The Herb Room - Part 2
If you haven’t walked through the Herb Room’s first whispers, begin with Part I
Part 2 – The Entanglement
Morning came gray and hesitant. Sonya woke in one of the guest rooms the Society had prepared, though she couldn’t remember falling asleep. The scent of jasmine still lingered faintly in her hair, woven through her dreams.
She dressed quickly, pretending normalcy. The field outside was veiled in fog, the trees skeletal and still. Inside, the house was silent except for the soft creak of its bones — a sound that might have been settling wood, or memory stirring beneath the floor.
She made tea at the small camp stove the restoration team had left behind, the motions grounding her. Measure, pour, steep. But the bitter taste of chamomile and smoke did nothing to quiet her pulse. Her notes for the Historical Society lay untouched beside her mug. Each word she’d written yesterday now felt trivial — neat measurements, careful sketches — data from another life.
All she could see when she closed her eyes was that single white blossom. And the way it had turned toward her.
By mid-morning, the air in the house had changed again. The floral sweetness had faded, replaced by a faint metallic tang — not blood, not rust, but something that made her think of violet ink and burnt sugar. She told herself she was imagining it. Yet her steps carried her back to the study.
The room seemed different now, lighter somehow, as if some of the weight had lifted since she’d disturbed its secret. Sunlight pressed through the lace curtains, drawing soft patterns on the floorboards. The journal waited where she’d left it, beside her open field notes. The dried petal still marked the final page, fragile as ash.
She hesitated, then opened the book again. The pages rustled like something breathing. Between two blank leaves she noticed what she’d missed before — a slip of folded parchment so thin it blended with the paper. She eased it free.
A letter.
The handwriting was masculine, neat, and deliberate.
My heart’s companion, Iris Everwood
— Alistair Rowan
Her throat tightened.
I write from the Ashgrove Monastery, where the Brothers keep what they call “the unspoken pharmacopeia.” Their texts speak of jasmine not as perfume but as passage — a flowering threshold. I came here to understand what you sensed instinctively: that devotion is a kind of alchemy. I will return before the final bloom fades. Save the last stage for me.
Yours in purpose, and in love,
A.R.
Sonya let the paper fall to the desk. So there had been two of them. Two hearts bound by the same work — and perhaps by the same spell.
Outside, wind pressed against the windowpanes, making the old glass hum. The house seemed to exhale. She read the letter again, the words steady but tinged with something unfinished, something reaching. Whatever Iris had started, Alistair had known. And whatever he had sought — he never brought back.
The air thickened once more, the jasmine scent returning just long enough to whisper through the room, then fading to nothing. Sonya closed the journal gently.
It wasn’t over. Not yet.
___________________________________________
The day slipped by in a strange, uneasy quiet. Sonya tried to focus on her documentation for the Historical Society, but every line she wrote blurred into meaninglessness. The house was too still, too intent on listening. Each tick of the old clock, each shift of floorboards, seemed to echo with breath.
By dusk, she gave up pretending. She carried her lantern back toward the conservatory, footsteps echoing through the long corridor. The air grew heavier with each turn, the faint sweetness of jasmine creeping back, threaded now with something darker—
a low, earthy tang beneath the perfume, like turned soil or dying leaves.
The door to the Herb Room was open again. She stood in the threshold, heart knocking softly against her ribs.
Inside, the air moved in gentle rhythm—as though the whole room were breathing. The herbs above her swayed without wind. Dust hung in motionless patterns, shifting in slow circles like pollen stirred by unseen hands. The stone table waited in the center, the bloom from yesterday gone. In its place lay a scatter of herbs that hadn’t been there before: sprigs of rosemary, yarrow, and something richer—dark petals she didn’t immediately recognize.
They’d arranged themselves in a spiral.
Her mind rejected it first. It must have fallen that way. But the pattern was too perfect, the curve too deliberate. She crouched to study it. Beneath the herbs, faint stains marred the stone—violet like crushed berries, spreading in uneven rings. She dipped one finger into the residue. It was dry, but her skin tingled faintly where it touched.
The air around her thickened. A warmth coiled at her back, familiar now. Then came the whisper, softer than before, low and pleading.
“Don’t leave me.”
Her breath caught. She turned, lantern trembling in her hand. The room was empty. Only the herbs moved—slow, swaying arcs that mirrored the rise and fall of her breath.
The spiral shimmered faintly, as though the residue beneath it still lived. Her pulse thrummed in her ears. This wasn’t a haunting in the old sense, not a ghost chained to walls or sorrow. It was alive. A spell that had learned to breathe, to yearn, to reach. And somehow, it knew her.
She set the lantern on the table and whispered into the room, her voice barely a sound:
“I’m not her.”
The words were swallowed by the air, yet the spiral seemed to pulse—once, softly—like acknowledgment. Then everything went still again. The flame steadied. The jasmine faded. And Sonya was left standing in silence, unsure whether she’d been comforted… or claimed.
____________________________
Night had deepened to the kind of darkness that blurs edges, turning the familiar into memory. Sonya sat on the bottom step of the grand staircase, lantern beside her, sketchbook open and forgotten in her lap. Every logical part of her insisted she should leave — call the Society, close the house, lock the door.
But another part, quieter and more dangerous, needed to understand. The air was too alive for coincidence. The jasmine, the spiral, the whispers — they weren’t random hauntings. They were residual will. A binding made with intention, perhaps even love. And now that she’d disturbed it, it had noticed her.
She rose slowly, the lantern’s circle of light swinging against the walls. The house guided her back without effort, the air thickening again as she neared the conservatory.
When she reached the Herb Room, she wasn’t surprised to find the door open. The scent greeted her first — jasmine, rich and overripe, threaded with something mournful.
Inside, the spiral on the table had changed. The herbs she’d seen before had rearranged themselves into a perfect ring. Within it, the violet stains had darkened to near-black, glistening as though still wet. The air shimmered. Then the temperature dropped. The lantern hissed softly, its flame shrinking.
A flicker of movement bloomed in the far corner — faint light gathering into form, not solid but pulsing like breath behind sheer fabric. A woman stepped forward, her outline wavering. Black silk. Loose curls. Eyes that caught the lantern glow but reflected nothing back.
Iris Everwood.
Her face was as it had been in the portrait — beautiful, solemn, longing — but now it moved, softened, hurt. “You came back,” the apparition whispered. Her voice trembled, the sound both near and impossibly far. Sonya’s throat tightened. “I’m not who you think I am.” Iris tilted her head, gaze unfocused. “No… not yet.” She glanced at the circle of herbs. “You could be.”
Sonya stepped back instinctively. “You’re hurting. Whatever happened here—whatever you tried to do—it's keeping you here.”
The ghost’s expression flickered, the edges of her form fraying like silk in wind. “He promised he would return before the last bloom fell.” A petal detached from the ceiling bundle above, spiraling slowly downward until it landed inside the ring.
“He didn’t,” Iris whispered.
The vines along the beams trembled. The entire room seemed to lean toward her, listening.
“He was coming back,” Sonya said quietly. “He never meant to leave you.”
For a moment, the ghost’s face softened — grief shifting into something that might have been peace. But then her voice broke, raw and sharp. “I couldn’t bear to lose what I had tended. Not again.”
The spiral pulsed, the herbs tightening like living veins. Shadows thickened, the scent of jasmine turning heady and suffocating. “You’re binding me now,” Sonya said, realization dawning.
“I don’t mean to.” Iris’s voice faltered. “I just… can’t finish it alone.”
The air rippled, heat and cold colliding in waves. Sonya stumbled back, clutching the lantern. Behind her, a second presence stirred — faint warmth brushing her shoulder, protective, unseen. The scent changed — a bitter perfume rising beneath the jasmine.
Iris turned toward the warmth as if she recognized it. “Alistair…”
The light flickered violently, casting both women in amber and shadow. Iris reached out, her hand trembling, transparent. Sonya’s voice was barely a whisper. “He’s still here.”
The ghost’s eyes filled with light. “Then help me finish it.”
The lantern sputtered out. And in the breathless dark that followed, Sonya understood — the spell wasn’t over.
It had only been waiting. The room felt like it was spinning, and Sonya felt her consciousness slipping away,
Concluded in part 3 - when the last jasmine petal falls
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.