The morning sun spilled through the Bly windows like spilled milk, thin and pale. Ivy sat alone at the kitchen table, tracing the rim of her teacup with one finger. Kate and Mrs. Grose had gone into town for groceries, leaving her behind with Flora, who was now playing with her dolls in the drawing room.
Ivy felt strange. Restless. Something pulled her inside the house, like invisible threads urging her to look deeper, to uncover something. She found herself climbing the old staircase and walking toward the west wing—the part of the manor they rarely explored.
There, at the end of the dim hallway, she found a locked door slightly open. She nudged it with her fingers. The old hinges groaned.
Inside, the air was dusty and still. Sheets covered furniture like ghosts in waiting. A trunk sat beneath a foggy window, tucked beneath an old wooden vanity. Something about it felt familiar, even though she had never been here before.
Ivy knelt and opened the trunk. It wasn't locked.
Inside were things that had once belonged to a woman. A faded silk scarf. A bottle of perfume that still held a floral scent. Letters. And a small, leather-bound journal with initials on the front: J.J.
Miss Jessel.
She flipped to the first page.
"Today, he looked at me like I was his entire world. I forget who I was before him."
Ivy's breath caught.
She turned the page.
"It scares me how much I want him. How much I need to be near him. He says no one understands us. Maybe he's right."
Ivy swallowed hard and closed the journal. Her fingers brushed against a photograph hidden between the pages.
Two people stood smiling in the picture. A beautiful woman in a dark dress, her hair tied back, her eyes warm but tired. And beside her—a man with sharp features and something wild in his gaze.
Ivy stared at him.
There was something... familiar. Not his face, but his eyes. The look.
Like Miles, when he looked at her that night outside her door.
She shoved the photo back into the journal and shut the trunk.
That evening, after Flora had gone to bed and the house was quiet, Ivy sat beside Mrs. Grose in the sitting room, the fire casting soft flickers across the floor.
"Mrs. Grose," she asked softly, "who was Miss Jessel?"
Mrs. Grose looked up from her knitting, hands pausing.
"Why do you ask, dear?"
"I found something. Her things. In the west wing."
A long pause. Then Mrs. Grose sighed.
"She was the governess before your sister. A kind girl. Too kind. She fell in love with someone who... didn't love her the way he should."
"Peter Quint?"
Mrs. Grose flinched at the name. "Yes. He worked here, once. The master's valet. Charming, but dangerous. He had a way with words. And with Miss Jessel."
"What happened to them?"
Mrs. Grose looked into the fire, eyes distant. "No one knows for sure. He died first. Then her. Some say he fell. Others say he jumped. Miss Jessel was found in the lake."
Ivy felt a cold shiver run down her spine.
"They were in love?"
"If you can call it that," Mrs. Grose murmured. "It wasn't a kind love. It twisted her. Made her someone else."
Ivy thought about the journal. About the way Miss Jessel had written about being seen. About being needed.
Something about it made sense. It felt true.
Mrs. Grose turned to her. "You stay away from that room, Ivy. Some memories aren't meant to be stirred."
Ivy nodded, but her heart was already back there, buried in the journal's pages.
Later that night, Ivy sat on her bed, the leather journal clutched in her hands. The room smelled like old perfume. She opened to a random page.
"When I'm not with him, the world feels empty. Like I'm waiting to breathe again."
A knock tapped against her door.
She jumped.
When she opened it, Miles was standing there. Still dressed in his dark sweater and slacks, hair tousled like he'd just come from outside.
He glanced down at the journal in her hand.
"Reading old secrets?"
Ivy hesitated. "I found it today. Miss Jessel's."
He stepped inside without waiting. She let him.
"She was lonely," Ivy said.
"Most people here are," Miles replied softly. "This house makes you that way."
He took the journal from her gently, flipped through the pages.
"Do you think," he asked, eyes on hers, "that kind of love is dangerous?"
Ivy looked at him. The shadows danced on his face.
"Yes," she whispered. "But maybe that's what makes it real."
Miles smiled slowly.
He didn't touch her. He didn't need to.
He already knew he had her.
And Ivy didn't want to be anywhere else.