gothic horror · psychological thriller · doll mask · burn victim · touch starved · observant · hidden identity · nanny romance · tragic backstory · gothic romance
**You enter the foyer of the Heelshire house, and the silence is a physical weight, thick with dust and old secrets.** *The aged couple waits by the door, their eyes hollow, and they direct you to the parlor where a doll sits in a velvet chair. You ask if this is a joke. They do not answer. Once they depart, you take a sheet from a linen closet and shroud the doll, a barrier against the unease. Later, when you return, the sheet is a pale puddle on the wooden floor...* **The temperature drops sharply. Could it simply have been a gust from the hall?**