Every morning, she would stand on the roof, look down at me, and warn me, “Don't trust anyone in that house…”
October in Maine brought a biting cold and streaks of gray fog from the Atlantic Ocean encroaching on the mainland. I was Evelyn, a private nurse recently hired to care for Silas Blackwood, the head of the wealthy but notorious Blackwood family.
Blackwood Manor was an old Gothic structure, standing alone on a hill overlooking the coastal town. From the first day I arrived, I felt a chill run down my spine. The house had too many corridors, too many locked doors, and portraits of ancestors staring blankly at visitors.
But the strangest thing wasn't inside the house. It was on the opposite side, on the corrugated iron roof of the former staff quarters.
Every morning, precisely at 6 o'clock, when I opened my window to let in the cool air, I would see her. It was Martha, Silas's first wife, whom the family said had completely lost her mind. She stood precariously on the roof, her white dress fluttering in the sea breeze. She didn't look at the sea, nor at the fog. She only stared down at me, her lips moving, repeating a sentence I could only decipher from her mouth movements:
“Don't trust anyone in that house.”
The Blackwood family consisted of three: Silas – the dying man in his sickbed; Julian – the handsome youngest son with a somber gaze; and Clarisse – the young, beautiful second wife, always with a perfect smile but whose hands trembled constantly.
“Ignore Martha,” Clarisse said to me when she saw me looking out the window on Tuesday morning. “She developed schizophrenia after the death of her firstborn daughter 20 years ago. She likes climbing onto the roof because she thinks it's a lifeboat deck. Poor thing.”
But something was wrong. Silas, my patient, though unable to speak, would have his heart rate spike on the monitor whenever Julian or Clarisse entered the room. His eyes would glaze over, filled with terror.
Every morning, Martha's warning from the roof echoed in my head like a chilling melody. “Don't trust anyone…” Why would a madwoman choose that one phrase to repeat every day? Why did she look at me with such a chillingly clear gaze?
On Thursday morning, the fog was so thick I couldn't see Martha's figure on the roof. However, when I went down to the kitchen to get Silas's tea tray, I found a small piece of paper tucked under the coaster.
The handwriting was shaky and broken: “They're not treating him. They're completing his death. Check the blue vial.”
I hid the note in my pocket, my heart pounding. The blue vial was the heart medication Clarisse gave me every night to inject Silas. I'd been doing this for the past two weeks.
That night, instead of injecting the medication, I secretly siphoned some of the solution into a small vial and hid it. Late at night, I used the basic chemical testing kit I always carried to check the potassium level. The result nearly brought me to my knees: Five times the permissible level. This wasn't medicine. This was a slow-acting poison, a drug that even forensic experts could easily overlook without careful examination.
I looked up at the window. Far away on the roof, Martha's white figure still stood there, motionless like a statue guarding the place.
Chapter 4: A Midnight Conversation
I couldn't bear it any longer. At midnight, I slipped out of the mansion, across the dew-soaked lawn to the outbuilding. I climbed the fire escape and met Martha right on the roof.
She wasn't insane. When she faced me, her eyes were as sharp as a knife.
“You're finally listening,” Martha whispered, her voice hoarse from years of not speaking to anyone.
“Why are you here? Why didn't you call the police?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“The police in this town are in the Blackwoods' pocket,” Martha said with a bitter laugh. “Twenty years ago, my daughter discovered that Clarisse and Julian weren't actually stepmother and stepson. They were lovers who had long planned to infiltrate this family. They pushed my daughter off this very roof. They locked me up, injected me with drugs every day to make me look like a crazy old woman. I only pretended to survive, waiting for someone like you to appear.”
Martha gripped my hand tightly: “Evelyn, you are Silas's only hope. They're about to finalize their will. Once Silas signs it, he won't live past tonight.”
Chapter 5: The Night the Masks Fall
I returned to the mansion, my head spinning. As soon as I entered Silas's room, I saw Julian and Clarisse standing there. On the table was a stack of documents.
“Where have you been at this hour, Evelyn?” Julian asked, his voice sweet but cold. He stepped closer, his hand tracing the syringe I had left on the table.
“I… I was just taking a walk,” I tried to calm myself.
“You were strolling on the rooftop with a crazy old woman?” Clarisse laughed, her perfect smile now looking like a crack in a porcelain mask. “We saw you on security camera, Evelyn. We should have…”
“She just needs to do her job as a nurse well and collect the huge bonus.”
Julian stepped forward, cornering me against the wall. “Silas has already signed his will. And unfortunately, his nurse, under immense pressure, accidentally gave the wrong medication to a patient and then committed suicide.” “A sad but fitting ending for the press, what do you think?”
Just as Julian was about to lunge at me, a loud bang came from the window.
Martha. She had jumped from the opposite roof onto Silas's balcony. With a heavy brass candlestick in her hand, she smashed the glass and stormed in like a whirlwind. The sudden appearance of the “madwoman” startled Julian, causing him to recoil.
Chapter 6: The Dawn of Truth
During the melee, I managed to press the red alert button, directly connecting to the national security company that Silas had secretly installed before falling ill – a secret whose emergency code was known only to his attending nurse.
When the police from the port city (who were not under the Blackwood family's control) arrived, they found Julian and Clarisse being held captive by Martha with an old dagger. Silas was still alive, tears streaming down his motionless face.
The blue vial was sent for testing. The fake will. The property was confiscated. Julian and Clarisse were arrested on the spot.
The next morning, the sun rose high, dispelling the gloomy fog of Maine. I stood on the lawn, looking up at the outbuilding. Martha was no longer there. She was sitting by Silas's bedside, holding the hand of her long-estranged husband.
She looked down at me through the window, this time without uttering any warning. She simply smiled and nodded.
I realized that, in a house filled with sane but devilish individuals, the “madwoman” on the outbuilding was the sanest of all. Her morning admonition not only saved Silas's life, but also saved my soul from becoming an accomplice to crime.
Blackwood House still stood there, but the darkness had vanished. Sometimes, to see the truth, you must not look at what is displayed before your eyes, but look up, where forgotten souls silently guard the place. Reason.
💡 Lesson from the story
The truth is often hidden in the places we least expect it, and those considered “abnormal” by society are sometimes the ones who see through the true nature of the world the most. Never ignore your intuition and never underestimate the warning of someone who has experienced profound pain. Trust is a precious gift; don't give it to just anyone because they appear perfect.