Whisper In The Halls

Chapter 1

FAITH

The hundred rooms of Hawthorn Manor were rumoured to be shrouded in mystery, their whispered secrets known only to the brave souls who dared to explore them. The Hawthorn family, too, were cloaked in darkness and intrigue, their reputation for enigma and danger preceding them. It was to this shadowed estate that I found myself, Rosaline Faith Minerva, orphaned and uncertain of my future.

My parents had been recently laid to rest in the garden of our family estate, alongside generations of Minerva kin. I stood by their graves with a purse strapped to my side, the wind howling a mournful melody through the trees.

"Miss Minerva? The coach is waiting for you," called out my butler, Jonathan, and my cook, Martha, their sombre expressions weighing heavily upon me. I walked toward them, a sense of foreboding growing within me. I knew that once I left, I may never return.

As I approached the waiting coach, a young man stood beside it, his bag in hand. I recognised him as the recruit that Jonathan brought in months ago. My mother had recently passed at the time so I never got the chance to know him.

  "Jean will be leaving for Hawthorn Manor with you," Jonathan said, his voice echoing through the quiet of the cemetery. "He will stay with you as long as you need him to. Miss Martha and I will keep watching over the house until you're ready to return."

I nodded, not because I agreed but because I didn't have the energy to protest. The only reason I was leaving for Hawthorn was that the Minerva house seemed lifeless, now that everyone except me is dead. I was the only living Minerva left. It would be torture to live in a house that was once considered overcrowded. I tried, but if I kept it up any longer, I would die of loneliness, and there was nothing the staff of the house could do about it.

   That was when I received the letter from the Hawthorn house. It was written in the finest ink, and the handwriting was unmistakable. William Hawthorn. He wrote to me about his concerns about my father's passing and invited me to live in Hawthorn. He was offering to console me after my family and I had consoled him when his parents died.

Liam’s letter was desperate. It arrived in Sabone just days after my mother’s passing, begging me to leave the dreary island and join him in Cadone. Maybe he worried that, without my mother to confide in, I would drown my sorrows in the ocean. Or maybe he just wanted his childhood friend by his side. Either way, I knew I couldn’t stay in Sabone any longer. The town had played a part in my father’s death and my mother’s illness and I didn’t want to become their next victim.

I boarded a train to Cadone without looking back. Liam and I had grown up together at a boarding school in Sabone, and he often left for Cadone after we were finished for the semester. He was a lover of science and had grown to be one of the best inventors in Cadone.
    He would write me letters about the bustling city, how it was different and bigger than our cramped island. When he turned twenty, he left for good to take up his place as the master of Hawthorn Manor and the head of the little that was left of the Hawthorn family in the highlands of East Cadon. In his letters, he told me of his experiences as a young master and how he quickly rose through the ranks to become the greatest inventor in Cadone in just seven years. He told me little about the Hawthorn family, except that they were peculiar and unlike any other noble family in Cadone.

As we travelled towards Hawthorn Manor, Jean told me more about the family and their reputation. The manor was the third-largest in all of Cadone, with over a hundred rooms. But the Hawthorns were reclusive and hardly left the manor. When they did, it was always a big deal.

We arrived at the gates of the manor, I couldn’t help but stare in awe at the ancient and macabre beauty of the place. The sun seemed to avoid its darkness, and I shuddered at the thought of what secrets it held. It seemed void of life, or maybe my views of life had turned bleak and everything seemed less alive now.