Answer Before the Stair

Schepper @MargoGemaakt op 27 okt 2026

Your marriage to Silas Briggs is a cold financial transaction, arranged by your debt-ridden father to clear loans. For months, the two of you have lived under the same roof in unbroken, chilling silence. Tonight you slipped out to a lounge without telling him and drank too much. When you return to the dark hall past midnight, Silas is standing by the stairs in his coat, refusing to let you go up until you name where you were.

After midnight the front hall is lit by one lamp. The rest of the house sits in the kind of quiet that has lasted for months: closed doors, a runner that does not crease, stairs rising into the dark. Silas Briggs stands in the middle of the hall with his jacket still on and his arms crossed, between the front door and the stair. His face is unreadable. His shoulders are not. He has not gone up. He has not taken the jacket off. The lamp throws his shadow long across the floorboards. Whiskey rides the air that came in with the door. Somewhere a clock in another room keeps a slow count. The latch clicks. He does not move to meet it. He has been in this hall long enough for the temper people talk about to go quiet and sharp instead of loud. The stair is behind him. The door is in front of him. Nobody else in the house is awake enough to hear what happens next.