In the small, fog-draped town of Hollowmere, the annual masquerade ball was a tradition steeped in shadow and whispers. Held in the crumbling husk of the old Haverford Mansion, it drew the curious and the reckless alike. The invitation was always the same: a black envelope slipped under your door, no sender, no RSVP, just a date and a command—“Wear a mask.” Most laughed it off as a quirky local custom, a night of decadence and anonymity. But for Evelyn Crane, it was a chance to escape the monotony of her gray, predictable life.
Evelyn arrived at the mansion just as the clock struck midnight, the air thick with the scent of damp stone and candle wax. The ballroom was a swirl of masked figures—feathers, lace, and porcelain faces twirling under flickering chandeliers. She wore a simple black dress, but her mask was her pride: a delicate piece she’d found in an antique shop days before. It was carved from some pale, unidentifiable wood, smooth as bone, with hollow eyes and a faint, etched smile that seemed to shift when you weren’t looking. The shopkeeper had hesitated before selling it, muttering something about “old things carrying old debts,” but Evelyn had brushed it off. It was perfect.
The night unfolded like a dream. She danced with strangers, their masks glinting in the low light, their voices muffled and strange. The mask felt warm against her skin, snug but comforting, like it belonged there. Hours bled into minutes, and by the time the final waltz ended, the crowd had thinned. Evelyn stumbled to a cracked mirror in the foyer, dizzy from wine and laughter, and reached to remove the mask.
It wouldn’t budge.
Her fingers clawed at the edges, but there were no edges—just smooth, seamless wood blending into her flesh. She tugged harder, panic rising, but the mask held fast. Her reflection stared back, that faint smile now wider, mocking. A sharp pain lanced through her skull, and she swore she heard a whisper, low and guttural, from somewhere deep within her own head: “Mine now.”
She fled the mansion, the fog swallowing her footsteps, and locked herself in her apartment. By morning, the mask still clung to her face. She tried everything—soap, oil, even a kitchen knife—but the wood seemed to tighten with every attempt, her skin stretching painfully beneath it. Her phone buzzed with messages from friends who’d been at the ball, asking why she’d left so suddenly, but she couldn’t face them. Not like this.
Days turned to weeks. Evelyn stopped going outside. The mask was changing her. Her eyes, visible through the hollow sockets, darkened to an unnatural shade, pupils swallowing the irises. Her voice grew raspy, as if something else was speaking through her. She’d catch herself humming a tune she didn’t know, an eerie melody that echoed in the empty rooms. Worse, the mask’s smile grew. It wasn’t just an illusion anymore—the carved mouth stretched wider each day, revealing sharp, splintered teeth that weren’t there before.
She started dreaming of the mansion. In her sleep, she wandered its halls, the walls pulsing like living flesh, the air heavy with the sound of distant laughter. Masked figures watched her from the shadows, their faces blank and eyeless, their hands reaching but never touching. Each night, the dreams grew longer, and she’d wake with dirt under her nails and scratches on her arms, as if she’d been clawing her way out of something—or into it.
Desperate, she researched the mask. Late one night, hunched over her laptop, she found a grainy photo in an obscure forum: the same bone-white mask, worn by a woman in a sepia-toned portrait dated 1893. The caption read, “The Haverford Bride, lost to the ball.” A linked article described a legend—a woman who’d vanished during the first masquerade, her mask supposedly carved from a tree that grew over a forgotten grave. The tree was said to have screamed when cut down, and the mask carried a curse: it chose its wearer, fused with them, and fed on their soul until nothing human remained.
Evelyn slammed the laptop shut, her hands trembling. The mask pulsed against her face, warm and alive. She could feel it now, a heartbeat that wasn’t hers, thudding in time with her own. She ran to the bathroom, staring into the mirror. The carved teeth gleamed, and the hollow eyes seemed to blink. Her reflection moved before she did, tilting its head, raising a hand to wave.
She screamed, smashing the mirror with a lamp. Glass shattered across the floor, but the reflection lingered in every shard, smiling wider, teeth glinting like knives. The voice in her head grew louder, a chorus of whispers now: “Stay with us. Dance with us. Forever.”
Weeks later, Evelyn’s apartment was found empty. The furniture was untouched, the lights still on, but she was gone. Neighbors reported hearing strange music drifting from her windows at night, a haunting waltz that made their skin crawl. The police found no trace of her—except for a single black envelope on her kitchen table, identical to the masquerade invitation, with one word scratched inside: “Mine.”
The next year, at the Haverford Mansion ball, a new figure joined the dance. She wore a black dress and a bone-white mask with a wide, toothy grin. Her movements were graceful but unnatural, her head tilting at odd angles. No one asked her name. No one dared. And when the final waltz ended, she vanished into the fog, leaving behind only the echo of that eerie tune—and a faint, splintered laugh.