Your bridegroom is six feet under in the frozen timber, Clara, and crying won't buy your fare back to Missouri.
The pocket watch felt impossibly heavy in my palm. The black silt clinging to it was undeniable. Silas hadn’t died of lung-rot. This was a lie, a cover-up.
I carefully replaced the watch in its pouch, tucked the pouch back under the false bottom, and relocked Elijah’s trunk with the broken clasp as best I could. The poker lay innocently by the fireplace.
My next step had to be Thomas. He was the only other soul in this desolate place. If anyone knew the truth, it was Silas’s stepbrother.
I found him in the barn, forking hay into the stalls. The air was cold and smelled of manure and damp earth. He jumped when I entered, nearly dropping the pitchfork. His face was pale, his eyes wide and haunted.
“Thomas,” I said, keeping my voice low and steady. “We need to talk. About Silas.”
He stiffened, his gaze darting nervously to the barn door, as if expecting Elijah to materialize. “Elijah said he died of lung-rot. Said it was quick.”
“That’s not what happened,” I countered, holding his gaze. “I found Silas’s watch. It was broken. Covered in black mud, not sick-bed sweat.”
Thomas flinched. He wiped his hands on his trousers, a nervous habit. “What kind of mud?”
“Well mud,” I said directly. “From a deep well.”
His shoulders sagged. He leaned against the stall door, avoiding my eyes. “Silas… he didn’t have lung-rot.”
My heart pounded. “What happened then, Thomas?”
He wrung his hands, whispering, “Seven nights ago. The same night you were supposed to arrive.”
“What about that night?” I urged, stepping closer.
“Silas and Elijah… they had a terrible argument,” he confessed, his voice barely a murmur. “Silas kept saying he heard things. Voices from the water well. Rhythmic voices.”
My blood ran cold. The rhythmic scraping from my room.
“What voices?” I asked.
“He said they were… calling to him,” Thomas whispered, his eyes wide with fear. “Elijah laughed, called him a fool. But Silas… he swore he heard them. And then… they argued about the cellar.”
“The cellar?”
“Yes,” he nodded, tears welling in his eyes. “The sealed well inside the cellar. Silas said he was going down to investigate the voices. To see what Elijah was doing with the well.”
Thomas pointed a trembling finger towards the house. “He went down there with a lantern. And he never came back up.”
My stomach clenched. “What did Elijah do?”
“He waited. And waited,” Thomas choked out. “Then he took a hammer. He nailed the cellar hatch shut with heavy oak beams. Said Silas was gone, and no one was to ever go down there again.”
He looked at me, a desperate plea in his eyes. “Elijah told me if I ever said a word, he’d do the same to me. Or worse.”
The mystery of Silas’s death solidified into a chilling truth. Silas had gone into that cellar. He had encountered something, and Elijah had sealed him in. The well was more than just a source of water.
It was a grave.
More Stories
+ There are no comments
Add yours