The phone buzzed in the flat just as Oliver Dawson was flipping an omelette at the stove. The scent of butter and a hint of garlic filled the air. He wiped his hands on a tea towel and scowled at the screenunknown number.
“Hello?” he said curtly, keeping one eye on the pan.
“Mr. Dawson, this is your family solicitor. Youll need to pop in tomorrow morning. Theres an inheritance mattera few papers to sign.”
Oliver frowned. His parents were alive and well in Bournemouth, so who on earth had left him anything? He didnt bother askingjust gave a vague grunt and hung up.
The next morning was grey and drizzly. As Oliver drove through London, his mild bewilderment soured into irritation. The solicitor, a man in a tweed jacket, was waiting at the office door.
“Come in, Oliver. I know this is a bit odd. But if it were straightforward, I wouldnt have dragged you here on a Saturday.”
The office was eerily quiet, just the creak of floorboards underfoot. Oliver dropped into a chair, arms crossed.
“This concerns your uncleArthur Whitmore.”
“I dont have an uncle named Arthur,” Oliver said flatly.
“Be that as it may, hes left you everything.” The solicitor slid an old key, a yellowed map, and an address across the desk. “A house on the water. Yours now.”
“Sorryare you having me on?”
“Its situated in the middle of Lake Windermere, in the Lake District.”
Oliver picked up the key. It was weighty, etched with faded scrollwork. Hed never heard of the man or the place. Yet something tugged at himthat reckless itch of curiosity.
An hour later, his rucksack held a jumper, a flask of tea, and a packet of biscuits. According to his satnav, the lake was barely an hour away. How had he never known about this?
When the road petered out, the lake lay before himstill and slate-grey. And there, in the middle, stood the houselooming, dark, as if it had sprouted from the water itself.
A gaggle of old-timers sipped tea outside a lakeside café. Oliver approached them.
“Excuse methat house out there. Anyone know who lived in it?”
One man set down his cup with deliberate slowness.
“We dont speak of that place. Dont go near it. Shouldve been gone years ago.”
“But someone mustve lived there?”
“Never saw a soul come or go. Only heard boats at night. Supplies delivered, but no one knows by whom. And we dont care to ask.”
At the jetty, a weather-beaten sign read “Maggies Boats.” Inside, a woman with a no-nonsense expression eyed him.
“I need a ride to that house,” Oliver said, holding up the key. “Its mine now.”
“No one goes there,” she said flatly. “Frightens folks. Frightens me.”
But Oliver pressed until she relented.
“Fine. Ill take you. But Im not waiting. Back tomorrow.”
The house rose from the water like a relic. The dock groaned underfoot as Maggie tied up.
“Here you are,” she muttered.
Oliver stepped onto the planks, but she was already untying the rope.
“Good luck. Hope youre here in the morning,” she called, vanishing into the mist.
Now he was alone.
The key turned smoothly. The door swung open with a sigh. Inside smelled of dust and faintly of bergamot. Tall windows, heavy drapes, and portraits everywhere. One caught his eyea man by the lake, the house behind him. The inscription: “Arthur Whitmore, 1964.”
The library walls were lined with books, margins scrawled with notes. A desk held a telescope and stacks of weather journals, the last entry dated weeks ago.
“What was he watching?” Oliver murmured.
The bedroom held a dozen stopped clocks. On the dressera locket. Inside, a babys photo: “Dawson.”
“Was he keeping tabs on me?”
A note on the mirror read: “Time unearths what was buried.”
The attic was crammed with boxes of clippings. One circled in red: “Boy from Canterbury vanishes, found unharmed.” 1997. Oliver went cold. That was him.
In the dining room, one chair was pulled out. On ithis school photo.
“This is beyond odd,” he muttered, pulse thudding in his ears.
He wolfed down some tinned soup from the pantry and retreated to a guest room. The sheets were crisp, as if waiting. Moonlight glinted on the lake, and the house seemed to breathe with the water.
Sleep wouldnt come. Too many questions. Who was Arthur Whitmore? Why had no one mentioned him? And why this eerie fixation on him?
When he finally dozed off, the house grew darkerthe sort where floorboards creak like footsteps and shadows seem to stir.
A metallic clang jolted him awake. Then anotherlike a door slamming below. He grabbed his phoneno signal. Just his own wide-eyed reflection.
Flashlight in hand, he crept into the hall.
Shadows thickened. The library books looked disturbed. The study door stood ajar. A cold draught seeped from behind a tapestry.
He pulled it asidean iron door.
“Brilliant,” he muttered, but his hand moved anyway.
The door groaned open. A spiral stair led down beneath the lake. The air grew damp, tinged with salt and something old.
Below stretched a hall of filing cabinets. Labels: “Genealogy,” “Letters,” “Expeditions.” One drawer read: “Dawson.”
Insideletters to his father.
“I tried. Why wont you reply? This mattersfor Oliver”
“So he didnt vanish. He wrote. He wanted to know me,” Oliver whispered.
At the halls end, another door: “Whitmore Archives. Authorised Personnel Only.” No handlejust a palm scanner. A note beside it: “For Oliver Dawson. Only him.”
He pressed his hand.
Click. Light bloomed. A projector whirred, casting a mans silhouette on the wall.
Grey hair, weary eyes. He looked straight at Oliver.
“Hello, Oliver. If youre seeing this, Im gone.”
The man introduced himself: Arthur Whitmore.
“Im your real father. Your mother and I we made mistakes. Scientists, obsessed with saving the world. She died bringing you into it. And II 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 afar.”
Oliver sank onto a bench, numb.
“It was you all along”
The recording trembled:
“I didnt want to ruin you, but youve turned out better than I dared hope. The house is yours nowa second chance. Forgive me. For staying away. For being too much a coward to step closer.”
The screen went dark.
Oliver didnt know how long he sat there. Eventually, he trudged upstairs. At dawn, Maggie waited at the dock.
“You alright?” she asked, eyeing him.
“I am now,” he said softly. “Just needed answers.”
He went home. His parents listened in silence, then pulled him into a hug.
“Forgive us,” his mum whispered. “We thought it best.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I know it wasnt easy.”
That night, Oliver lay in bed. The ceiling was the same. Everything else felt different.
Weeks later, he returned to the lakenot to live, but to rebuild. The house became the Whitmore Centre for Climate Studies. Kids dashed through the halls, locals dropped by for tea. No more secrets. Just life, loud and warm, where shadows used to linger.
