Room 102, The Room of Curses – Mansion of Terror (4)

The cathedral was cleaner than I'd expected. The butler had called it half in ruins, but that must have been by the standards of a mansion that was spotless to a fault.

At this size, a half day's sweeping would have been enough to hold a service again.

We followed the butler through the sanctuary and out the back door, and there were the boat and the lake. The storm had driven the water so high it lapped almost at the threshold; the boat itself had been shoved in against the rear wall as if it meant to hammer its way through.

Its condition was, of course, wretched. Left exposed to the gale, then battered against the rising shoreline, it was caked in mud from stem to stern.

"It certainly isn't clean," the butler admitted. "But it isn't so far gone that it couldn't still be sailed."

"Just checking—you do know how to handle a boat, don't you, Butler?"

"Of course, Miss. That said, this one looks unseaworthy as it stands."

He stretched out a hand and pointed along the hull. Somewhere in the sudden swell it must have struck something hard; water was seeping in through a breach. Slow for now, but the damage would need patching before we risked the lake.

"There are tools for boat repair back at the mansion. Bring those out, seal the hole, and we can cross well enough. The motor should still be sound."

I traded a quick look with Eunsol; she answered with a small nod.

"Cough—cough—achoo!"

"Are you all right? You've been out in the wind and rain far too long."

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me—you can head back."

"No. I think it would be wiser to warm yourselves first. The road to the mansion is not short. Allow me a moment to fetch a stove."

The butler vanished in search of a heater. With him gone, some of the tension bled out of us; we scattered along the long pews of the sanctuary and sat.

Clunk. Clunk.

Creeeeak.

An unpleasant sound. I lifted my head despite the unease and saw a door on the far side of the hall trembling on its hinges.

"What room is that, do you think?"

"Probably the priest's old quarters."

Suspicious.

The man himself had insisted we rest even after being told we were fine, then left us alone—and almost on cue a door swung open.

"It's practically inviting us to go look."

"I'll check it."

"I'll come with you. Someone should hold the light."

"No. Hyung, you should stay near Noona. The butler will be back any minute."

The butler.

From the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠first day, Cha Jinchul had taken one look at the man and marked him as dangerous. When I said we needed someone ready for his return, Jinchul nodded and sat back down.

It wasn't only about the butler, of course.

Dangerous places: one person at a time. Even if someone died, only one at a time.

You don't put every egg in one basket—same rule for stocks, same rule for cursed rooms. We could not all walk into a hazard together.

I took a lantern in one hand and stepped inside.

A half-rotted desk. Papers scattered everywhere. I leafed through them quickly; most were simply verses copied out of scripture—notes for a sermon, or passages that had moved the priest himself.

I rummaged through the documents, pried open a half-crushed Bible with muttered apologies, rapped on the decaying desk, and kept glancing toward the door, expecting the butler any second—until I found the first thing that was not ordinary.

Papers related to the lawsuit between the cathedral and the mansion.

The substance matched what the butler had told us the day before: each side claiming ownership of the church and the adjoining land for its own reasons.

Digging deeper, I began to turn up the letters they had exchanged.

At first the correspondence opened with phrases like To the Most Reverend Father and To the Faithful Lee Se-hyun—so that was the Elder's real name—Servant of God, all of it polite and measured. Somewhere along the way the tone curdled into open venom.

The middle stretch was thick with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠legal citations and arguments I only half followed, but one shift stood out clearly enough.

The forms of address had become money-grubbing rotten priest and heretic fallen into foul error, a devil in human shape.

Money-grubbing.

That much was the sort of ordinary insult you might expect from a bitter land dispute.

Foul heretic. That was not ordinary. In a place where occult disasters never stopped, it was a word you could not simply skip over.

The Elder needs to be investigated.

I drew that rough conclusion, found nothing more of interest, and left the room.

The butler still had not returned. Jinchul and Eunsol were shivering hard enough to see.

"Still not back? He said he was only going ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for a stove…"

"Right? Where the hell was he supposed to get one? It's been well past thirty minutes—more like an hour."

"That old bastard is trying to kill us in here. I knew the moment I saw him—"

"Would you please shut up. Just for once."

I remembered what Eunsol had said earlier: Jinchul's lost it a little.

I was starting to understand. Ever since Elena died, he had not been able to steady himself.

Another ten minutes or so crawled by before the butler finally reappeared.

He was carrying a stove, true enough—but by then none of us had the slightest desire to linger any longer in that grim cathedral just to warm our hands. The moment he arrived we set out for the mansion again, the stove he had fetched all but pointless.

He raised no objection when we said we were leaving. He simply turned and walked, as if warming us had never been the real purpose at all.

Only once we were back inside the mansion did we finally sit down together and thaw out.

Seungyeop, Song-i, and even Ari—everyone who had stayed behind—came fretting out to meet us, boiling water and heating the bath in a sudden flurry of anxious care. We made a rough dinner after the rough lunch, and then put into motion the plan we had formed on the way to the cathedral.

"Butler. Give me the key to the study."

"Pardon?"

"The study key. I want to look for something."

"Ah—Miss. As I explained to young master Seungyeop, the Elder gave the strictest orders that no one is to enter the study. There are any number of legal and financial documents, you see—"

"Then call my uncle, Butler."

"Miss…"

"I am going into that study. Strange things have been happening all over this house from the moment we arrived. Who knows? Maybe Uncle has something hidden in there. So bring me the key. Now."

"Noona, whatever else, the owner of the house told us not to go in. Aren't you getting a little worked up?"

"You shut up and stay out of this. That 'owner' can't even be reached when people are dying in here. Keep listening to him and you'll have two more corpses on your hands."

We staged the argument for two or three exchanges, then I turned around—and found the others staring at me with eyes like saucers.

I had worried the performance would look obvious. Either we had sold it better than expected, or the already-dreadful atmosphere made a fight look even more frightening than it was.

Even Jinchul was watching me with open surprise. Explaining further would have been awkward, so I simply sat down without a word.

Funny thing—because everyone reacted so perfectly, I doubted the butler would suspect a thing.

— Lee Eunsol

The study was clean. Ordinary. To Lee Eunsol, that was the most suspicious thing about it.

From the moment of Elena's death the mansion had gone mad. Mirrors laughed at her reflection; the cuckoo clock detonated on the hour; dolls took a sudden interest in the living. Even at dinner, when they were making do with sandwiches and coffee, a cup had sprouted legs and tried to pour boiling water—she had barely snatched it in time.

And yet this room sat apart from all of that.

It was almost comfortable.

She stood still and turned over the information Gain had given her.

The Elder had fallen into heresy. That was not a detail you ignored.

From the first day the butler had been determined to drag them to the cathedral; in the end he had left them alone inside it for a full hour.

He had wanted them to find something. And if what they found was the Elder's heresy… then something connected to it had to be here in the study as well.

She searched. Every book opened, every desk drawer pulled free.

Why her?

It was the question that had nagged her ever since the mansion's curse began. Elena had said in the car that the whole situation felt like a play.

They had been given roles.

And in the Mansion of Terror, the most important role was unmistakably hers.

Everyone else was simply a university friend of "Lee Eunsol," invited along. She was the owner's niece—the one person with the standing to order the mansion's strange servants around. Her part was clearly the lead.

So why her? Why had the most critical role fallen to her? What did she have that the others did not?

Being a chaebol heiress? She could not even access her bank account; that meant nothing here.

A decent mind? From what she had seen, Gain was every bit as sharp—sharp enough that if they ever left the hotel she would have liked to put him to work under ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her.

She… could speak quite a few languages.

She reached into the awkward gap between the second and third drawers of the desk. Her fingers closed on a thick envelope.

Inside were documents in a tangle of tongues—Spanish, French, German, English. Not only the languages differed: the handwriting, the formatting, even the paper stock were all mismatched.

As if someone had scraped together fragmented intelligence from every corner of the world. And every scrap of it described the same single subject.

She knew the moment she read the final line of the fourth document. She had been ready for it—and still her hands shook.

It was time for her to make a sacrifice.