The timing couldn't have been better. Claudia was more than ready to leave the big city and all of its confusing and painful memories. After all, she had always been a small city kind of girl. She only moved to a bigger city to get a better job.

However, now that she had lost that one job for which she sacrificed everything, Claudia was more than ready to move to the small town of an unusual name. Bian always had strange energy to it. Thus, it would have never been Claudia's first choice. Yet, because Martin, her grand-uncle, had left her his old house, she thought it would be good to give Bian a chance.

"Is this it?" Claudia asked Jerome, who seemed to be the only taxi driver in the town.

From the layers of dust covering the car seats, Claudia guessed that even he didn't have much to do in the sleepy town of Bian.

"She might be a bit dusty, but underneath it all, she has some great bones," Jerome said.

He was far too friendly for Claudia's taste, but she guessed that was another thing about small towns that she would have to get used to if she wanted to finally plant her roots somewhere.

"If you say so," Claudia said, looking at the imposing structure.

It was a large house that could have been beautiful once. Now, it resembled an old lady with a curved back whose clothes had become ragged, having no strength left to fix them up. Evem worse were the vines choking the house, covering almost all the windows.

Claudia could already imagine how damp and dark it would be inside. It made her shiver in anticipation. Still, she never lost her determination.

"I guess once I finish with all the renovation and interior decorating, it will be as good as new," Claudia said as she distractedly counted the money for the ride.

"You are planning to renovate the Dark Lady?" Jerome asked, his voice going squeaky at the end.

"Yes, of course. You don't expect me to live in such a house! It's a health hazard," Claudia said.

However, Claudia failed to mention the real reason, that she hoped it would keep her distracted. That way, she might avoid thinking about everything that happened to her in the past year. She wished, more than anything, to forget what she once considered a perfect job, a faithless lover, and false friends who turned their backs on her when she needed them the most.

"Well, good luck to you," Jerome said in a strange voice that felt more like pity than anything else.

As she exited the taxi, Claudia thought she heard something else, but she discarded it as it made no sense.

"She will not like that," Jerome quietly whispered before driving off in a hurry to see what the others would think of the unexpected development.

The second Claudia entered the dark house, a shiver ran down her spine as a strange feeling settled over her. It was something that she had never felt before, something old and primal.

Terror.

It was as if the house was watching her, and it wasn't liking what it saw. Claudia knew that was impossible and struggled to go past that feeling. However, a part of her was screaming for her to run. There were other small towns she could settle in. It didn't have to be this one.

But the thing was that it did. It had to be that precise town, that house even. Something had been driving her towards it since the lawyers showed her its less than a flattering picture. Her home was calling to her, and she wasn't willing to allow some odd impression to stop her from making the old house into her new home.

It would be a home filled with warmth and love. Something which the big city failed to provide her with. It was something she craved the most.

Lost in her struggles to shake away the bad feelings that crowded her chest, Claudia let out a small screech when the loud shriek of her phone rudely penetrated the somber mood of the house.

"Hello," she said after taking a few deep breaths to calm down.

"Hi, this is Dereck," the booming male voice on the other end said.

A long silence followed his words in which Claudia tried to gather her wits and figure out who he was. Claudia knew that the name sounded familiar, that she should know who he was, yet, she couldn't remember.

The atmosphere in the house, combined with her own confused thoughts, had made her mind sluggish. Thus, she failed to gather clues from her mind's chattering mess.

"Ahem, we spoke on the phone yesterday about the Dark Lady renovations?" Dereck said helpfully.

"Oh, yes, I apologize. I've been so busy and tired from the trip that your name slipped my mind for a second. Are you still starting the assessment tomorrow?" Claudia asked, trying to sound firm and businesslike.

She needed to do everything by herself. The last time she relied on someone else's help, it all ended in disaster. The problem was that the men she had to communicate with to arrange everything never took her seriously. So, she did her best to keep up her tough-guy exterior to get the job done, even though she winced every time the floorboards creaked as she stepped on them.

As a matter of fact, Dereck was the only contractor in town who had taken her seriously enough to agree to do the estimate. He probably accepted because he was excited about the project itself. He didn't care if it was brought to him by a woman or a man.

"Yes, of course. I just wanted to warn you that you might get some opposition about renovating that particular house," Dereck said.

"What do you mean?" Claudia asked, remembering how shifty the taxi driver became when she told him about the renovations.

"Well, I mentioned my project to my construction friends, and they started acting really strange, even trying to convince me not to do it. Of course, I ignored them, but I thought you should know," Dereck said.

"Why would they care either way?" Claudia asked.

"Apparently, the locals believe the house is haunted. That it would anger the resident ghost, the Dark Lady," Dereck said dismissively.

"I don't believe in ghosts, so I don't care what the locals say. I am renovating this house. It needs it badly," Claudia said firmly.

"Of course, I agree. I saw it a couple of times from a distance. It definitely needs a lot of work," Dereck said conversationally.

A loud bang made Claudia jump and almost drop her phone as a cold current wrapped around her feet.

"Listen, I have to go," Claudia said, looking frantically around. "See you tomorrow."

"See you," Dereck said.

Claudia proceeded to meticulously check the house, but since nothing seemed out of place, she decided she'd better go to sleep, attributing it all to her tiredness.

However, in the middle of the night, Claudia was woken up by the low whispering of voices. They sounded dark and threatening. At first, Claudia believed them to be a part of a nightmare she couldn't shake off. However, when she went into the bathroom and turned on the bright light, and they were still there, she started to wonder.

Unsure of the best course of action, Claudia splashed some water on her face hoping its coolness might bring her back to her senses.

When she raised her head again, she noticed something strange in the mirror. There was a flicker of a dark silhouette emerging from its reflective depths.

At first, it was just a barely distinguishable shape. Yet, as it got closer, Claudia could distinguish a woman dressed in an old-fashioned black dress. Her face was covered with a dark veil, making her seem eerier.

It seemed like she was going towards Claudia on a narrow road inside the mirror.

Stunned, Claudia wasn't sure if she was still dreaming or if the creepy approach was part of her reality. One thing was for sure, whatever it was, it didn't come in peace.

The voices that had woken Claudia up had stopped, and the only thing she could hear now was a menacing voice that she knew was coming from the woman in the mirror.

"You will not renovate this house. You will not change one thing about it. As a matter of fact, you will leave with the first rays of sunlight," the apparition said with authority.

"Are you a ghost?" Claudia managed to say before her voice betrayed her.

"What I am is the mistress of this house, and no puny girl will change my domain. I will not allow it," the voice said. "Dark Lady is me, and I am the Dark Lady. No one will take away my home from me."

Wetting her lips multiple times and taking a few steps back from the mirror, Claudia tried to mouth something. However, she didn't have enough strength to voice anything.

Finally, after taking a deep breath, she managed to get enough control of her faculties to speak again.

"I don't mean to take this house from you. I just want to make it better," Claudia said shyly, unsure if she really was talking back to a ghost and wondering how stupid that was.

"You can't make it better! It's just perfect the way it is," Dark Lady yelled in Claudia's mind. "It has been this way for three hundred years, and it shall stay that way!"

As she screamed the last part with all her might, the mirror started cracking to Claudia's utter horror. It was so shocking that she didn't notice another thing that happened almost simultaneously.

Her nose started bleeding as tiny drops of blood stained the grey tiles that were once white. With every drop of blood spilled, the Dark Lady's strength increased. It increased so much that after a few seconds, her long fingernails started peeking out of the mirror, searching for leverage. Once they found it, her hands broke through the mirror, increasing the cracks until they were big enough for her head to go through.

Only then was Claudia fully hit with the enormity of what was happening. Thus, she started screaming so loudly that the veins on her neck popped out so much that they seemed ready to burst out.

However, before that could occur, something even worse for Claudia happened. As the Dark Lady managed to pull herself out of the world on the other side of the mirror, she flew her dark energy directly into Claudia's wide-open mouth.

As soon as all the smoke was in Claudia, her eyes darkened, and the screaming stopped immediately. The posture of the body changed. Gone was Claudia's insecure stance and slightly curved back. In its place was a perfect stature with a straight back which was a marking of a lady.

"Now, we'll see who takes whose home," Dark Lady said as she blinked Claudia's eyes and started gaining control of her body. "I might even have fun taking this human shell of yours, your only true home, for a ride."

"No, please," a small whisper in the back of her head said.