The sun rose slowly over Ashmoor, its light dull and pale, like a memory of warmth rather than the real thing. Clara stood at the edge of the well, her bandaged hand trembling slightly as she stared down at the cold stone seal. It looked just as it always had—cracked, moss-covered, unremarkable.
But she knew better.
The whispers had stopped, for now. But the silence felt… strained. Like the forest was holding its breath.
She turned and walked back toward the house, her boots crunching over the frost-covered grass. Evan was waiting for her at the door, worry etched deep into his face. His eyes scanned her as if checking whether she had returned whole—or if something else had come back in her place.
"Are you okay?" he asked quietly.
Clara nodded, though the word "okay" felt like a foreign language.
"Did it… work?"
"For now," she replied. "But I saw what's down there, Evan. And I don't think it's done with us."
They sat in silence in the old kitchen, the kettle whistling weakly over the gas stove. Everything felt too normal—like the world was pretending nothing had happened. As if the horror from last night had just been a bad dream. But her sore hand, the blood on her jacket, and the book sitting ominously on the table told another story.
She opened the book again.
Its pages had changed.
Where once there were drawings and scrawlings, there were now diagrams she hadn't seen before. A map of the forest. A sketch of her house. A strange symbol marked the hill behind the barn—a place she hadn't explored yet.
"What is that?" Evan asked, leaning over.
"I think it's a warning," Clara said. "Or an invitation."
Evan looked pale. "You're not seriously going to check it out, are you?"
"I don't think I have a choice. The book is reacting to me now. It's like… it's not finished telling the story."
She stood, tucking the book under her arm and slipping the dagger into her coat.
"You coming?"
Evan groaned. "You're relentless."
"I'm alive," Clara replied with a dry smile. "That's something."
Together, they walked toward the hill behind the barn. The fog hadn't lifted completely, and the air smelled of wet earth and something metallic. The trees here were older, their bark blackened as if scorched by fire long ago. Birds were absent. The only sound was their footsteps and the occasional creak of old branches overhead.
They reached the symbol marked in the book.
A stone archway.
It was crumbling, half-buried in the soil and roots, but unmistakable. Runes identical to those in the book glowed faintly across the top. And in its center… a door.
Iron-bound. Locked. Waiting.
Clara reached out, brushing the runes. Her pendant pulsed beneath her shirt.
Behind the door, something shifted.
The whispers were back—soft, like breath on her neck.
Evan stepped back. "Clara, maybe we should—"
The book in her hand flipped open by itself.
A page tore free.
She caught it before the wind could take it away. On it was a message written in blood-red ink.
"Sins of the mother. Echoes in the blood."
Clara stared at it, cold creeping into her spine.
"What does it mean?" Evan asked.
"It means this didn't start with me," she said. "My family—this town—someone made a deal. And I think we're just starting to uncover the cost."
The stone beneath her feet trembled—just slightly, but enough to know they were being watched.
The door pulsed once.
Then went still.
Clara folded the page and slipped it into her coat.
"Let's go," she said. "Before something decides it wants us to stay."
They walked back down the hill, but Clara didn't look behind her. She didn't need to.
The whispers were following her now.
And they were growing louder.