The relentless rain drummed a dull rhythm against the car window, a soft, monotonous lullaby that did little to soothe the turmoil in my stomach. I pressed my forehead to the cold glass, watching the tall pine trees blur into an indistinguishable smear as the officer's car wound deeper into the oppressive woods. Three weeks. Three weeks since they vanished, swallowed by thin air, leaving no trace, no explanation.

Now, I was being carted off to Gravemont, a name that tasted like ash on my tongue, to live with grandparents who were practically strangers. The mansion that loomed into view was a monstrosity of white fencing and ivy, its green-tinted windows reflecting the gloomy sky like vacant, unsettling eyes. My grandfather, a stiff silhouette on the porch, looked older, more worn than I remembered.

Inside, the house was a labyrinth of echoing halls and creaking floors, filled with the scent of cedar and dust. Every shadow seemed to stretch too far, every corner to hold a secret. My grandmother's overly warm embrace felt like a cage, her forced cheer a thin veil over an unspoken truth. They were hiding something, a heavy weight that pressed down on the air between us.

I stormed away, the house itself seeming to conspire against me, its walls closing in, shadows shifting like living things. At the top of the grand spiral staircase, a dark figure flickered into existence, only to vanish the second I blinked. Just tiredness, I told myself, a trick of the light.

My new bedroom was enormous, alien, filled with dusty relics of a childhood I barely remembered. Lying in the cold bed, clutching a photo of my smiling parents, I whispered a promise: I would find them. And then sleep, a treacherous guide, pulled me into a forest of twisted trees and creeping fog, where a cloaked woman with a perfect, unsettling smile whispered my name, promising answers.