The phone ringing in the apartment caught Elliott Row by the stove. An omelet was frying in the pan, filling the kitchen with the aroma of garlic and melted butter. He wiped his hands on a towel and cast an irritated glance at the screen — the number was unknown.
“Hello?” he answered shortly, continuing to watch the dish.
“Mr. Row, this is your family’s notary. You need to come to me tomorrow morning. There is an inheritance matter. You need to sign some documents.”
Elliott hesitated. His parents were alive and well, so from whom could he have inherited anything? He didn’t even ask questions — just silently nodded as if the caller could see him, and hung up.
The next morning was cloudy and foggy. As Elliott drove through the city, his mild confusion gradually turned into annoyance. The notary was already waiting for him at the office entrance.
“Come in, Elliott. I understand this all sounds strange. But if it were something ordinary, I wouldn’t disturb you on a day off.”
The office was empty. Usually, there was a busy bustle here, but now only the echo of footsteps on the wooden floor disturbed the silence. Elliott sat down on a chair opposite the desk, folding his arms.
“This concerns your uncle — Walter Jonas.”
“I don’t have an uncle named Walter,” Elliott immediately objected.
“Nevertheless, he bequeathed you all his property.” The notary carefully placed an old key, a yellowed map, and a sheet of paper with an address in front of him. “A mansion on the water. It now belongs to you.”
“Excuse me… Are you serious?”
“The house is located in the middle of Lake Konamah, in central Connecticut.”
Elliott took the key. It was heavy, covered with a faded pattern. He had never heard of the man or the place. Yet something inside him clicked — that moment when curiosity overcomes common sense.
An hour later, his backpack held a couple of T-shirts, a bottle of water, and some food. According to the GPS, the lake was only forty minutes from his home. This only increased his interest: how could he not know such a place was so close?
When the road ended, a lake spread out before him — gloomy, still, like a mirror. In its middle stood a house — huge, dark, as if it had grown straight from the water.
Old men with coffee mugs sat on the terrace of a café by the water. Elliott approached them.
“Excuse me,” he began, “this house on the lake… do you know who used to live there?”
One of the men slowly set down his cup.
“We don’t talk about that place. We don’t go there. It was supposed to disappear many years ago.”
“But someone lived there, right?”
“We’ve never seen anyone on the shore. Never. Only at night we hear the rustle of boats. Someone restocks supplies, but we don’t know who. And we don’t want to know.”
At the pier, he noticed a faded sign: “June’s Boats.” Inside, a woman with a tired face met him.
“I need a boat to that house in the middle of the lake,” Elliott said, handing over the key. “I inherited it.”
“No one goes there,” she answered coldly. “The place scares many people. Me too.”
But Elliott didn’t back down. His words grew more insistent until she finally agreed.
“All right. I’ll take you. But I won’t wait. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
The house towered over the water like a forgotten fortress. The wooden pier creaked beneath his feet. June carefully tied the boat to the dock.
“We’ve arrived,” she muttered.
Elliott stepped onto the shaky platform and wanted to thank her, but the boat was already pulling away.
“Good luck! I hope you’ll be here waiting for me tomorrow,” she shouted and disappeared into the fog.
Now he was alone.
His hand reached for the lock. The key turned easily. There was a dull click, and the door slowly creaked open.
Inside it smelled of dust, yet surprisingly fresh. Large windows, thick curtains, and many portraits. One caught his attention especially — a man by the lake with the very house towering behind him. The caption read: “Walter Jonas, 1964.”
In the library, the walls were lined with books marked with notes in the margins. In the corner study stood a telescope and neat stacks of notebooks — observation and weather records, the latest dated last month.
“What was he looking for?” Elliott whispered.
In the bedroom — dozens of stopped clocks. On the dresser — a locket. Inside — a photo of a baby with the inscription: “Row.”
“Was he watching me? My family?..”
On the mirror hung a note: “Time reveals what seemed long forgotten.”
In the attic lay boxes with newspaper clippings. One was circled in red: “Boy from Middletown disappeared. Found a few days later unharmed.” The year — 1997. Elliott paled. That was him.
In the dining room, one chair was pushed back. On it lay his school photo.
“This is no longer just strange…” he muttered, feeling noise and confusion in his head.
His stomach twisted with anxiety. He quickly ate some canned food found in an old buffet and silently went up to one of the guest rooms. The sheets were clean as if waiting for someone long ago. Outside the window, the lake caught the pale moonlight, and the house seemed alive — it breathed with the water’s surface.
But sleep did not come. Too many questions. Who was Walter Jonas? Why had no one heard of him? Why had his parents never mentioned any brother? And why this mysterious obsession with himself?
When Elliott finally fell into a restless sleep, true darkness had already settled in the house — the kind where the creak of floorboards sounds like footsteps, and a shadow on the wall feels like a living being.
A sharp metallic clang cut through the silence. He sat up sharply in bed. A second sound — as if a massive door downstairs had swung open. Elliott grabbed his phone — no signal. Only his own tense eyes reflected on the screen.
He took a flashlight and stepped into the corridor.
Shadows grew thicker, almost tangible. Every step echoed with a dull fear inside. In the library, books shifted slightly as if just touched. The door to the study remained open. Cold air drew from behind a tapestry on the wall, which Elliott hadn’t noticed before.
He pulled back the fabric — behind it was a heavy iron door.
“Not this,” he whispered, but his fingers instinctively touched the cold handle.
The door gave way with effort. Behind it began a spiral staircase leading down beneath the house, under the water. With each step, the air grew damper, thicker, filled with the smell of salt, metal, and something ancient, as if entering history.
Below stretched a long corridor filled with cabinets and drawers. Labels read: “Genealogy,” “Correspondence,” “Expeditions.”
One drawer was marked: “Row.”
Elliott pulled it out with a trembling hand. Inside lay letters. All addressed to his father.
“I tried. Why do you remain silent? This is important for him. For Elliott…”
“So he didn’t disappear. He wrote. He wanted to know me,” Elliott whispered.
At the end of the corridor was another massive door labeled: “Authorized personnel only. Jonas Archive.” It had no handle — only a palm scanner. A note stuck beside it: “For Elliott Row. Only for him.”
He placed his palm.
Click. The room gently lit up. A projector came to life, and on the wall appeared the silhouette of a man.
Gray hair, tired eyes. He looked straight at Elliott.
“Hello, Elliott. If you see this, it means I am no longer here.”
The man introduced himself: Walter Jonas.
“I… am your real father. You shouldn’t have found out this way, but I’m afraid your mother and I made many mistakes. We were scientists obsessed with survival, climate, protecting humanity. She died giving birth. 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 you. From here. From the house on the lake. From afar.”
Elliott sank onto a bench, feeling numb.
“It was you… all this time…”
The voice in the recording trembled:
“I was afraid to break you, but you became a strong, kind person — better than I could have imagined. Now this house belongs to you, as part of your journey, as a chance. Forgive me: for silence, for cowardice, for being near but never truly present.”
The image went dark.
Elliott didn’t know how long he sat in the dark. Then he slowly got up, as if in a dream, and returned upstairs. By dawn, June was already waiting for him at the dock. Seeing him, she frowned:
“Are you okay?”
“Now I am,” he answered quietly. “I just had to understand.”
He went home to talk with his parents. They listened silently, not interrupting. Then they hugged him.
“Forgive us,” whispered his mother. “We thought it would be better this way.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I know it wasn’t easy.”
That night Elliott lay in his bed. The ceiling remained the same. But everything around now seemed different.
A few weeks later, he returned to the lake again. Not to live there, but to restore it. A Center for Climate and History Studies opened in the house. Children ran through the halls, neighbors came with smiles. The house was no longer a refuge of secrets and ghosts. It had become a place of life once more.
