The House We Couldn't Leave

We walked together.

For the first time since arriving at Grinbridge House, we all moved as one—six girls trailing through the velvet-lined hallway of the east wing, hearts pounding, minds already bracing for something we wouldn't understand.

No one spoke. Not Mina. Not Reya. Not even Sofi, who was always the first to break the silence.

She kept staring ahead. Like she heard the song still.

The hallway curved. I felt the walls tighten around us, like ribs compressing a lung. And then the air shifted—sweet and sharp, like old roses and blood.

The music room was gone.

Where it had been was a doorway we didn't recognize. Mina stepped toward it, and the door opened on its own.

A new room waited.

It was lined in mirrors.

I don't mean a few wall panels or a single grand frame.

I mean mirrors—hundreds of them—of all shapes and sizes. Some tall as the ceiling. Others cracked, half-covered in curtains. Some leaned awkwardly in corners, some hung by rusted hooks.

And in every mirror, our reflections stared back.

But they were wrong.

My own reflection blinked before I did.

Mina's glanced over her shoulder—though she hadn't moved.

Sofi's… hummed.

A low, warbled melody we all recognized now.

Reya whispered, "We shouldn't be here."

But no one turned back.

Not even her.

Lina was the first to step fully inside.

She walked to a waist-high mirror on the far wall and reached out. Her fingers didn't touch glass. They passed through.

She yanked her hand back, gasping.

"It's like water," she whispered.

We all spread out, slowly, moving from one mirror to the next. Some reflected nothing at all. Others showed us younger. One of mine showed me without my crutches—standing tall, my legs firm beneath me.

I backed away fast.

Mina stood in front of a mirror that showed all six of us.

But in the far left corner… was a seventh girl.

Long black hair. Bare feet. No face.

"She's here again," Mina murmured.

"Who is she?" Aria asked.

No one answered.

Sofi walked toward her own mirror—the one with the humming.

I followed her, just in case.

Her reflection was still.

Then it opened its mouth.

And whispered something.

Sofi's eyes widened.

"What did it say?" I asked.

Her lips trembled. "It said… :Let her sing alone."

Mina turned sharply. "What does that mean?"

Sofi didn't respond.

Reya muttered, "This place is messing with our heads. It wants us afraid."

"The house is showing us things it remembers," Aria said, trying to sound logical. "Maybe even what it wants us to become."

Mina nodded slowly. "Or what it already took."

The air changed again.

Colder.

The door slammed shut behind us.

All the mirrors flickered. For a heartbeat, none of us were reflected.

Only the seventh girl remained.

She stood in every frame. Still. Watching.

Then, all at once, they shattered.

The noise was deafening.

We screamed—ducked—some of us fell.

When the glass settled, the room had changed again.

No mirrors.

Only one large, round table in the center of the room, with seven chairs.

On it was a single item: an old, cloth-bound book.

Mina stepped forward and opened it.

No writing.

Just six names—ours—written in a tight spiral.

At the center, a blank line.

No seventh name.

Only space waiting to be filled.

Reya stared at the blank line and whispered, "That's a contract."

Sofi backed away. "No one sign it."

Mina closed the book. "We need to leave."

She reached for the door—now different than the one we came in through.

It opened easily.

Too easily.

We returned to the hallway of the east wing. The path behind us had changed. The music room, mirror room, and even the red-carpeted gallery were gone.

But the scent of roses lingered.

And the humming followed us.

Not loud.

But constant.

That night, we stayed close.

All six of us slept in the same room again.

We didn't light candles. We didn't speak of what we saw.

But in the dark, Sofi reached for my hand.

"I heard her again," she whispered.

"The wife?" I asked.

"No. The girl. The one in the mirror."

"What did she say this time?"

Sofi shivered.

"She said: One of you already belongs to me."