jncarriere
When the unnamed narrator uncovers Tuesday Graye's case notes, a wintery trail opens into Blackwood Manor, a women's residence tied to St. Verity College. Five students and their house mother report footsteps that halt on the fourth stair, a mirror that returns the wrong face, and a child's laugh that runs the halls without lungs.
Tuesday enters as investigator and archivist, treating grief like evidence and superstition like a witness. What begins as a rational inquiry becomes a negotiation with a former resident, Mary Blackwood, whose belongings were kept when her life was not. The house obeys rules, but rules were broken. As Tuesday and the girls dig through trunks, mirrors, and tin keepsakes, the Manor tests every boundary between keeping and care, presence and possession. Each night grows colder.
Each name spoken sharpens the danger. The fourth stair is waiting.