Chapter Text
Chapter 1
“Nothing happens unless first a dream.”
-Carl Sandburg
You could taste the anticipation on the tip of your tongue.
The Burgess mansion loomed as the taxi cab you were riding in slowed to a stop just in front of its intimidating face. The mansion, once a hub for magic-seekers of all kinds and parties of lore, was now dark and lifeless. Since Alex Burgess fell into his golden years, the flicker of life once held by the sprawling brick structure began to fade.
You were a fan of all things supernatural, unusual, unexplainable, and magical for as long as you could remember. You’d been drawn to this place since you came across the first article on Roderick Burgess and his infamous exploits involving the occult. There had been rumors, for decades, that the sorcerer had managed to trap the devil in his basement and draw from his powers.
This, you were sure, was fiction, but you couldn’t deny your curious urge to find this, and many other mysteries, out for yourself.
While conducting your regular searches online concerning the Burgesses and their historic house to see if you could uncover anything new, you came across an urgent job ad for a caregiver for Alex Burgess. He was now confined to a wheelchair, and his husband was unable to care for him around the clock as he was getting older in years himself.
You wondered why the Burgesses, with the money and fame they had, wouldn’t hire directly from some fancy English care service. Maybe the rumors about misfortune slowly shadowing the family a few decades ago when some of Roderick Burgess’s favorite items were stolen was true. Maybe they couldn’t afford anyone but a last-minute hire with limited experience that caught a redeye from America.
Your train of thought was interrupted by your driver clearing his throat.
“We’re here, miss.”
“Yes, of course. Thanks,” you said quickly, opening your door. The dark gravel crunched loudly underneath your heels.
The cab driver met you at the trunk of the bright yellow car and dropped your bag unceremoniously onto the ground. He glanced nervously at the house, as if he was afraid it would come to life and eat him. You chuckled lightly.
“I’m guessing you’re ready to get out of here, huh?” you asked, a slight smile tugging at the corner of your lips.
The nervous man scratched his mustache uneasily and removed his hat, placing it over his chest in apology. “If you don’t mind too terribly, miss.”
“You’ve heard the rumors then?”
“Everyone in England knows about this house and its goings-on, and I got no desire to see the skeletons in that closet for meself,” he explained, ducking his head and avoiding another glance at the mansion.
“I get it,” you said gently, reaching into your purse to pay the man. You added on a nice tip, thankful that after finding out your destination he still decided to give you a ride.
He nodded his head in thanks and didn’t stick around for more conversation. He simply added a quiet, “Be careful, miss,” before shutting his car door and speeding off down the long driveway.
You watched the bright yellow car disappear against the backdrop of thin, grey fog that was fading away in the morning light. The air was cool and crisp and the birds were just beginning to chirp in earnest. You checked your reflection in one of the front windows, adding a bit of lipstick and straightening your blazer, before picking up your luggage and ringing the doorbell.
A deep melody of chimes rang inside the home, echoing throughout the large house. After a few moments, you heard the clicking of locks being slid open and a cautious face appeared in a small crack between the open door and the doorframe.
“Hello,” you grinned, taking a step toward the door with a bright smile. “I’m Y/N Y/L/N. I just got in this morning.”
The old man’s eyes lit up with recognition and he opened the door all the way. He smiled a friendly, but still cautious grin.
“Paul McGuire,” the man introduced himself, outstretching a hand for you to shake. You obliged.
Paul glanced around behind you, as if checking to make sure you were alone, before motioning for you to come inside. He offered to take your bag.
The click of your heels on the hardwood floor echoed all around the enormous entryway. You couldn’t hold back the awestruck sigh that escaped your lips as you looked around, doing your best to take in every magnificent, hand-carved detail. Roderick Burgess spared no expense when commissioning skilled craftsman to hand-carve every gargoyle and intricate curve of the dark wooden panels surrounding the home. You had only ever seen pictures of the home online, but your new employer didn’t need to know that.
In fact, he had no idea that you knew anything about the Burgess mansion or its history, and you planned on keeping it that way.
“It’s beautiful,” you said after a beat, doing your best to hide your excitement. You’d dreamed about visiting this place for many years. For reasons that you weren’t sure of, it had drawn you like no other occult location in the world. There was just something about it; mysteries that you wanted to unravel yourself.
Paul looked around, obviously disenchanted with whatever may have once held wonder for him.
“It’s alright, I suppose,” he mused. He wiped a finger on the nearby stairway rail, holding it up for you to see. A thick layer of dust was almost black on his finger. “It isn’t what it once was.”
You sincerely hoped that cleaning would be in your line of duties – it would give you an excuse to snoop around.
“It just needs a bit of elbow grease,” you said lightly, shrugging. “Maybe I can help you out with that when I’m not taking care of Mr. Burgess.”
Paul nodded. “That would be lovely.” He dropped your bag at the foot of the stairs, then stood up slowly with a poorly-hid grimace. It occurred to you that he was probably older than he looked and that he shouldn’t be toting around your heavy bag.
“Don’t worry about that,” you insisted, bending to lift the bag before he could protest. “Why don’t I put this in my room, and I’ll fix us a nice pot of coffee.” You then remembered where you were. “Or tea – you’d prefer tea, right?”
Your new employer grinned at you. “I think we’ll get along just fine, Miss Y/L/N.” He pointed up the wrapping wooden staircase. “Your room is the third door on the right.”
“Great,” you smiled. “I’ll be right back.”
You lugged your heavy suitcase up the stairs but did your best to make it look like it wasn’t a difficult feat. Once you reached the top of the landing, you caught your breath and blew a stray piece of hair out of your face. You took in the new surroundings. Everything from the Turkish rugs, to the ornate furniture, to the golden accents screamed luxury. But it was all dirty and covered in a thick layer of dust and neglect.
With a hint of pity for the home’s lost glory, you slowly walked down the hallway and found your appointed door. You gently swung it open to find an equally once-beautiful, but now forgotten bedroom. The decorations were too classic to be considered dated, but it spoke to the spark that was fading from this once-bustling place.
Eager to get a tour of the mansion and not wanting to keep Mr. McGuire waiting, you quickly descended the stairs and met him not far from where you’d left him.
“I hope you find your room acceptable,” he said, motioning for you to follow him. You nodded quickly, unable to hide your nostalgic grin. Endlessly studying the same photos of the home over and over again and actually being here were two completely different things.
“It’s all that I could hope for,” you answered earnestly.
“Brilliant,” Paul replied.
He escorted you through a few rooms, explaining to you what they were and their purpose (although you already knew), and eventually led you to the kitchen. A kettle of water was already heating on the stove.
“I hope you don’t mind, we’re a bit short on coffee at the moment,” he said apologetically, motioning to the tea kettle that had just begun to whistle. “It quite slipped my mind that you would prefer something other than tea.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it at all. I love tea,” you smiled kindly, taking the kettle from its burner and pouring you both a steaming cup. “Should we make a third cup for Mr. Burgess?”
“He’s still sleeping,” Paul shook his head, taking his teacup and sitting at the small kitchen table. He glanced out the large windows wistfully, fixating on a crow that had just landed in the garden. “He… he sleeps later and later these days.”
You weren’t quite sure how to answer that, so you settled for adding a small spoonful of sugar to your cup instead. The tea was still steeping.
“Speaking of Mr. Burgess,” you began a bit awkwardly, twisting the warm teacup around between your fingers, “what can I do? I know we briefly spoke over email about my duties, but—”
“Ah, yes,” he said, seeming to come back from whatever forlorn train of thought he had begun. His demeanor became a bit more business-like. “Alex… well, as you know, he’s in a wheelchair now. It wasn’t much of a problem until recently. You see, age comes for all of us in the end, and I’m afraid my back isn’t as strong as it once was. I can still assist him in the lavatory, but I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to do even that.”
You nodded understandingly.
“We need assistance making meals, keeping track of when to take his medicine, a spot of cleaning… even simple companionship,” he continued, taking a sip of his tea now. You did the same. “As much as we love one another, I’m afraid Alex may be a bit tired of only seeing my face around here.”
“Your garden is beautiful,” you observed, following his gaze out the window to the lush green plants and colorful flowers. “I’m sure Mr. Burgess would like a daily stroll around outside. Getting some fresh air can sometimes be the best medicine.”
“He would like that quite a bit, I think.” Paul smiled gently at you. “I haven’t been feeling quite up to pushing him around outside as of late. We used to take daily walks in the garden when we were young.”
Paul recounted romantic tales of their youth, often taking place in the garden in secret. You had to admit, you were a bit jealous. You had never been in love like that.
After another hour or so of pleasant conversation, Paul took you on a tour of the rest of the estate, inside and out. There were a few places that you hadn’t seen photos of before, and you reveled in it. As he led you around the massive home and recounted stories to you, you couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty. Your true intentions weren’t to be here for Mr. Burgess’s care – it was to satiate your own burning curiosity. You would, however, do the best you could to make life easier for the aging couple. They seemed like nice people.
There was one door, however, that Paul McGuire didn’t open for you.
In the back corner of an ornate hallway was a large and heavy door. You’d seen pictures of this door before, and all of the online gossip and guesses as to what may lie behind it. It was the door to the basement.
You played dumb.
“Mr. McGuire, where does this door lead?” you asked nonchalantly, running your fingers along it’s patterns and rivets in wonder.
Paul’s demeanor changed instantly.
He grabbed your wrist, jerking your hand away from the door with a speed and strength that was surprising for his age. There was a shadow over his face. Conflicting emotions flitted there, eventually settling on bitterness and fear.
“That… that is one threshold that you cannot cross,” he warned quietly. The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end and a chill creeped through your veins like an army of spiders. It was his fear that frightened you.
You struggled for something to say, but as quickly as it had appeared, his frustration dissipated.
“Well, now,” he said cheerily, glancing at the watch on his wrist, “I believe it’s about time to wake up Alex. Allow me to get him ready and I’ll happily introduce the two of you.”
You were dizzy from his sudden change in attitude, watching in confusion as he passed you and walked toward the staircase. When he disappeared into the upstairs hallway to presumably wake his husband, you cautiously stepped toward the forbidden door. You traced your fingers over its patterns again and pressed your ear to the barely-there space between the door and its frame.
You could hear voices, barely – a man and a woman talking to each other. You were not able to distinguish what they were saying.
But it was what you felt that nearly knocked the breath out of you.
It was an intense humming, a vibration, that radiated from your ear to your toes. It settled in your bones and resonated in your chest as if you were standing next to an amplifier ringing out a deep bass chord. You didn’t know where it was coming from, but you did know one thing: it was power. You stepped back from the door quickly, startled, but the vibration continued to hum within you. It was going deeper, as if into your soul. It was primordial.
Frightened by the sheer intensity of the sensation, you exited the hallway immediately and weakly took a seat in the kitchen where your now-cold tea waited for you. You reached for the cup, but your hands were shaking. It clattered against its saucer.
You gulped, running a sweaty hand through your long hair. You marched toward the sink and ran the cold water to soak your trembling hands and splash the cold droplets over your forehead and along the back of your neck. In all your years studying the supernatural and visiting historically magical places, you had never felt anything akin to this.
The most primal of human instincts told you to run, but the simmering curiosity that brought you here, that initially sparked the fire of your obsession for this place, kept your feet rooted to the kitchen tile and began to calm your frantically pounding heart.
To busy your hands, you began preparing another kettle of hot water to pour Mr. Burgess some tea. You wanted to make a good impression on the son of the infamous sorcerer. After all, the better impression you made and the more trust you built with Alex Burgess and Paul McGuire, the more freedom you could take advantage of.
To find out what the hell is in that basement, you thought.
It wasn’t long before Paul announced their arrival, rolling an exhausted-looking Alex Burgess through the large kitchen doorway. Alex had not aged as gracefully as his husband, years of stress and disappointment etched in the lines of his face. Nevertheless, he did his best to give you a friendly grin.
“Alex Burgess,” he announced, outstretching his hand for you to shake. You firmly shook it. He drew it back in faux surprise, shaking it as if in pain. He chuckled. “My goodness, miss, that’s a firm handshake, that is!”
You laughed at his antics, as did Paul.
“I’m Y/N Y/L/N, it’s wonderful to meet you, sir,” you said earnestly. You longed to ask a hundred questions about his father, the home, and the widely disputed events that took place here, but you bit your tongue. “Hopefully I’ll be making your life a bit easier.”
“Well, aren’t you just a breath of sunshine?” Alex grinned. “She’ll bring some much-needed light to this old house, dontcha think, Paul?”
Paul nodded in agreement, placing a chaste kiss on his husband’s cheek and walking to the stove to begin preparing more tea. He nodded to you appreciatively for starting the boiling water.
Most of the day went by in a hurry as you were deeply embedded in conversation with Paul and Alex. You really did like them. You carefully avoided discussion of anything related to the basement, gleaning over your awkward interaction with Paul when you recounted your mansion tour for Mr. Burgess. They asked about you and your life, and you told them what you could while skipping anything having to do with your fascination for magic and the unexplained. Which, admittedly, was quite a lot.
After a quick meal that you prepared within twenty minutes, Alex and Paul graciously complimented your culinary skills and the room fell into a comfortable silence. After a bit, Alex told his husband that he was tired and ready to retire for the night. You joked about your jetlag and mentioned that you would be going to bed soon as well. You discussed details for the following day with Paul, then bid them goodnight as they exited the kitchen.
You held your breath, ears perked for the faint sound of the couple’s bedroom door closing.
And there it was.
Your eyes shot toward the hallway that housed the humming portal to your deepest curiosities. You wanted to go back, to feel that power again radiating through your being. Your fear had turned into fascination, as it always did.
But it was still early in the evening, and Paul and Alex had just gone up to bed. You couldn’t be too eager, it was only your first night. You needed to play it safe.
You’d heard a man and woman speaking through the door earlier in the day. They had to come out eventually right? And when they did, you’d be there.
You slowly walked past the hallway that was trying to draw you like a magnet and continued into the library instead. Paul had told you that you were welcome to read any of the books on the shelves, although he mentioned that many of them had belonged to Alex’s father and that he was “a bit of a nutter”. You’d pretended to be disinterested but the childlike excitement inside of you had been longing to claw to the surface.
You barely contained your giggle as you rushed to the shelves, fingering through dusty first editions of now-popular occult study books and examinations of all things unusual. Your imagination was running wild. How many of these books did Roderick Burgess actively use himself?
Were any of them used to summon whatever powerful creature was hidden in the basement?
You told yourself that it couldn’t be the devil, as many online video bloggers and supernatural gossip sites liked to suggest. You weren’t even sure if you believed in the devil… but you did believe in evil. Whatever it was that you’d felt at that basement door, it didn’t feel evil to you. Or at least, you didn’t think so. Would you even know if it were?
A heavy desk with papers strewn all over the surface caught your eye. How many nights did the infamous sorcerer himself sit at this desk, pondering his next spell? You ran a curious finger over the desktop, carefully moving around the forgotten papers and miscellaneous pieces of trash.
A large black mark caught your eye.
It was scorched.
You sighed, running your hand over the old ashen surface. The burn was old. What happened here? An incantation gone awry?
You walked a circle around the desk, taking in every detail. Your fingers brushed the cold metal of the drawer handles. You wanted so badly to open the drawers, to peer inside Roderick Burgess’s personal notes that may lay there. He may have been a bit dark for your tastes, but he had possessed so much knowledge about things known by so very few.
Slowly and carefully, as quietly as you could, you pulled open the top middle drawer.
Old pieces of notepads and parchment were disorganized inside. They held nothing of significance for you, even if some did contain some odd sigils and languages that were lost to time. You had no clue how to decipher them. You put the paper back exactly where you found it, anxious to hide any evidence of your nosiness.
The second drawer was on the righthand side of the desk, already slightly opened. Maybe that meant it contained something of importance? You were disappointed again. This drawer simply contained overdue notices for credit cards and years’ worth of bills. Your assumption that misfortune had struck the Burgess finances turned out to be accurate.
There was a third and final drawer. You pulled it open gingerly, as if it would break if you were too enthusiastic, hoping that something worth reading—anything, really—would be waiting there. A long piece of parchment that was obviously very old was rolled into the bottom and the back of the drawer. You were almost afraid to touch it, scared that it would fall apart in your hands, but your insatiable curiosity got the better of you.
Much of the scroll was faded beyond recognition and at least a third of it was burned away (perhaps from the same fire that burned the desk?) You were, however, able to make out a few things. In tight, neat cursive script, read the word Dream. Some crude sigils were sketched around the word, then a carefully crafted drawing of… a ball? Or was it a special kind of amulet or circle? What did it mean?
Finally, at the bottom, right beside the singed black edge of the soft paper, was a delicately sketched face—well, half of a face. The other half had burned away.
It was a man’s face with thick and wild hair like raven’s feathers and a searing eye, shrouded beneath a dark brow. His sharp jaw was clenched, like he was daring the observer to do something. The artist was talented, and even through these faded pencil strokes the sheer intensity of the man’s eye burned through you like the fire had burned the scroll.
Something inside of you told you that this mattered, even though you couldn’t articulate why. You gently touched the cheek of the sketched man.
“C’mon, Hattie, our shift’s up.”
You startled, hastily rolling the scroll back up and throwing it in the back of the drawer. In your panic, you shut the drawer more loudly than you probably should have. You held your breath and winced. Did the possessor of the voice hear you snooping?
It was quiet, but to your relief, no one came around the corner to see what you were up to.
“Where’s Edwin?” you heard a woman ask exasperatedly. “It’s his shift tonight, innit?”
“I dunno,” the man replied, obviously irritated.
On tiptoes, you crept to the library doorway and peered into the hall. You could see the long shadows of two people in the adjacent hallway stretched across the wooden floor. The woman’s shadow threw its hands into the air.
“Well, I’m not in the mood to wait on ‘im,” she seethed. “He was late last week, and twice the week before. We’re not gettin’ paid overtime.”
“Cheap bastards,” the man muttered. “But you know we ain’t supposed to leave it in there alone. They said its bloody bird started a fire last time a guard left ‘is post.”
The woman’s shadow tossed its head back in frustration. She groaned.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, Randy.”
A beat.
“But that was decades ago, ain’t it? What’s the chance o’ that happenin’ again?”
“I don’t even think it did it,” the man named Randy whispered conspiratorially. “I mean, you see what it does in there all day? Just sits there, starin’ a hole through ya. Why ain’t it started another fire to get out, huh? If it can even do that?”
You were at the edge of the hallway now, getting closer and closer to these two—what were they, guards? You licked your lips in sweet anticipation, straining to hear every word.
Just then, you heard the squeak of the front door opening. Heavy boots thudded across the floor and a new man’s voice spoke.
“Alright, alright, I’m here,” said the voice. “You can stop your griping.”
“I got a husband and kids to get home to, Edwin,” said Hattie. Her shadow crossed its arms. “You got to start bein’ on time.”
“I said you can stop your griping,” the guard named Edwin repeated, obviously not in the mood to be scolded. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, finally,” Randy spat, and his shadow began to disappear as he stomped toward the front door. “I got a nice brew and the wife’s homemade Sunday roast waitin’ for me. I’m poppin’ off.”
Hattie sighed and followed him out.
Then it was quiet.
Holding your breath, you peered around the corner.
Edwin’s back was to you, and you heard a faint melody of beeps. He’d opened a hidden wall panel beside the basement door, punching in a series of numbers. You tried to see what they were, but his large shoulder was covering your view. With a final beep, you heard a large bolt unlock in the door and echo. Edwin shoved a piece of gum in his mouth and sighed heavily as he opened the door.
“Take the job at the Burgess place, they said. It’ll be fun, they said,” he murmured under his breath. The door bolted shut behind him.
Despite your exhaustion from the time change, you had a lot of trouble sleeping that night. The intense eye of the half-face on the scroll was flashing in your mind, initiating a faint echo of that power deep in your chest. You played the guards’ conversations in your head over and over again. Was the scroll you found connected in some way to whatever was being held in the basement, or was it just some random person’s doodling? Whatever it was had started a fire? It must have been that fire in the library. You didn’t remember reading about any fires in the mansion. They must have wanted to keep it quiet.
After three hours of tossing and turning in your bed, you groaned in resignation and climbed out of it. You trudged into the bathroom connected to your bedroom and threw some cold water on your face. You looked at your reflection, narrowing your eyes.
“How are you gonna get the combination to that door?” you asked yourself. Unsurprisingly, your reflection didn’t answer.
You pulled on a pair of soft shorts over your underwear and threw on a comfortable crop top. The upstairs hallway was dark as you ventured into it. You paused for a moment to allow your eyes to adjust. Once the shape of the stairs began to emerge in the darkness, you carefully tiptoed down them. The mansion felt quite different in the dark, much more sinister. You didn’t like it.
Your sock-clad feet (better for sneaking, you noted) noiselessly carried you where you longed to go. The door was even more daunting at this time of night, upright and unwavering like a black hole waiting to suck you in. With a lick of your lips and an excited inhale, you pressed yourself to the door. You used your entire body this time, splaying your hands out at the sides of your head.
It was back, that bone-shaking tremor of something unmistakably unearthly. It felt even stronger this time, making your nails scrape the ornate door and your eyes drift shut. It reverberated through every cell in your body.
You felt… you felt… actually, you didn’t know what you felt. All you knew was that you had to get through that door.
You lifted the weight of your body off the doorway, body still singing, buzzing, as your hand gently traced the wall in search of the hidden key panel. You traced your index finger underneath the dark wooden grooves that were carved midway into the wall. You went back and forth, gentle fingers probing, but found nothing. You then used both hands to gingerly push on each wall panel, hoping that something may pop out. Still, nothing happened.
You stood back from the wall, hands on hips and eyes searching in the low light. You didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention with the light of a flashlight, so you only had the glow of the moon to go by.
“Come on, where is it?” you asked yourself in the darkness.
Your eyes quickly followed the shape of a faded gothic scene that had been carved into the wood almost a century ago. A gargoyle was swooping down on a crowd of frightened people, all of them crying and screaming. Your brows furrowed. Weren’t gargoyles supposed to protect people from evil?
The disturbing carving glowed in the moonlight, and that’s when you noticed it.
The carving was old and the stained wood was faded by years of sunlight. But there was a man, standing bravely in the middle of the scene, holding some sort of amulet toward the heavens. The amulet in his hand wasn’t faded at all, the stain was too fresh. It stood out, darker in the midst of the faded wood tinted blue by moonlight.
You stepped toward the wall again, fingertips tracing the amulet. Cautiously, and oh so slowly, you pressed down on it.
Click.
The sound was so faint that you almost missed it. To your immense glee, a small square panel had popped open beside the basement door. If you hadn’t known it was there by spying early that night, you never would’ve found it.
You greedily pulled the panel open the rest of the way to find a simple keypad glowing green in the dark. You didn’t know the combination, and you certainly wouldn’t find out by guessing and setting off alarms on your first night at the mansion.
With a bit of irritation at the obstacle, you shut the panel back in place. You were optimistic, though. In only your first night, you’d already figured out step one. You were good at things like this, at unraveling hidden things that you wanted to know.
As long you did a good job taking care of Mr. Burgess and keeping Paul happy, you had nothing but time.