“I was the thirteenth room.”
Nobody spoke.
Morgan still held Thomas' wrist.
His hand hovered inches from the brass knob.
She pulled him away.
Thomas didn't resist.
DC looked at the black door.
“You're going to need to explain that.”
Thomas stared at the letters.
TM.
“I don't know if I can.”
Morgan released his wrist.
“Try.”
Thomas stepped backward.
Mrs. Bell hadn't moved.
Her eyes remained fixed on him.
“You were in there?”
Thomas looked at her.
“I think so.”
“For forty-eight years?”
“I don't know.”
Mrs. Bell stared at him.
“How can you not know?”
“I remember being there. I don't remember forty-eight years passing.”
Morgan looked at the door.
“What do you remember?”
Thomas rubbed a hand over his face.
“The woods.”
“October seventeenth?”
“Yes.”
“I followed my sister's voice. I found the red door.”
“The original one.”
“If there is an original.”
Fair.
“I opened it.”
Mrs. Bell closed her eyes.
Thomas continued.
“There was a room on the other side.”
“What kind of room?”
“Empty.”
“No windows?”
“No.”
“Other doors?”
“Not at first.”
Morgan caught that.
“At first?”
Thomas nodded.
“I walked inside. The red door closed behind me.”
“And disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“What happened next?”
Thomas looked toward the black door.
“I heard knocking.”
Morgan's stomach tightened.
“Three knocks?”
Thomas looked at her.
“Sometimes.”
The fireplace.
The apple beneath the bowl.
Morgan said nothing.
“At first I knocked back.”
“What happened?”
“Another door appeared.”
“What color?”
“Yellow.”
Morgan thought of Kiara.
Thomas continued.
“I opened it.”
Mrs. Bell stepped closer.
“Why would you open another door after the first one trapped you?”
Thomas gave her a tired look.
“I was twenty-six, terrified, and locked in a room that shouldn't exist.”
Morgan glanced at DC.
“Apparently terrible decisions are hereditary around here.”
“Not related to him.”
“Bellweather hereditary.”
“Fair.”
Thomas almost smiled.
Then his expression darkened again.
“The yellow door didn't lead out.”
“Where did it go?”
“Another room.”
Morgan looked at the door marked TM.
“And then?”
“Another door.”
“How many?”
Thomas was quiet.
Morgan already knew the answer.
“Thirteen?”
“No.”
That surprised her.
“How many?”
“I stopped counting.”
Morgan's pulse quickened.
Thomas looked at her.
“Eventually I understood that counting made it worse.”
Mrs. Bell stared at him.
“How?”
“Every time I finished a count, another room appeared.”
Morgan thought of the woman at the Lantern Room.
Thirteen fingers.
Thomas' warning.
And if it asks you to count, don't finish.
“What happened when you stopped?”
“The rooms stopped changing.”
“And then?”
“I waited.”
“For forty-eight years?”
“For me, it wasn't forty-eight years.”
“How long?”
Thomas shook his head.
“A few weeks. Maybe months.”
Mrs. Bell sat heavily in a chair.
Thomas looked at her.
“I didn't know.”
She said nothing.
Morgan gave them a moment before asking:
“How did you get out?”
Thomas looked toward the orchard through the front window.
“I heard someone say my name.”
“Who?”
“You.”
Morgan stared.
“No.”
“I heard you.”
“When?”
“I don't know.”
“I didn't know you existed until a few days ago.”
“I know.”
Thomas looked at her.
“But I've heard your voice for years.”
A chill moved over Morgan's skin.
“What did I say?”
Thomas' expression tightened.
“Mostly my name.”
“Mostly?”
“Sometimes you asked where I was.”
Morgan remembered Mrs. Bell's account of seven-year-old Morgan.
You kept asking where Thomas went.
Morgan looked at Mrs. Bell.
She had clearly made the same connection.
“In 2005,” Morgan said.
Thomas nodded slowly.
“That was the first time your voice sounded close.”
“You heard me when I was seven.”
“I suppose I did.”
Morgan looked at the black door.
“And today?”
“You called me again.”
“I didn't.”
“I know that now.”
The false voices.
Thomas' dead sister.
Evelyn.
Kiara.
Morgan.
Whatever lived between these rooms had been using them for decades.
“It used my voice to bring you out.”
Thomas nodded.
“Or bring me here.”
Morgan looked at the letters on the door.
TM.
She wasn't sure which possibility was worse.
Something scraped against the other side.
Everyone turned.
A slow dragging sound traveled from top to bottom.
Then stopped.
Morgan looked down at the door marker in her hand.
ROOM FORGOTTEN. OCCUPIED.
The final word began to fade.
Morgan held it closer.
“Something's happening.”
The letters disappeared one by one.
OCCUPIED.
Gone.
New letters appeared.
VACANT.
Thomas stared.
Morgan looked at him.
“You left.”
His face changed.
The black door shuddered.
Once.
Twice.
Then something struck it hard enough to shake the wall.
Thomas backed away.
Morgan understood before anyone said it.
“If the room is vacant…”
DC finished.
“Something else can occupy it.”
Another impact.
The brass knob rattled violently.
Mrs. Bell grabbed the wooden box and began gathering the scattered markers.
“Then we keep it closed.”
Thomas shook his head.
“That won't matter.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I didn't enter through this door.”
Morgan looked at him.
“The red door.”
“Yes.”
“But you ended up here.”
“I ended up in the room.”
Thomas pointed toward the black door.
“The doors aren't entrances to different places.”
Morgan remembered Evelyn's letter.
It counts places.
“They're entrances to the same places.”
Thomas nodded.
“From different places.”
DC looked toward the cellar.
“So Morgan's red door could lead into that room.”
“Yes.”
“And the one in the woods.”
“Yes.”
Morgan's stomach dropped.
“How many entrances?”
Thomas looked at her.
“I don't know.”
Something tapped gently against the black door.
Three times.
Nobody moved.
Then came Kiara's voice.
“Morgan?”
She closed her eyes.
“Not listening.”
“Morgan, please.”
Thomas stepped between her and the door.
“It's not her.”
“I know.”
The voice changed.
Evelyn.
“Sweetheart.”
Morgan's jaw tightened.
“No.”
Another voice.
Mrs. Bell.
“Morgan.”
Then DC.
“Open the door.”
The real DC grimaced.
“I don't sound like that.”
Morgan looked at him.
“You absolutely do.”
“This feels like a bad time for criticism.”
The voice changed again.
Morgan's own voice came through the door.
“Thomas?”
He flinched.
Then silence.
Something began scratching against the wood.
Morgan watched thin lines appear across the black surface.
Not random scratches.
Vines.
They spread from the bottom of the door.
Dark twisting branches crawled upward.
Thorns emerged along them.
Mrs. Bell whispered, “Blackthorn.”
Thomas looked at her.
“What?”
She stepped closer.
“I remember this.”
Morgan turned.
“From when?”
“1978.”
The vines continued spreading.
Small buds formed among the thorns.
One opened.
A dark red rose.
Then another.
Morgan watched.
She did not count.
She had learned.
DC apparently had too.
Nobody said a number.
When the final bud opened, the vines stopped moving.
Morgan approached.
Thomas caught her arm.
“Don't touch it.”
“I wasn't going to.”
She leaned closer.
Something was carved into the center of the door now.
Words.
Morgan read them.
RETURN THE NAME.
Thomas went pale.
Morgan looked at him.
“What name?”
“I don't know.”
Mrs. Bell did.
Morgan saw it immediately.
“You know.”
Mrs. Bell stared at the roses.
“I remember seeing them.”
“Where?”
“The woods.”
“When you searched for Thomas?”
She nodded.
“There was a blackthorn thicket near the western ridge.”
Thomas looked at her.
“I don't remember that.”
“You weren't there.”
“Right.”
Mrs. Bell continued.
“We searched until after dark. Richard Carter found something.”
DC straightened.
“My grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A door.”
Morgan's attention sharpened.
“What color?”
“Black.”
Everyone looked at the door in the wall.
Mrs. Bell's voice became quieter.
“It was covered in thorns.”
“Did you open it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because someone already had.”
Morgan felt cold.
“Who?”
Mrs. Bell frowned.
“I…”
She stopped.
Thomas watched her.
“You can't remember.”
“No.”
Morgan thought of the search record.
The erased thirteenth name.
The person who had gone into the woods and never returned.
“Was it the missing searcher?”
Mrs. Bell's face changed.
“I think so.”
“What happened?”
“We found the door open.”
“And?”
Mrs. Bell pressed her fingers against her temple.
“There was someone standing inside.”
“Thomas?”
“No.”
Thomas went still.
“Who?”
“I can't see their face.”
Morgan stepped closer.
“Try.”
“I am.”
Mrs. Bell closed her eyes.
“We thought we'd found Thomas.”
She shook her head.
“But it wasn't him.”
“What happened?”
“The person inside said something.”
“What?”
Mrs. Bell opened her eyes.
Fear had replaced confusion.
“They asked us to say their name.”
Nobody spoke.
Morgan looked at the door.
RETURN THE NAME.
“What did you do?”
“I don't remember.”
Thomas stepped toward her.
“Margaret.”
“I don't remember.”
Her breathing quickened.
“After that, everything is pieces. Running. Evelyn screaming. Richard pulling me through the trees.”
“And the thirteenth searcher?”
Mrs. Bell looked at Morgan.
“Gone.”
The blackthorn vines rustled.
There was no wind.
A rose detached from the door.
It landed on the floor.
Morgan stared at it.
Something was wrapped around the stem.
Paper.
DC crouched.
“Don't touch it.”
“I wasn't going to.”
“You were absolutely going to.”
“I was considering it.”
Thomas grabbed a pair of fireplace tongs from beside the hearth.
Morgan looked at him.
“Look at you adapting to 2026.”
“They had tongs in 1978.”
“Let me have this.”
Thomas lifted the paper from the thorn.
Morgan unfolded it.
One line.
THOMAS MERCER WAS NOT THE FIRST.
The room went silent.
Morgan turned the paper over.
Another line.
KIARA WAS NOT THE LAST.
Morgan's stomach dropped.
“What does that mean?”
A knock sounded upstairs.
Everyone looked toward the ceiling.
Not the black door.
Upstairs.
Three slow knocks.
Morgan's bedroom.
Then another set.
From the kitchen.
Three.
Then the cellar.
Three.
Then somewhere inside the wall.
Three.
The house filled with knocking.
Not frantic.
Not random.
Doors announcing themselves.
Morgan looked at Thomas.
“How many rooms did you say there were?”
“I didn't.”
“Because you stopped counting.”
“Yes.”
The knocking continued around them.
Mrs. Bell clutched the marker box.
DC looked toward the hallway.
Thomas stared at the black door.
Morgan looked down at the paper again.
KIARA WAS NOT THE LAST.
Then she noticed something appearing beneath the sentence.
Another name.
Slowly carving itself into the paper.
Morgan recognized it before the last letters formed.
DECLAN CARTER.
Morgan looked up.
“DC.”
He was gone.
