Last week​, we witnessed Dr. Ashcroft’s frustrations—she knew the River Styx mural concealed an underlayer, but the limits of 1920s technology prevented her from glimpsing more than a faint outline of what lay beneath.

Nearly a century later, Dr. Mira Halstead returned to the mural with her colleague, art restoration specialist Dr. Niko Veyra. Here’s what they uncovered.

Transcript: Voice Memo — Dr. Mira Halstead

Location: Harrowfell Hall, Circular Mural #5 (River Styx)

Date: April 4, 2009

Participants: Dr. Mira Halstead, Dr. Niko Veyra (Barton Museum Conservation)

Mira: Beginning scan. Surface reflectance spectroscopy. Niko, lock the lamp position. Let’s do the left quadrant first.

Niko: All right, we’re pulling the top layer into false-color mode. First pass should give us outlines if anything’s underneath.

Mira: The surface shows soft, horizontal motion—water. But below it, the transitions are abrupt, angular. Like folds of fabric dropping straight down.

Niko: I’ll push the contrast. [keyboard clicks] There’s a sharper edge there. Could be a fabric fold.

Mira: Hold on—yes. That’s a shoulder. Drapery falling from it. A cloak?

Niko: I’ll zoom in on the upper section.

Mira: The posture’s odd, don’t you think? Very…elongated. If it is Charon, it’s unlike any rendering I’ve seen.

Niko: I’m on the hood—raising gamma now.

Mira: Two points, deep in the recess. The eyes, I’m guessing.

Niko: Yeah, the world’s creepiest eyes.

Mira: [laughing] Is that the technical term?

Niko: [laughing] All right—layered pigment with no scatter, edges tightened to a pinpoint. Whoever painted them wanted the effect of live embers burning in the dark.

Mira: Yep, the world’s creepiest eyes. All right—background next. Rotate the frame.

Niko: Filtering out the foreground.

Mira: Hm. Do those look like lights to you?

Niko: Yeah—string lights. Or no…lanterns?

Mira: Lanterns underground…That’s not the Styx. Edge of the scan, bottom left. Niko, zoom.

Niko: Tool shaft. Pickaxe.

Mira: My god. Not a riverbank—it’s a mine.

[02:44 — faint hissing noise]

Mira: Did you hear that?

Niko: Could be the fan in the lamp housing. [brief pause, rustle of movement] Everything looks fine, levels are steady.

Mira: All right, let’s keep going. So, we have a cloaked figure with glowing eyes in what looks to be a mine.

Niko: Finneas’ version of the Underworld? Mira, check out the angle of the grip—the cloaked figure. It’s pulling something behind it.

Mira: Yes, there’s…another outline. Secondary figure, collapsed posture. Let’s bring up detail.

Niko: Enhancing.

Mira: A man, head tipped back, being dragged by one shoulder. Features faint but—hold. Stop there. Nose, strong bridge. Distinct brow.

Niko: Clearer than I expected at this resolution.

Mira: I know that face. That’s Finneas Thorne.

[Recording ends.]

If only time travel were a thing.

Dr. Ashcroft could have had front-row seats when Dr. Halstead and Dr. Veyra uncovered what she could only speculate—beneath the surface of the Styx, a cloaked figure with eyes like burning coals was dragging Finneas Thorne, deep into the mine.

If that were the only appearance of this figure in Harrowfell’s crumbling halls, the story might end here. But it isn’t.

We’ll start there next time.

Last time, we left Dr. Josephine Ashcroft inside Harrowfell’s haunted halls where she’d spotted an unexpected hint of red pigment beneath the River Styx mural.

Let’s see what she discovered next.

August 27, 1926 — Harrowfell Hall

At last! I was granted permission to conduct a closer examination of the mural in the innermost circular hall. I arrived just after sunrise, setting up two portable lamps at oblique angles against the plaster. The raking light revealed what my eyes had suspected: faint textures beneath the painted surface, inconsistent with the visible composition.

The ridges suggested outlines—figures or forms, though indistinct, blurred by the thickness of the upper layer. I laid translucent paper against the wall and made several tracings, following the raised edges where the brushstrokes caught the light. The result was fragmentary, yet clear enough to convince me there is an underdrawing beneath the Styx.

I also lifted the smallest possible sample from the broken edge. Under magnification, the layers were unmistakable: the black, indigo, and Prussian blue of the river above, and beneath them, the deep vermilion ground I noted earlier.

And here lies my frustration. With present means, I can confirm only the existence of this hidden image, not its precise content. My tracings hint at two figures, one of them cloaked—though it may equally be some sort of water feature, the lines too faint to distinguish with certainty. Whatever Thorne buried beneath the surface remains beyond my grasp.

It is a bitter thing to know the secret is there, and not be able to see it.

September 2, 1926 — Harrowfell Hall

In my frustration I attempted to push further into what appears to be the innermost of the circular halls. Fitting, I suppose, that this passage is guarded by the River Styx mural. I was grateful for my dust mask—the air was choked, and a mass of fallen beams barred my way—but through a narrow gap I glimpsed what appeared to be rough stone.

I could not determine whether the stone was crumbled masonry from a structural collapse or whether the very heart of Harrowfell conceals something more primal, a cave at its core.

It would not be without precedent. I have read of wealthy families in the last century commissioning grottoes and “natural chambers” within their estates, ornamented as fashionable curiosities. But here, amidst these labyrinthine murals and the ruin of Harrowfell pressing in on all sides, I’ll admit the effect is rather disquieting.

That’s where the trail might have gone cold, if not for Dr. Mira Halstead.

Nearly a century later, Dr. Halstead revisited Ashcroft’s journals and obtained permission to examine the mural with modern techniques Josephine could only dream of. High-resolution imaging and scanning techniques were able to “peel back” paint layers without disturbing a single brushstroke.

What she discovered brought Dr. Ashcroft’s suspicions into unsettling focus.

See you next week.

Last week, I left you with two curious names from Harrowfell’s blueprint: Salon Nysa and Salon Lethe.

Naturally, I started tracing where those names intersect with Harrowfell’s history, and that’s when I stumbled across a blog called Beyond the Hedge.

Here’s where the floor really dropped out: the blog was written by none other than Margot Takada, a character I’m pretty damn sure I invented.

In The Magician and the Labyrinth of Yesterdays, Margot is an independent scholar investigating the hauntings at Harrowfell, along with the many hikers who have disappeared in the surrounding woods.

Yet here she was, publishing essays on timeslips and local urban legends as if she’d been doing it for years. As if she actually existed.

You better believe I emailed her. I haven’t heard back…but it’s only been twenty minutes, so I probably need to chill. (Easier said than done.)

In one post, Margot explains the myths behind the names.

Nysa was the secret grove where the god Dionysus was hidden and raised—a wild, vine-choked place set apart from the ordinary world, where divine and mortal boundaries blurred.

Lethe, by contrast, was one of the rivers of the underworld. To drink its waters meant to forget—memories erased, identities dissolved—so your soul could be reborn unburdened by its past.

Margot asked the question already burning in my mind:

Why would Finneas Thorne name his salons Nysa and Lethe—one promising divine refuge, the other offering divine oblivion?

The deeper I read, the stranger it became, because Margot’s blog also ​mentioned correspondence​ with none other than Dr. Mira Halstead of Barton College—the same archivist responsible for digitizing Josephine Ashcroft’s journals.

Speaking of Dr. Ashcroft’s journals, let’s pick up with her next entry, following along as she wanders deeper into the castle.

August 15, 1926 — Harrowfell Hall

Beyond the grand staircase there was a remarkable structure, at the castle’s dead center if I’m not mistaken. Concentric circular hallways, guiding the viewer through ring after ring of elaborate murals. Finneas Thorne did not merely paint on the walls’ curvature; he exploited it to the full, so that the figures seemed to shift and flow as one walks past, the arc of the wall lending their gestures an uncanny momentum.

The first showed Orpheus, glancing back at a fading Eurydice. His fingers curled desperately in thin air, the brushwork deft, almost cruel in its precision. A single glance unraveling what mattered most.

Another turn revealed Persephone in a meadow, flowers blackened and dripping. A shadowed Hades gripped her wrist, while her eyes seemed to plead with me directly. Finneas had applied the pigment so it looked as if it were running off the canvas like a dripping hot candle. The choice was highly unorthodox, and all the more disturbing against Harrowfell’s backdrop of ruin.

Next, Cassandra silhouetted against a city in flames, arms flung wide, her silent cry forever frozen. Faceless figures streamed past, deaf to her warning. Another curve: Medusa, her serpents coiling outward, dozens of black-slitted eyes meeting mine. Around her, men screamed, hands clawing at petrified faces.

The final mural was, quite fitting, the River Styx. A boat drifted through black water, its cloaked ferryman leaning on his pole. Pale hands broke the surface, fighting uselessly to clamber aboard. I could almost feel those cold wet fingertips clutching at my sleeves, dragging me under.

At the lower edge of the wall, where the plaster had cracked away, I caught a glimpse of something unexpected: a layer of red pigment beneath the surface paint.

The discovery puzzled me. Imprimatura is not uncommon, of course, but a red ground is typically used to lend depth or warmth to a composition. Here, beneath black water and pallid flesh, such an underlayer made no sense at all.

I will need to secure permission to bring proper equipment. With lamps set at oblique angles, I might reveal textures hinting at an underdrawing. Better still, perhaps I would be permitted to lift a tiny sample of the plaster for analysis. Short of that, Thorne’s secret will remain sealed beneath the surface.

Already, that glimpse of red has lodged in my mind like a splinter. I must know what lies beneath.

​Last week​, we left off with Dr. Josephine Ashcroft, who was hired to catalogue the paintings at Harrowfell Hall.

After seeing how outdated her bio on the Barton College website was, I didn’t expect to find much, but I was wrong—spectacularly wrong. Buried in the archives was a project spearheaded by ​Dr. Mira Halstead​, a faculty member in Barton’s Art Conservation Department, and it included a digitized series of journal entries written by Ashcroft herself.

And get this: they chronicled her time at Harrowfell. Jackpot.

Because Dr. Ashcroft’s findings caused quite a stir, Barton College preserved all of her reports, along with her handwritten journal entries. There was even a photograph of Dr. Ashcroft beside the painting that would later become the subject of endless speculation.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s start with Dr. Ashcroft’s journal entry from her arrival at Harrowfell.

August 14, 1926 — Harrowfell Hall

I was well aware Harrowfell wasn’t in its prime, but the trustees vastly undersold its condition. The vestibule alone was nearly impassable: plaster hanging in jagged sheets, rain-warped boards sagging beneath my feet, stone fragments scattered like loose teeth across the floor. A once-grand space, reduced to ruin.

Thankfully, I had come prepared: flashlight, gloves, sturdy boots, and a well-fitting dust mask. One doesn’t step into a crumbling castle unarmed, after all.

To my right stretched a corridor, narrow and close, the walls crowded with frames. I could already tell I’d have my work cut out for me, the thought alone quickening my pulse. A conservator’s dream: a trove of neglected canvases, each one a case study in survival, every crack and layer of grime a clue to its past.

Testing each step before committing my weight, I approached a heavy oak door. To its left, a painting caught my attention, and the sweep of my flashlight revealed a landscape of jagged escarpments plunging into darkness. As the light steadied, more details surfaced: a cavernous pit littered with coal-black boulders, every plane modeled with remarkable control of shadow. Between the stones, what I first mistook for twisting weeds resolved into arms—scores of them—straining upward toward the surface.

Quite the macabre subject, though masterfully rendered.

Inside the adjoining room—the library—I could go no farther than the threshold. The floor had collapsed in places, beams yawning like broken ribs. Such a shame, for above the fireplace one canvas remained astonishingly intact: a portrait of young Finneas Thorne himself.

The museum holds a single authenticated painting of Thorne, and I recognized him at once. Strawberry-blond hair swept across his brow, his gaze shadowed, half brooding, half defiant. Byronic in its melancholy. He sat at a table strewn with books, an easel behind him bearing a half-finished version of the very portrait in which he sat.

The doubling effect unsettled me. It was technically clever, yes, but also disorienting, as though Thorne had painted himself into the act of painting, and then abandoned both canvases to watch from the walls.

I retraced my steps to the vestibule, turning this time toward the grand staircase. I did not dare climb it—the banisters leaned, and the treads sighed under the barest touch. From the ground floor, I craned my neck at the fresco soaring across the distant dome above.

Figures swirled upward in concentric rings of fire, each form twisted in torment. It was Dante’s Inferno rendered on a monumental scale—far grander than anything I have seen attempted in this country. Even at such a distance, I could make out bold brushwork, pigments laid down in broad, confident strokes, the colors startlingly vivid despite decades of neglect. My gaze followed the spirals until the whole dome seemed to spin above me, and I felt myself caught in the vortex of their suffering.

That was only the beginning of Dr. Ashcroft’s discoveries. In another entry, she described finding a partial blueprint tucked inside what she believed to be Finneas Thorne’s study. Two of the castle’s rooms were marked with curious names: Salon Nysa and Salon Lethe.

Perhaps you recognize the names?

Look at me, getting ahead of myself again. I’ll share what I uncovered about Nysa and Lethe next week.

Last time​, I told you about the strange newspaper clipping I found hidden under my armchair—the one about the bloody trail and the bootlegging ring? A newspaper clipping that shouldn’t exist.

Here’s the thing about stories like this: you seize a thread, hoping it will guide you out, toward something that makes sense. Instead, it snakes into shadow, doubling back on itself, luring you deeper into the labyrinth.

When I went looking for more about that Dunsmere Gazette article, what I found was chilling.

The sheriff at the time, Sheriff Calloway, concluded that the cave had only recently been commandeered for bootlegging. To be honest, I couldn’t tell if this was just clever PR, a bid at placating the townspeople to save his own ass. People were understandably up in arms that Harrowfell had become a hideout for the mob, right under the sheriff’s nose.

But what didn’t feel staged was Sheriff Conway’s fear.

“I’ve seen what men can do to each other when liquor and guns are involved,” he told the reporter. “I’ve seen bullets tear through bone, knives leave a man in ribbons. But this…this wasn’t like that. The drag marks in the dirt, the blood on the crates, all over the walls—it looked more like an animal had been at them. But I can’t imagine what sort of animal would be big enough to do it, not around here.”

I’m not sure they ever found out what it was, but the hubbub finally jolted the Harrowfell estate trustees out of their self-serving silence. Apparently, though the board had been hired to maintain the sprawling estate and its grounds—grounds that included a walled-in garden, a labyrinth, and the unfortunate cave—they’d let the property fall apart, skimming from the coffers all the while.

Their excuse? Finneas Thorne—son of a coal magnate and the eccentric mind behind Harrowfell Hall—had left behind adamant instructions: not a stone was to be moved, not a hedge trimmed, without consulting the labyrinthine addendum to his will.

For years, the trustees threw up their hands, hiding behind their paper shield while Harrowfell crumbled to ruins. But now, with the townsfolk outraged, the board was cornered. They could stall no longer—someone had to be sent inside.

I would have thought they’d hire a contractor, someone to assess toppled walls and sagging beams. But here’s where the story takes another turn.

Instead, the trustees brought in an art conservator from ​Barton College​, a Dr. Josephine Ashcroft.

The decision shocked the townsfolk. One villager fumed to the Gazette: “It’s disgraceful, sending that young woman up there alone. Shows you what kind of people sit on that board—heartless, every one of them.”

The trustees claimed that they needed Dr. Ashcroft to catalogue Finneas’ Thorne’s extensive art collection to ensure priceless works were protected before attempting major renovations. Thorne was a prolific painter, and apparently there were very few walls in Harrowfell not covered in paintings, many of them depicting nightmarish scenes of winged beings tumbling into pits of fire.

I’d buy their story if the board had shown one iota of concern over the paintings during the 100-odd years when Harrowfell sat empty following Finneas’ disappearance.

I don’t know, I might be biased because they referred to Dr. Ashcroft as “Josie,” even though none of them knew her personally, and her Barton College bio clearly indicated she’s a PhD. If you ask me, it was pure stalling tactic by the board, and given the safety hazards, a particularly unscrupulous one at that.

Well, as it turned out, the joke was on them, because the board underestimated just how thorough Dr. Ashcroft was. While meticulously cataloging Finneas’ paintings, she found something none of them had bargained for.

See you next week.

Last time​, I told you about a dream I had while napping on the couch—the one with the bootleggers, the cave, and the strange hiss in the dark. When I woke, the Harrowfell sketch still beside me, I thought that was the end of it.

I figured I’d been jolted awake by the dream’s unsettling end.

But then I heard music, tinny and staticked, drifting from the next room…

I pushed the afghan aside, listening hard. The music wasn’t in my head. It was real, a faint trumpet, a jaunty beat, like something you’d play at a speakeasy party. Not exactly my usual playlist—and never mind that I hadn’t left anything on.

The sound wafted down the stairs, and I padded soundlessly, skipping over the squeaky fifth tread. Our back room is a guest bedroom that rarely sees guests, a hideaway for extra chairs and a cozy reading nook.

Apparently, I’d left my ipad on the armchair playing what was beginning to feel like the world’s creepiest song.

There, curling beneath the armchair’s ruffled skirt, was a piece of paper, yellowed and brittle looking. I tugged it free, the sheet soft with age, and across the top—The Dunsmere Gazette, a name I recognized immediately. I rocked back on my heels, my throat drier than dirt.

This was the newspaper from The Magician and the Labyrinth of Yesterdays. A newspaper I’d completely made up, for a town that shouldn’t exist.

Dunsmere Gazette

October 11, 1926

Boozy Bloodbath at Harrowfell Hall

Sheriff Calloway was called to the Harrowfell estate late Tuesday night after a local farmer, in pursuit of a wayward cow, came across a truck abandoned near the long drive. The vehicle was heavily laden with crates and stood unattended, its engine cold, the driver nowhere in sight.

What the sheriff found at the old property has the whole town talking. Blood was discovered near the mouth of a cave situated behind Harrowfell Hall, along with drag marks in the dirt. No body has yet been recovered. “The scene suggests someone came to harm,” Calloway told the Gazette, “but until we have more, we can’t say who—or what—we’re dealing with.”

Further investigation revealed dozens of crates hidden in the cave, packed with bottles of liquor. Authorities now believe Harrowfell Hall—long abandoned and rumored haunted—has been serving as a distribution point for a bootlegging operation right under our noses.

The news has sparked indignation among the citizens of Dunsmere. “It’s a disgrace,” declared Mrs. Agnes Whitlow, president of the Ladies’ Temperance Circle. “That such wickedness could be carried on at one of our town’s oldest landmarks—why, it stains the very soul of Dunsmere.” Others called upon Harrowfell’s trustees to “put an end to this shameful business once and for all.”

Next time, we’ll follow the story threads deeper into Harrowfell’s secrets.

At least…I think it’s a story I made up.

Last week, I shared that when I’m working on a book, I need to craft a world I can cozy up and live in for a year.

Sometimes I do that through sketches. I’m not much of a 2D artist (sculpting is more my thing—specifically ​teeny tiny food​), but as long as I capture the basics, the sketch does the trick.

In between the first and second drafts of The Magician and the Labyrinth of Yesterdays, I needed a visual for the setting, Harrowfell Hall. It wasn’t purely for atmosphere; it was also a practical way to map the space, so I could track where characters were wandering as they solved the mystery of the haunting (while engaging in romantic shenanigans, of course).

Well, one afternoon, I left the sketch beside the couch and drifted into a nap. That’s when I had the dream…

Harrowfell rose against a midnight sky, the moon sliced in two by ragged clouds.

A wavering light glimmered beyond the castle, a lantern’s glow at the jagged mouth of a cave. A shadow bent, then resolved into the figure of a man. Eddie Russo, wiry as a whipcord. He stooped to lift a wooden crate, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows despite the night’s chill.

The crate shifted with the musical clink of bottles as he carried it inside, joining his two companions. They worked in the half-dark, voices low and laughter muffled, stacking crates against the cave’s curving wall.

Levi “Lucky” Callahan, his chestnut hair a damp mop, dragged a crate across the floor. His boot clipped a box.

“Watch yourself, Lucky,” Eddie muttered—too late. A bottle tipped and rolled free, glass rattling over the dirt until it spun to a stop deeper in the tunnel, unbroken.

“See? Lucky.” Levi grinned, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. “I’ll fetch it.”

“Nah, I’ve got it,” said Tom Brennan, brushing dust from his trousers with a mechanic’s hands, grease ground into his nails. He stepped into the passage, lantern glow chasing him a few paces before the dark swallowed him whole.

Levi and Eddie bent back to their work, stacking crates, the scrape of wood echoing off stone. A moment passed, then another. No footsteps, no joke from the shadows.

Silence stretched.

“Tom?” Levi called.

Nothing.

“Quit foolin’,” Levi tried, but his voice didn’t carry far.

No answer.

“Aw, c’mon, Tom,” Eddie whined, freeing a cigarette tucked behind his ear, stabbing it between his lips. “Time’s money, and we’re short on both.”

They waited, knowing he’d step back into the glow with that lopsided grin. Only razzin’. But the moment stretched thin, expectation feathering into hope, hope into something sharper.

The black throat of the passage swelled, no longer empty but watchful, waiting.

Levi and Eddie exchanged looks, Eddie’s unlit cigarette dangling limply. Levi raised the lantern, its glow trembling against damp-streaked stone. His knees felt too loose, unreliable, as he took a step toward the tunnel.

Behind him, he sensed Eddie hesitate—the faint scrape of his shoe as though he might hang back. But then he followed, maybe to avoid being left behind as Levi carried off the only lantern.

The tunnel narrowed, heavy with soil and stone. Water dripped in the dark, too loud for Levi’s liking, though it was probably better than silence. Levi thought of calling Tom’s name again, the sound clawing at his throat. He couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Just tonight. He folded the thought tight. His last run, and he’d have Claire and Annie on the Friday train.

Another step. The lantern light licked over rough-hewn walls, deeper shadows yawning between them. The crates, their easy laughter, seemed a lifetime away. He prayed his luck hadn’t worn thin.

That’s when he saw it—a dark shine smeared across stone, an iron tang wrinkling his nose. Drag marks gouged the dirt, trailing right into an inky black hole.

Levi froze, his palms slick on the lantern’s handle. For a coward’s heartbeat, he thought of turning back.

A low rustling in the dark, like Claire’s stiff, pretty skirts when she rose laughing to dance with him. Then a hiss.

Chased by a surge of bile, a strangled sound rose from his throat. Shame might have followed, if fear hadn’t gutted him first, his bowels turning to water. His gaze dropped to a wet, torn lump glistening on the ground. A clotted snarl of hair.

Behind him, Eddie gave a raw heave before staggering sideways, retching in the dark. The scrape of his boots scuffed against stone as he stumbled back the way they’d come.

Levi knew he should stay, should have called out for Tom—oh Jesus, what did it do to him?—should have done something, anything but run like a fucking coward. But terror had left his legs sacks of sand and he had to make them move, no room for courage at all. He was afraid. God help him, he was so afraid.

He threw a glance over his shoulder, nearly stumbled, the lantern jerking wild in his grip. Lucky. Something shifted in the dark, fast as a rattler’s strike. The hiss swelled, filling his ears, and Levi had never run so fast in all his 21 years.

The tunnel stretched endless, walls streaking past, the cave mouth an oval of moon—always there, never nearer, like a dream that traps you in place.

The hiss rose again, so much closer, and for one foolish instant it reminded him of the radiator, ticking and sighing on winter nights, Claire humming in the kitchen, Annie’s soft babbling from her crib.

But that was a sound of home—dear god, will I ever get out of here?

The tunnel widened, Levi stumbling toward the opening—so close—and then, in the lantern’s swing, he saw it: a clotted arc of blood, sprayed across carefully stacked crates. He lurched, the lantern smashing against a jag of rock, glass bursting, the flame doused.

Gravel nipped his palms as he lunged to his feet, and then—air. Glorious, glorious air. Blood thundering in his ears, the hot swell of relief was almost enough to make him retch.

The night was still, impossibly still, just the hammering of his boots on the packed-dirt drive, not even the crickets daring to sing. And there, up ahead, the shadowed bulk of the truck loomed, wooden stake-sides like a fence in the dark. Just a few paces more.

The relief washed through his belly—then pain. White-hot, searing down his spine like liquid fire. Levi’s knees buckled.

Somehow he was staring at the glittering sky.

So much pain, warmth flooding his back all sticky and hot, even as his feet, his hands, everything fell cold, the stars snuffed out, one by one by one.

I jolted awake, the Harrowfell sketch where I’d left it, my legs tangled in the threadbare afghan. The dream murmured under my skin.

Or was it just a dream?