The Herb Room - Part 1
The Awakening
The Everwood estate stood at the edge of the field like a memory that refused to fade. Once grand, its tall windows and carved columns now sagged beneath ivy and years of neglect. The Historical Society had purchased the property to preserve what they could before time devoured what history left behind.
Sonya Vale arrived as both conservator and herbalist—a rare blend of science and intuition. Her work restoring Victorian herbariums and apothecaries had earned her a reputation for bringing forgotten rooms back to life. She expected dust, decay, and brittle remnants from the past.
She hadn’t expected the air to smell alive.
Beneath the musk of age lay a faint sweetness—floral, almost familiar. She paused, tasting the scent on her breath.
Jasmine?
Impossible. There hadn’t been a living garden here in decades.
Lantern in hand, she followed the fragrance through the hallway, past portraits blurred by mildew and time, until she reached a pair of glass-paneled doors etched with curling vines.
Beyond them waited the conservatory. And through that—another door, its lintel carved with ivy leaves and an inscription in faded script:
The Herb Room.
Her pulse quickened.
She stepped inside carefully, as though crossing into a chapel.
The Herb Room was large but intimate, filled wall to wall with shelves of jars labeled in ink the color of tea. Bundles of herbs hung from the rafters like sleeping birds, brittle yet intact. Dust lay heavy but not untouched.
Sonya ran her fingers along the stone worktable, feeling faint grooves carved into its surface—a workspace once used daily. She recognized the order of a practitioner who understood her craft: the grouping of jars, the tools for tinctures, the neatness of purpose.
The floral note deepened until it filled her lungs, almost dizzying.
The longer she stayed, the more she felt the hush shift—like the moment before a breath.
She began cataloguing, movements steady, ritualistic. Once, she thought she heard a faint rustle, but when she turned, everything hung still.
At dusk she set her tools aside, feeling satisfied with her first day's work. The lantern flame flickered and somehow the room didn’t feel abandoned: it felt aware.
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The next day Sonya spent the morning taking preliminary notes for the Historical Society—measurements, soil samples, a rough sketch of the grounds—but her thoughts kept circling back to the Herb Room. To the way the air seemed to shift with her.
By early afternoon, she found herself drifting through the halls, telling herself she was merely exploring the estate more thoroughly. She paused at each faded portrait, tracing dust-softened frames, trying to imagine the people who once lived here.
One painting drew her in more than the others.
A young woman with dark hair in loose Victorian curls.
A soft, melancholic mouth.
Eyes too thoughtful for the age she appeared to be.
Iris Everwood.
The plaque below confirmed it.
Sonya stepped closer. The paint around Iris’s eyes had cracked, fine lines spiderwebbing outward like fractures. Yet the expression remained vivid—holding a secret or waiting for someone to hear it.
A faint sigh of jasmine drifted through the hall.
She swallowed hard and continued on, guided by instinct more than intention. The house felt alive—not maliciously, but watchful, curious, almost eager.
She found herself in the old study.
It smelled of dust, dry wood, and the faintest trace of botanical oils. Glass-fronted cabinets lined the walls; some filled with antique books, others with empty spaces where volumes had long since vanished.
The desk in the center was massive, carved from dark walnut and adorned with floral motifs—ivy, jasmine, looping vines that looked unsettlingly like bindweed.
She ran her fingers along its smooth edge.
The jasmine scent thickened.
She tugged on one of the drawers. It slid open easily, revealing old ink bottles, broken quills, and brittle paper stained by time.
But as she pushed it closed, something about the weight felt wrong—too heavy for its contents.
She opened it again, lifted an ink bottle, a quill, a torn blotter sheet—nothing that explained the anchored weight beneath.
A tap to the base gave a dull, dense sound.
Her pulse quickened.
Tracing the seam along the bottom, she felt a slight give—a second layer of wood fitted perfectly, meant to appear seamless.
A hidden compartment.
She pressed gently.
The false bottom shifted with a quiet, reluctant scrape—like something not quite ready to be found.
Beneath it lay a leather-bound journal.
The cover was cracked with age; the edges softened by time. When she lifted it out, a dried petal drifted onto the desk—pale; its edges-tinged violet.
Jasmine.
Touched by something darker.
The journal opened easily; the first pages filled with delicate script—precise, elegant, undeniably feminine.
She read.
“Jasmine blooms at night to remind us that devotion is not a daylight virtue.
It grows in the shadows, thrives beneath moonlight, endures what others cannot.”
Another page:
“Bindweed climbs because it cannot help but reach. It entwines, embraces, protects… but also smothers.
I fear we are not so different.”
A chill slid across her spine.
Another:
“Some plants whisper louder during fear. Others during longing.
And some… when the heart threatens to break.”
Sonya glanced around, half-expecting Iris to be standing behind her.
The next few pages were dated entries—observations on herb potency, moon phases, notes about an upcoming exhibit Iris had been planning before the estate fell into disrepair. And woven through it all, Sonya sensed loneliness.
Then she found the last intact entry.
The ink was darker. Hurried.
“Alistair says he must travel soon. I feel the distance already.
I will not be left behind again—not by him.
Tonight, it must be done.”
Tonight.
And there was no entry after it.
Her breath came slowly, shakily.
She flipped ahead—
—and found only torn stubs where pages had been ripped out. Several in a row. Frantic, violent tears.
A soft creak sounded behind her.
She turned sharply.
The study door remained closed. The room was still.
But the jasmine scent thickened in a pulse—like a heartbeat beneath the air.
With trembling fingers, she lifted the dried petal from the desk. The edges—dark, almost bruised—seemed to stain her skin as she held it.
A faint, bittersweet fragrance clung to it.
That same elusive, unplaceable scent.
Not floral.
Not earthy.
Something… human.
Her eyes returned to the final entry.
“Tonight, it must be done.”
Whatever Iris Everwood had attempted, Sonya realized, it hadn’t been completed.
Or worse—
It had.
Just not the way Iris intended.
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By evening, the house had grown too quiet.
Lantern in hand, she followed that now-familiar sweetness through the hall. The scent no longer seemed random; it moved, leading her.
The door to the Herb Room was ajar again.
She could have sworn she’d closed it earlier.
The air that drifted out was warm. Living. She hesitated on the threshold, fingers tight around the lantern handle.
Inside, the hanging herbs trembled as if in breath. Shadows swayed in rhythm, soft and slow, each bundle shifting like it had just awakened.
Her gaze caught on the stone table.
A single blossom lay opened there—white as bone, dew-bright, impossibly fresh.
Jasmine.
Her heart stumbled. The room had no source for it. No window, no soil, no hand to place it there.
The fragrance deepened until the air shimmered. Rosemary sprigs tilted toward the bloom; yarrow leaves unfurled, vines overhead rustled faintly, responding to a command she couldn’t hear.
It wasn’t imagination. The herbs were moving.
Alive.
She stepped closer, drawn despite herself. The lantern flame reflected off the flower’s surface, light pooling like breath in its heart. For one trembling moment, it felt as though the bloom turned toward her.
Then the air changed.
The warmth thickened, curling around her shoulders like unseen arms.
A whisper brushed her cheek—soft, familiar, close enough to stir the tiny hairs at her temple:
“You’re here now.”
The lantern flickered violently.
And the blossom’s glow dimmed.
Sonya fled into the corridor, heart pounding, jasmine clinging to her clothes like memory.
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Step into Part II: When the past begins to speak more clearly than the present.
Offer whatever name you wish to be known by at the hearth today — real or imagined — we look forward to welcoming your words into the circle.