Page 55 of The House That Held Her

His casual explanation ignites something hot in my chest—a fury that dwarfs the horror pulsing in my veins. The puzzle pieces click into place. Everything in my life that’s splintered traces back to this house and this man. I hate him with every single fiber of my being.

My voice is harsh with rage. “Why keep pretending? Why hide your identity if Miller and Jenkins already knew you were still here?”

George exhales, stepping toward the window. Rain slants across the glass in silver streaks. “Because I was done. They were all parasites. I dedicated my life to this town, gave everything—just like my father did before me. And once Cecilia was gone, I had no reason to keep playing caretaker.”

He looks at me, eyes narrowing. “I let the business rot, stopped attending their ridiculous events, let them all believe I’d run off or died. Hawthorn Manor and I became one. I stayed here, reading, solving puzzles… waiting for Cece to stir.”

There’s a glint in his gaze that makes me shudder. He returns his attention to the storm outside.

I manage to speak. “Then what? How did we get here?”

George paces slowly, dragging his hand over the carved back of an antique chair. “Andy eventually brought me repossession notices from the bank. My money was finally gone, investments tanked. The town was no longer under my thumb. The house was going up for sale. Even so, no one wanted to buy it—rumors of ghosts, you know.” He smirks, as though the irony amuses him. “They posted realtors on the property. Sometimes I posed as the groundskeeper. Other times, I just waited in the walls, listening. If someone asked too many questions, or threatened the legacy I protected, their name joined the others at Lake Dora. They became part of the offerings that brought the both of us peace.”

My stomach hitches again, a wave of revulsion sinking through me like poison. Tears burn my eyes as the hideous reality finally cements in my brain: he’s responsible for every tragedy, every haunted moment tied to Hawthorn Manor. And Chief Miller’s complicit.

He lets out a quiet chuckle. “Mount Dora thrives on ignorance, Margot. That ignorance is my shield.”

My throat is so tight I can barely speak. I stand there, shaking, tears forging hot paths down my cheeks. George’s confession tears my world apart.

The final question forces itself out. “So… all those missing people, all those years—this is just some twisted cycle of appeasing Cecilia?”

He nods, as though it’s a simple, irrefutable fact.

I feel my stomach flip violently, and I press a trembling hand to my abdomen. Hawthorn Manor looms around me, dark and silent. The truth is a thousand times worse than any theory or ghost story.

Every dark revelation now assembles in my mind like the pieces of a puzzle. The truth is finally laid bare. George had been the puppet master behind every tragedy: the disappearance of Michael Lark, the cover-up by Chief Miller and Jenkins, the twisted pact with Cecilia, and the grotesque rituals of skulls buried by the lake. The Chief of Police was complicit; the town is nothing more than George's twisted playground, and every disappearance led back to this house and the monster who hid within it.

42

The storm outside thrashes at Hawthorn Manor as if it wants to rip the place apart from the foundation up. Thunder booms in waves, vibrating through the floor beneath me, and the wind hurls heavy sheets of rain against the windows, the force rattling them in their frames.

I force in a trembling breath, trying to center myself. My focus returns to George, his face half-lit by the fireplace’s sputtering glow. My mind races with a dozen questions, each one jabbing at me like a knife. But only one forces its way out.

“Why Nate?” My voice sticks in my throat, turning the question rough, almost hoarse. “Why keep him alive this long? Why torment me with all the calls and messages? Why go through all that?”

George’s gaze softens, and I catch a flicker of what looks like remorse crossing his features. Rain patters against the window, but his words drift above the storm, cold and deliberate.

“Nate was meant to be my next offering,” he says, each syllable weighted with chilling finality. “It had been a year and Cecilia was restless again. When you and Nate moved in, everything changed,” George continues, voice tight. “It complicated my usual routine. Harder to move unseen. Trickier to come and go as I needed to. So, instead I waited, and I watched. I watched you both. But he–”George’s tone sharpens with a bitter edge “—treated you like you were a chore. A problem. It reminded me of my mother, the way she belittled me. And something inside me… connected with you. I wanted to protect you, the way I couldn’t protect Amelia.”

I feel my throat tighten as I catch the raw edge of George’s words. His warped sense of devotion nauseates me, twisting my insides.

George’s eyes flick to mine. “Eliminating Nate would give Cecilia what she needed—and I’d save you from him. Redemption, maybe.”

A bitter laugh escapes my lips, barely audible under the storm’s roar. He’s delusional, spinning reality around his guilt and grief.

He shakes his head. “Then you found the map. Moved the chest. That disrupted the entire plan. I couldn’t perform the ritual. Couldn’t do my part to calm Cece. It forced me out of the tunnels, forced me to cover my tracks. And then I realized..." He hesitated, his gaze falling to the floor. "I realized I didn't want you to know. I wanted you to get to know Walter, the groundskeeper. I wanted you to know the man who was just here to help, to be kind, to watch over you. Not the monster my mother forced me to become."

I feel something snap inside me—a bolt of rage that electrifies my veins. I shoot up from my seat, face flush with fury. "You murdered my husband because you wanted a chance at fucking redemption?" I scream, my voice distance, like it’s not even me saying it but someone else. "It wasn't about protecting me, or even satisfying a ghost that literally only exists in your head. It was your obsession to fix what you couldn't with Amelia. It could have been anyone else, and you chose him because you thought you could right the past by protecting me? You murdered him, George. You took away the love of my life."

Before I can stop myself, I reach for the table lamp, swinging it with everything I have. The lamp misses George’s head by an inch, slamming into the floor and exploding into a spray of broken glass, metal, and sparks. A sharp hiss escapes as the bulb shatters and dies, throwing the room into even deeper darkness.

George raises his hands, words tumbling out in a plea. “Margot, please. You have to understand.” His eyes flash with something that might be panic. “I do care about you. I’ve watched you for so long. I saw how you’d cry yourself to sleep, how your shoulders shook under the weight of everything that followed you from Maryland. After you’d fall asleep, I’d sit by your bed… talk to you… stroke your hair.”

The impact of his confession is like ice water spilling down my spine. I can feel the blood drain from my face, a clammy dread settling over my skin.

“You’ve sensed it,” he murmurs. “The glimpses in the dark, the whispers at night. Cecilia haunts these halls when she’s lonely—she’s real, and you felt her, too. But I was there, always, keeping you safe from everything else. Nate… he was unworthy. Removing him was mercy. You don’t see that yet, but you will.”

I clamp a hand over my mouth, fighting a wave of nausea. My eyes dart around the dim room, searching for an escape route, a weapon,anything. I realize now that every flicker of paranoia, every unexplained noise I dismissed as grief or madness, even the nightmare of the tub in the basement—it was him. George had inserted himself into my life in a thousand subtle ways and influenced the very way in which I thought.

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