Everyone in Blackwood Falls called my grandfather, Arthur Sterling, a local saint.
He was the man who funded the library, saved the town’s main street, and carried the weight of our family’s tragedy on his shoulders for twenty years.
That tragedy was the disappearance of my older sister, Sarah.
She went out for a bike ride when she was twelve and I was ten, and she never came back.
Our parents died of broken hearts within five years of her vanishing, leaving me to be raised by Arthur in that massive, drafty mansion on the hill.
Grandpa died last Tuesday, clutching my hand and whispering something about "keeping the light on" that I didn't understand.
As his only living heir, the Sterling estate and all its secrets became mine.
I walked into the foyer yesterday morning, the air smelling of stale cedar and something sharp, like ozone.
The house felt different without his heavy footsteps echoing through the halls.
It felt like the walls were finally exhaling a breath they had been holding for two decades.
I started in the library, the room where he spent most of his time behind a locked mahogany door.
The shelves were packed with leather-bound books, but one section of the wall felt colder than the rest.
I noticed a faint scuff mark on the hardwood floor, a perfect arc that suggested the heavy bookcase moved.
My heart started drumming against my ribs as I gripped the edge of the shelf and pulled.
It didn't budge at first, but then I felt a click, and the entire wall groaned open.
Behind the books wasn't a safe or a liquor cabinet, but a narrow, concrete staircase leading straight down into the foundation.
I pulled out my phone, turned on the flashlight, and began the descent.
The air grew warmer as I went deeper, which made no sense for a basement in October.
At the bottom of the stairs, I found a heavy steel door with a sliding meal slot, the kind you see in maximum-security prisons.
My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped my phone.
I pushed the heavy handle down, and the door swung open on silent, well-oiled hinges.
I expected a dungeon, a grave, or a dusty storage room.
Instead, I stepped into a perfectly recreated 1990s teenage girl’s bedroom.
The walls were painted a soft lavender, and posters of boy bands I hadn't thought about in years were taped to the walls.
There was a television playing a silent cartoon, and the smell of vanilla candles was overwhelming.
Then, I saw her sitting on the edge of the bed.
She was wearing a floral dress that looked brand new, but her hair was shot through with grey.
She looked up at me, her eyes squinting against the light of my phone, and she didn't scream.
She didn't run.
