Lila found the door on a Tuesday, tucked behind a stack of moth-eaten quilts in her grandmother’s attic. The air smelled of dust and old cedar, the kind that clung to your skin and lingered in your lungs. She’d been searching for the box of Christmas decorations, but the door—low to the floor, its frame warped with age—had caught her eye. A sliver of light seeped through the crack between the door and the wall, though the attic had no windows. She pressed her palm against it, feeling a faint vibration, like a heartbeat trapped beneath wood and plaster.
Jace found her there an hour later, crouched beside the door with a flashlight clutched in her fist. He’d been skipping class again, which was nothing new, but the way he stared at the door made her pause. “You’re not going to touch that, are you?” he asked, his voice low, almost reverent. Lila didn’t answer. She’d never seen him like this—quiet, uncharacteristically still. The flashlight trembled in her hand as she ran her fingers along the door’s edge, searching for a handle. There wasn’t one. Just a smooth surface, worn smooth by time.
“It’s not there,” she said finally, stepping back. “Whatever was on the other side. It’s gone.” Jace knelt beside her, his knee creaking against the floorboards. He reached out, fingertips brushing the wood. A shiver ran through him, and he yanked his hand away. “It’s cold,” he said, though the attic was stifling. “Like it’s been sealed for years.” Lila didn’t argue. She could feel it too—the way the air thickened when she got close, as if the door were a threshold between two worlds.
They didn’t speak again until they were outside, the attic door left ajar behind them. Jace lit a cigarette, his hands shaking. “That thing’s been there since before my dad was born,” he said, staring at the smoke curling into the air. “My grandma used to say it led to the old cellar. But the cellar’s gone. They tore it down when they built the new house.” Lila didn’t mention the light, or the vibration, or the way the door had seemed to hum when she touched it. She didn’t want to sound crazy. Not to Jace, not to anyone.
But that night, she dreamt of the door again. This time, it was open. A narrow hallway stretched beyond it, its walls lined with shelves holding jars of something dark and viscous. The air was colder there, sharp with the scent of iron and burnt sugar. She could hear voices—faint, overlapping, like a crowd murmuring in a language she almost understood. When she turned, the door slammed shut behind her, and the lights flickered on, revealing a figure standing at the end of the hallway. It was facing away, but she knew it was watching her.
She woke up gasping, her sheets soaked with sweat. Jace was already gone, his side of the bed empty. The clock read 3:17 a.m. She lay there for a long time, listening to the creak of the house, waiting for the door to open again.
The next morning, Lila found a key under her pillow. It was small, silver, and cold to the touch, its shape unfamiliar. She didn’t remember putting it there. When she showed it to Jace, he frowned. “That’s not my grandma’s key,” he said. “It’s got a different pattern on the teeth.” They tried it in every lock in the house, but it only fit the attic door. When Lila turned it, the lock clicked open with a sound like a sigh.
The hallway from her dream was real. It stretched out before them, its walls lined with jars exactly as she’d seen them. The air was thick, heavy with the scent of decay and something sweet, like overripe fruit. Jace stepped forward first, his boots echoing against the stone floor. “This is insane,” he muttered. “We should go back.” But Lila didn’t move. She could feel the weight of the place, the way it seemed to press in on them, holding its breath.
At the far end of the hallway, a door stood open. Inside was a room filled with books, their spines cracked and brittle. Shelves lined the walls, each one stacked with tomes bound in leather and cloth. The air here was different—cleaner, sharper. Lila ran her fingers over the spines, feeling the raised letters of titles she couldn’t read. “What is this place?” she whispered.
“A library,” Jace said, though his voice didn’t sound certain. “But for what?” Lila didn’t answer. She opened a book at random, its pages yellowed and crumbling. The words were in a language she didn’t recognize, but as she read, they began to shift, rearranging themselves into English. “The Veil is thin here,” the text said. “Those who cross it must choose: to return, or to stay. The path is not endless.” She closed the book quickly, her heart pounding.
They didn’t find anything else that made sense. The rooms beyond the library were empty, their doors locked. But there was a pattern to the keys they found—each one different, each one fitting only one lock. By the time they reached the end of the hallway, Lila was sure of one thing: this place wasn’t abandoned. Someone had left it behind, and they’d been waiting for someone to find it.
That night, Lila dreamt again. This time, the figure at the end of the hallway turned to face her. It was a woman, her face obscured by a veil of black fabric. “You’ve come back,” the woman said, her voice echoing as if from a great distance. “We’ve been waiting for you.” Lila tried to speak, but her throat was dry, her words trapped. The woman stepped closer, and the veil shifted, revealing eyes that were too large, too bright. “The Veil is breaking,” she said. “And you are the key.”
She woke up screaming. Jace was there, shaking her, his face pale. “What’s wrong?” he asked. Lila couldn’t answer. She could still feel the weight of the woman’s gaze, the way the words had settled in her chest like a stone. That night, they didn’t go back to the house. They stayed in Jace’s car, parked on the edge of the woods, listening to the wind howl through the trees. Lila didn’t sleep. She kept thinking about the key, about the door, about the woman in the veil.
The next morning, they returned to the attic. The door was gone, replaced by a blank wall. Lila ran her hands over it, but there was no trace of the entrance. Jace stared at it, his face tight with frustration. “It’s not there,” he said, though he didn’t sound surprised. “It never was.” Lila didn’t argue. She knew what she’d seen, what she’d felt. But the door was gone, and with it, the path to whatever lay beyond.
They never found the key again. But sometimes, when the wind blew just right, Lila could still hear the hum of the door, a soft vibration beneath the silence of the house. And in her dreams, the woman in the veil waited, her eyes searching for someone who would answer.
The end.
