The Wife the Manor Chose

NOTE: There is an expanded novelette version of this story and a larger novella. You can find them here: A Story About a Woman Who Wakes Up Married to a Stranger

Renovations

Thomas would have loved it.

He believed old houses remembered things that people had long forgotten.

The mansion had been empty for nearly thirty years. At least, that was what the realtor told her.

He said it with a nervous laugh as they walked through the front wrought iron gates.

Anthea fell in love with the estate. It sat at the end of a narrow cobblestone road, wrapped in towering oaks and climbing ivy.

The mansion itself rose behind them like something out of a faded world—three stories of dark red brick and tall, narrow windows, their glass dull with dust and age.

Most buyers would have called it an outdated, expensive to repair nightmare.

But Anthea saw the potential.

She had bought it herself after years of long hours, empty evenings, and a career that had left her successful enough to purchase a mansion and lonely enough to want one.

Now, four weeks after signing the papers, the inside looked like a battlefield of renovation.

Walls, fixtures, and even the old floorboards had been pried up and stacked in neat piles along the hallway.

She stood barefoot in the center of the spacious living room, a crowbar in one hand and a flashlight in the other, staring down at the section of floor she’d been working on all afternoon.

As she pulled the boards, one revealed a small square cavity beneath it.

The space was perhaps the size of a shoebox, and it became apparent that someone had hidden something here.

Anthea crouched and reached inside and her fingers brushed against old leather.

She pulled the object free slowly, fine dust falling from the edges as it came into the light.

The leather cover of the photobook was dark brown, almost black with age, and bound with a thin brass clasp that had long since tarnished.

Anthea sat cross-legged on the floor and opened it.

The first photograph was sepia-toned and carefully mounted on thick paper. A man and a woman stood together in front of the very mansion she now owned.

Judging by the clothing, the photograph had to be from the early 1900s. The man wore a tailored suit with a stiff collar and waistcoat, his posture straight and commanding. One gloved hand rested lightly on the woman’s waist.

Anthea noticed something strange. The woman’s face was distorted and hard to make out.

She frowned and turned the page. It was another photograph with the same man, but a different woman this time. Her face blurred. A faint chill crept along Anthea’s arms.

She flipped to the next page. And the next.

Each photograph showed the same thing. The same dark-haired man. A different woman standing beside him every time. And every single face had been destroyed.

Except his. Anthea paused, studying him. Whoever he was, the camera had loved him.

His features were sharply defined even through the grain of the old photograph—high cheekbones, a strong jaw, and dark eyes that seemed to pierce directly through the page.

There was something unsettling about that gaze. As if he had known someone would be looking at him someday.

Anthea felt herself staring longer than she meant to, studying the striking features of his face.

Ridiculous, she thought. It was just a photograph. Still, she couldn’t quite pull her eyes away.

He was handsome in a way that belonged in old oil portraits or marble statues rather than grainy photographs hidden beneath floorboards.

She flipped to the next page, and there were no more photos, just empty sleeves.

Her thumb brushed lightly against the corner of the page.

And the room flooded with a blinding light.