The next morning, the lingering chill of the ledger’s message still clung to me. I tried to focus on the numbers, but my mind kept drifting to Rivertown, to the possibility of a town under some kind of spell. Silas, seeing my continued distraction, approached me while I was preparing breakfast. His eyes held a knowing look.
“There’s a new face in town,” he commented, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “A reporter. Elara Vance.”
My stomach tightened. A reporter. The last thing I needed was more scrutiny, more headlines. My name was already mud. “What’s she here for?” I asked, trying to sound casual, but my voice wavered slightly.
Silas stirred his coffee slowly. “Not for you, not directly, anyway. She’s asking about the dry fields. The strange behavior of the animals.”
He gestured vaguely towards the window, towards the distant fields and woods. I knew what he meant. Even out here, away from the core of Rivertown, I’d noticed things. The usually vibrant green of some pastures had an unhealthy, yellowish tint. The wild rabbits I occasionally saw scurrying across the yard seemed agitated, twitching their noses constantly, as if sensing an unseen threat.
“The fields?” I pressed, a flicker of curiosity momentarily overriding my fear. “What about them?”
“Farmer McGregor lost half his corn crop last month, despite plenty of rain,” Silas explained. “Said it just… withered. Like a curse. And old man Peterson’s cattle have been acting up, stampeding for no reason, breaking fences. Never seen anything like it.”
He watched me, his gaze piercing. “This reporter, Vance, she’s been asking about patterns. About which farms are affected. And she keeps coming back to the properties Croft has an interest in.”
A cold dread seeped into me. Croft. Again. The dry fields, the wild animals, the messages on the ledgers, the inexplicable hatred in Rivertown. It was all connected, forming a grotesque tapestry. Elara Vance wasn’t here to dig up dirt on me, but she was unwittingly circling the same malevolent force that had ruined my life. The universe, it seemed, was determined to expose Arthur Croft, even if it had to use a skeptical journalist and spectral messages to do it.
Later that week, I had to make a brief trip into town for supplies. Silas insisted I take his old pickup truck, a rusty but reliable beast, and keep a low profile. Rivertown felt different now, even through the truck’s dusty windows. The vibrancy seemed muted, the colors a little duller. People still averted their eyes, though the expressions were more wary now than outright disgusted. The sheer irrationality of their collective behavior still stung.
As I pulled up to Mildred Finch’s general store, I saw her. A woman with sharp, intelligent eyes, a notepad in her hand, talking animatedly to Mildred. Elara Vance. Her presence was like a jolt, a physical manifestation of the spreading unease. I kept my head down, grabbing a basket and heading inside, hoping to be invisible.
Mildred, usually a fount of gossip, clammed up the moment I entered. She gave me a tight, uncomfortable smile, her eyes darting between me and Elara, who was now looking over at me with a professional, assessing gaze.
“Just need some flour and eggs, Mildred,” I murmured, trying to keep my voice steady.
Elara Vance, however, wasn’t one to let an opportunity slip by. She turned fully towards me, her notepad still clutched in her hand. “Eliza Beaumont, isn’t it?” she asked, her tone neutral, but her eyes were already dissecting me.
My shoulders tensed. “That’s right.”
“I’m Elara Vance, from the *Rivertown Chronicle*,” she introduced herself, though I already knew. “I’m investigating some… unusual occurrences around town. Heard you might have had a run-in with Arthur Croft recently.”
Mildred Finch shifted nervously behind the counter, clearing her throat. “Now, Elara, you know that’s all old news. Eliza here’s just trying to get by.”
Elara ignored her, her gaze fixed on me. “Some farmers have been reporting unprecedented crop failures. Livestock acting erratically. All strangely localized around properties Croft has a stake in, or those he’s trying to acquire. Doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me.”
She paused, letting that sink in. Her mention of Croft’s properties made my blood run cold. This was precisely what Silas had warned me about. Elara was connecting the dots, even if she didn’t know how deep the rabbit hole went.
“What does that have to do with me?” I asked, feigning ignorance, though my heart was pounding.
“Well,” Elara said, tapping her pen against her notepad, “your internal audit report on Croft was quite… damning, wasn’t it? And then suddenly, you’re the pariah, cast out. Seems like a rather extreme reaction from a normally sleepy town, don’t you think? Especially when the same kind of oddness started popping up right after you were… discredited.”
Her words hit home. The implication was clear: Elara suspected Croft was behind my downfall, but she was seeing it through the lens of earthly manipulation, not supernatural curses. She was getting closer to the truth, even if she hadn’t yet grasped its terrifying, unearthly nature.
“I just did my job,” I replied, my voice tighter than I liked. “The audit spoke for itself. As for the town… people here are close-knit. They don’t take kindly to bad news.”
Elara’s lips curved into a slight, knowing smile. “I’ve spent enough time in small towns to know ‘close-knit’ doesn’t usually translate to mass hysteria. There’s something else at play, Eliza. Something beyond simple gossip. I just can’t quite put my finger on it yet.”
She looked at me, a silent challenge in her eyes. “If you know something, anything, about Croft’s dealings beyond the numbers, or anything peculiar you’ve observed… my door’s open.”
I shook my head, avoiding her gaze. “I don’t. I’m just trying to make a fresh start.”
She didn’t press, but I could feel her skepticism. As I paid Mildred, who still looked deeply uncomfortable, I could sense Elara’s keen eyes following my every move. Outside, I quickly loaded my groceries into Silas’s truck, my mind reeling. Elara Vance was a wildcard, a powerful force of investigation. If she kept digging, she would unearth Croft’s secrets, perhaps even the supernatural ones. But would Rivertown, under its strange influence, even believe her? And what would happen when she finally stumbled upon the truth that lay hidden in the fields, in the animals, and in the strange messages only I seemed to see? The town’s apathy, once a source of pain, now felt like a dangerous complicity, making Elara’s hunt all the more precarious.
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