The phone rang in the flat, pulling Thomas Whitmore away from the stove. A fry-up sizzled in the pan, the smell of butter and black pudding thick in the air. He wiped his hands on a tea towel and scowled at the unknown number flashing on the screen.
“Hello?” he answered sharply, keeping one eye on his breakfast.
“Mr. Whitmore, this is your family solicitor. Youll need to come in tomorrow morning. Theres a matter of inheritance. Documents to sign.”
Thomas hesitated. His parents were alive and wellwho on earth could have left him anything? He didnt bother asking questions, just muttered a curt agreement and hung up.
The next morning was grey, the kind of damp chill that seeped into bones. As he drove through the streets of London, his confusion twisted into irritation. The solicitor stood waiting at the door of the office.
“Come in, Thomas. I know this is unusual. If it werent important, I wouldnt have called you in on a Sunday.”
The office was eerily quiet, the usual hum of secretaries and ringing phones gone. Only the creak of the wooden floorboards broke the silence as Thomas dropped into the chair across from the desk, arms crossed.
“This concerns your uncleHenry Blackwell.”
“I dont have an uncle called Henry,” Thomas shot back.
“Nevertheless, hes left you everything.” The solicitor slid an old key, a yellowed map, and an address across the desk. “A house on the water. Its yours now.”
“Youre joking.”
“Its situated in the middle of Lake Thirlmere, in the Lake District.”
Thomas picked up the keycold, heavy, etched with worn engravings. Hed never heard of the man or the place. Yet something in his chest tightened, curiosity overriding sense.
An hour later, his rucksack held a jumper, a flask of tea, and a packet of biscuits. The satnav said the lake was barely two hours north. How had he never known it existed?
When the road ended, the lake sprawled before himstill, dark, a sheet of polished slate. And there, in its heart, stood the housea looming shadow, as if it had risen from the depths.
Elderly men nursed pints outside a lakeside pub. Thomas approached them.
“Excuse methat house out there. Who lived in it?”
One of them set down his glass slowly.
“We dont speak of that place. Dont go near it. Shouldve been torn down years ago.”
“But someone mustve lived there.”
“Never seen a soul come or go. Only at nightsometimes, you hear oars in the water. Supplies get delivered, but no one knows by who. And we dont ask.”
At the jetty, a faded sign read “Maggies Boats.” Inside, a woman with sharp eyes and a worn coat eyed him.
“I need to get to that house,” Thomas said, holding up the key. “Its mine.”
“No one goes there,” she said flatly. “Folk are scared of it. So am I.”
But Thomas wouldnt budge. His voice turned harder until she finally relented.
“Fine. Ill take you. But Im not waiting. Ill be back tomorrow.”
The house loomed over the water like a relic. The wooden dock groaned under his weight as Maggie tied the boat.
“Here we are,” she muttered.
Thomas stepped onto the rotting planks, but before he could thank her, the boat was already retreating.
“Good luck. Hope youre still here tomorrow,” she called, vanishing into the mist.
Now he was alone.
The key slid into the lock with ease. A click, then the door swung open.
Inside smelled of damp and old paper. Light filtered through grimy windows, catching on portraits lining the walls. One stood outa man by the lake, the house behind him. The inscription read: “Henry Blackwell, 1964.”
The study was lined with books, margins scribbled with notes. A telescope pointed at the sky, stacks of weather logs beside itthe most recent from last week.
“What were you watching?” Thomas whispered.
The bedroom held a dozen stopped clocks. On the dresser, a locket. Inside, a babys face”Whitmore” scrawled beneath.
“Was he watching me? My family?”
A note on the mirror read: “Time drags the past into the light.”
In the attic, boxes of newspaper clippings. One circled in red: “Boy from Manchester vanishes. Found unharmed three days later.” The year1997. Thomas went cold. That was him.
In the dining room, one chair sat askew. On it, his school photo.
“This isnt just strange,” he muttered, head spinning.
He forced down tinned beans from the pantry, then retreated to a guest room. The sheets were crisp, as if waiting. Moonlight glinted off the lake, the house breathing with the waters rhythm.
Sleep wouldnt come. Too many questions. Who was Henry Blackwell? Why had no one spoken of him? Why had his parents never mentioned an uncle? And why this fixation on him?
When exhaustion finally took him, the house plunged into true darknessthe kind where floorboards creak like footsteps, and shadows move when you arent looking.
A metallic clang shattered the silence. Thomas bolted upright. Another sounda door slamming open downstairs. He grabbed his phone. No signal. Only his own wide-eyed reflection stared back.
Flashlight in hand, he crept into the hall.
Shadows deepened, pressing in. The library smelled of disturbed dust. The study door hung open. A cold draft seeped from behind a tapestry he hadnt noticed before.
He pulled it asidea rusted iron door.
“No,” he breathed, but his fingers curled around the handle anyway.
The door groaned open, revealing a spiral staircase descending beneath the house, under the lake. Each step made the air heavier, thick with salt and something older than memory.
Below stretched a corridor of filing cabinets. Labels: “Genealogy,” “Letters,” “Expeditions.”
One drawer read: “Whitmore.”
Thomas yanked it open. Inside, lettersall addressed to his father.
“I tried. Why wont you answer? This matters. For him. For Thomas”
“So he didnt vanish. He wrote. He wanted to know me,” Thomas whispered.
At the corridors end, another door”Authorised Personnel Only. Blackwell Archives.” No handle. Just a palm scanner. A note beside it: “For Thomas Whitmore. Only him.”
He pressed his hand.
A click. The room lit up. A projector flickered to life, casting a mans silhouette onto the wall.
Grey hair. Tired eyes. He stared straight at Thomas.
“Hello, Thomas. If youre seeing this, Im gone.”
The man introduced himselfHenry Blackwell.
“I am your father. You werent meant to find out like this, but your mother and I made mistakes. We were scientistsobsessed with survival, the climate, saving the world. She died bringing you into it. And I I was afraid. Afraid of what I might become. So I gave you to my brother. He gave you a family. But I never stopped watching. From here. From the house on the lake. From afar.”
Thomas sank onto a bench, numb.
“It was you all along”
The recording wavered:
“I was afraid to ruin you, but you grew into a good manbetter than I couldve hoped. Now this house is yours. A chance. Forgive mefor silence, for cowardice, for being close but never there.”
The screen went black.
Thomas didnt know how long he sat in the dark. Eventually, he climbed back upstairs. At dawn, Maggie waited at the dock. She took one look at him and frowned.
“You all right?”
“Better now,” he said softly. “I just needed to understand.”
He went home. His parents listened in silence, then pulled him into a crushing hug.
“Forgive us,” his mother whispered. “We thought it was for the best.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I know it wasnt easy.”
That night, Thomas lay in bed. The ceiling was the same. But nothing else was.
Weeks later, he returned to the lakenot to live, but to rebuild. The house became the Blackwell Centre for Climate Research. Childrens laughter filled the halls. Locals came for talks. The house was no longer a tomb of secrets.
It was alive again.
