Series: Your bridegroom is six feet under in the frozen timber, Clara, and crying won't buy your fare back to Missouri.

Part 1 I had traveled twelve grueling days across seven hundred miles of rutted dirt to marry Silas Delaney, only to step off the stagecoach [more…]

The first hint of dawn, a bruised purple light, barely touched the grimy windowpane. My breath still hitched in my throat. I scrambled from the [more…]

The morning crawled by under Elijah’s watchful eye. He instructed me to help Thomas with chores, deliberately keeping us separated. He wanted to make sure [more…]

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 [more…]

The cellar. A grave. The words echoed in my mind. Silas had vanished into the earth, and Elijah had sealed him there. My mind raced. [more…]

The hammering stopped as abruptly as it began. An unnatural silence descended, broken only by the frantic pounding of my own heart. I stood in [more…]

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 [more…]

The parchment felt ancient in my hands, brittle and cool. I unrolled it carefully on Elijah’s desk, positioning it beneath the flickering lamplight. The script [more…]

My triumph, a brief spark in the cold darkness, was extinguished by the sound of heavy footsteps. They weren’t coming from upstairs. They were outside [more…]

My hand tightened around the rolled covenant, instinctively pulling it to my chest. I wouldn’t let him have it. Not this. Elijah’s fingers, cold and [more…]