dining room, I heard a chair scrape across the floor.

I stopped.

The sound came from behind me.

I slowly turned around, expecting to see one of the guests standing near the tables. Instead, every chair was exactly where I had left it. The room was empty, the windows were shut, and the only movement came from the rain tapping against the glass.

I frowned and set the tray down.

The chair nearest the fireplace moved again.

It slid backward by itself.

I stared at it for several seconds, waiting for the building to give me a sensible explanation. Maybe one of the floorboards had shifted. Maybe the leg had caught on something. Maybe the damp weather had warped the wood.

There was always an explanation.

I walked over and pushed the chair back beneath the table.

“Not today,” I said quietly.

I turned away.

The chair scraped backward again. This time, I did not move.

The Briarbell had always made noises. I knew every sound this place made because I had spent two years sleeping inside it, repairing it, cleaning it, and listening to it settle every night.

That sound was not the building settling.

Someone had moved the chair.

I walked around the table and examined the floor. There was nothing beneath it. No loose board, no broken pipe, no animal hiding in the shadows. I crouched and ran my fingers over the wooden leg.

It was warm.

I pulled my hand back.

I stood and looked toward the doorway.

“Grandmother?”

The word escaped before I could stop it.

My grandmother had been dead for two years. I knew that better than anyone, yet for one foolish second I expected to hear her voice from the kitchen telling me to stop talking to furniture.

Nothing answered.

I shook my head and picked up the tray.

“Too much work,” I whispered. “That’s all.”

I carried the cups toward the kitchen.

Behind me, the chair slowly moved back into place.

I heard it. I knew damn well I heard it. But I refused to turn around.

^

The rest of breakfast went normally, which somehow made the chair worse.

Mrs. Vale complained about the rain. The couple in Room Five asked for extra blankets. The merchant wanted directions to the market, and I gave them while pretending I had not spent the last twenty minutes wondering whether an old chair had decided to develop a personality.

By ten o’clock, everyone had left the dining room.

I finally allowed myself to breathe.

Then I noticed the sugar bowl. It was sitting in the middle of the table.

I had not put it there.

I knew that because I had washed it that morning and left it beside the sink. I walked toward it slowly, staring at the small glass bowl as if it might explain itself.

Beside it sat a teaspoon. The spoon had been placed neatly across the top.

My stomach tightened.

I looked toward the kitchen, the door was open.

I walked inside.

The sugar bowl was gone from the counter.

I checked the sink, the shelves, the pantry, and even the rubbish bin before returning to the dining room. I stood over the table and stared at the bowl again.

This was ridiculous.

There were no children staying at the inn. The guests were all adults, and none of them had any reason to play a stupid prank with a sugar bowl.

I picked it up.

Underneath it was a small circle of dust where the bowl had been sitting.

It was fresh dust. I rubbed it between my fingers.

Then I noticed something else, there were footprints on the floor.

Small ones.

They began beside the fireplace and crossed the dining room toward the hallway.

I crouched immediately.

They were not human footprints. At least, not adult human footprints.

The marks looked like bare feet belonging to someone young, but they were too faint to make out properly. I followed them with my eyes until they disappeared near the staircase.

I stood slowly.

“All right,” I whispered.

I was no longer thinking about broken pipes or warped floorboards.

I walked to the staircase.

The footprints continued upward.

I followed.

The footprints stopped outside Room Seven.

That room had been empty since I inherited the inn.

My grandmother had kept it locked, and when I asked why, she had simply told me that the room needed to remain undisturbed. I had assumed it was another one of her strange habits.

I reached for the handle.

The door opened before I touched it.

I froze.

Inside, the room was exactly as I remembered it from the last time I had looked through the doorway. An old bed stood against the wall, covered in a white sheet. A small wooden desk sat beside the window, and a wardrobe leaned slightly to one side.

Nothing moved. I stepped inside.

There was dust everywhere.

Except on the desk. A cup sat there. A fresh cup of tea.

Steam was still rising from it.

I stared at the cup, unable to move.

Then, from somewhere behind me, came the soft scrape of a chair being pulled across the floor.

I turned fast. The hallway was empty.

But when I looked back at the desk, the cup was no longer there.