Your bridegroom is six feet under in the frozen timber, Clara, and crying won't buy your fare back to Missouri.
The cold lingered in the room long after the spectral writing faded. My teeth chattered, but a new, fiery resolve burned through the fear.
October 14th. Three days before the telegram. Elijah was a calculated killer, and I was trapped in his house.
I had to get out. I ran my hands over the sturdy, locked door. Thick pine. A heavy brass lock. No key.
My gaze fell upon my corset, discarded on the bedpost. The rigid steel stays.
A wild idea sparked. I tore at the lacing, pulling at the stiff fabric until one of the metal stays ripped free. It was long, thin, and surprisingly flexible.
I knelt by the door, the icy floorboards chilling my knees. My fingers, numb with cold, fumbled with the stay. I bent the end into a crude hook.
I remembered watching my mother pick the flimsy lock on our pantry door back in Missouri, to sneak treats after my stepfather had hidden the key. She’d used a hairpin. This wasn’t a hairpin.
This was a heavy brass lock, designed to keep me contained.
I shoved the hooked end of the stay into the keyhole. It clicked uselessly against the inner mechanism. I adjusted, twisted, feeling for the pins inside.
One hour passed. Then another. My fingers ached, cramped with cold and strain. Sweat beaded on my forehead despite the freezing air. Every tiny click, every subtle shift of the pin, was a victory.
My mind replayed Elijah’s face, his calm threats, the gaslighting. I imagined his satisfied smirk as he nailed the shutters over my windows.
I wouldn’t let him win. I wouldn’t be locked in here, waiting for whatever fate he had planned for me.
Suddenly, with a soft, metallic thunk, the latch clicked. Not unlocked, but *open*.
My breath hitched. I slowly, carefully, pushed the door. It swung inward, silent and free.
A triumphant surge ran through me, quickly followed by fresh terror. I was out. Now what?
The hallway was pitch black. Moonlight, if there was any, was blocked by the thick wooden walls. I strained my ears. No sound of Elijah. He must be asleep downstairs.
My destination was clear: Elijah’s private study. If the answer to Silas’s death lay in a contract, it would be there.
I crept along the hallway, each floorboard a potential betrayer. My bare feet made no sound. I felt my way along the wall, reaching the head of the stairs.
Downstairs, a faint glow emanated from under a door at the far end of the hall. Elijah’s study. He sometimes left an oil lamp burning low.
I descended the stairs one careful step at a time, my heart hammering. The house groaned around me, settling in the cold night air. Or was it something else?
I reached the study door. It was slightly ajar. I pushed it open gently, wincing at the soft creak of the hinges.
The room was dim, lit by a single, guttering oil lamp on Elijah’s desk. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled with thick volumes on mining, land claims, and territorial law. A heavy stone fireplace dominated one wall.
My eyes scanned the room, searching. I remembered my stepfather’s obsession with hiding important documents in plain sight, or in places no one would think to look.
The chimney. He’d done it before with my mother’s will.
I approached the fireplace, feeling along the cold stone mantle. My fingers grazed a loose brick, tucked neatly behind a decorative carving.
I pressed. The brick shifted. With a grunt, I pulled it out, revealing a small, hollowed-out space.
Inside, carefully rolled and tied with a faded ribbon, was a yellowed parchment. Its title, written in elegant script, was still legible: “1878 Marital Land Covenant.”
My hands trembled as I pulled it free. This was it.
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