Chapter 4: The Pact of the Falls

The bell above the door of Vance's Antiquarian Books chimed softly as Ben stepped inside, the scent of old paper and incense washing over him. The shop was cramped and cluttered, with towering shelves that seemed to lean inward like they were trying to whisper secrets. Dust motes danced in the late afternoon sunlight streaming through grimy windows.

"Back here," Elara called from somewhere in the maze of bookshelves.

Ben wound his way through narrow aisles packed with everything from leather-bound classics to paperback romance novels, past displays of crystals and dried herbs that suggested the shop catered to more than just casual readers. He found Elara in a small alcove at the back, surrounded by books that looked far older than anything he'd seen in the main store.

"These are my grandmother's private collection," she explained, running her fingers along the spine of a particularly ancient-looking volume. "Folklore, local legends, things most people would dismiss as superstition."

"Where is your grandmother?" Ben asked, glancing around the empty shop.

"She went to visit her sister in Denver last week. Said she had a feeling something bad was coming and didn't want to be here for it." Elara's expression was grim. "Turns out she was right."

She pulled a slim journal from the shelf and opened it to a page covered in her grandmother's spidery handwriting. "I've been going through her research since you told me about the footsteps. There are references here to something called the Founding Pact—an agreement made when the town was established."

"What kind of agreement?"

"That's what we need to find out. But according to this, the original document is hidden somewhere in the town square." Elara showed him a hand-drawn map with notes scribbled in the margins. "Under the founders' monument."

Ben studied the crude diagram. The monument in question was a massive granite obelisk that stood in the center of Tourmaline Falls' main square, surrounded by plaques honoring the five founding families. He'd passed it countless times without giving it much thought.

"Hidden how?" he asked.

"My grandmother wasn't sure. But she found references in old city records to a 'repository of founding documents' that was sealed away for safekeeping." Elara traced a finger along one of the map's notations. "She thought there might be a hidden chamber beneath the monument itself."

Ben felt a chill run down his spine. "And you think the pact that explains everything is down there?"

"It's our best lead. The only way we're going to understand what's happening—and maybe find a way to stop it—is to uncover the original agreement."

Ben looked out the shop's dusty window at the setting sun. "It'll be dark soon. We could go tonight, after everyone's gone home."

"Are you sure about this?" Elara asked. "If I'm right about the timeline, we're running out of safe nights. The closer we get to July first, the more active the Collector becomes."

As if summoned by her words, Ben heard it again—the familiar sound of dress shoes on hardwood, echoing from somewhere deep within the shop. But this time, it was accompanied by something new: a soft scratching noise, like fingernails on glass.

Elara heard it too. Her face went pale, and she quickly began gathering her grandmother's journals. "He's getting stronger. We need to move fast."

"The scratching sound," Ben said, his throat suddenly dry. "That's what Mikey and I heard the night he was taken. Right before the footsteps started."

"Then we're running out of time even faster than I thought." Elara stuffed the last of the journals into her backpack. "Meet me at the monument at midnight. And Ben? Don't tell anyone where you're going. Not even your father."

Especially not my father, Ben thought, remembering the hidden box in the attic and his name written in Daniel's careful handwriting.

---

Ben spent the evening trying to act normal, helping Allen with his homework and making small talk over dinner. But his father seemed more distracted than usual, barely touching his food and checking his phone obsessively.

"Everything okay, Dad?" Ben asked.

Daniel looked up sharply, as if he'd forgotten his sons were there. "Fine. Just... work stuff. Nothing for you to worry about."

But Ben noticed the tremor in his father's hands as he reached for his water glass, the way his eyes kept darting toward the windows as darkness fell outside. Whatever was happening, Daniel knew more than he was letting on.

At eleven-thirty, Ben slipped out of his room and crept downstairs. The house was silent except for the usual settling noises, but he found himself listening for phantom footsteps with every step. He made it to the front door without incident and stepped out into the cool night air.

Tourmaline Falls looked different after dark. The quaint tourist town facade fell away, leaving something older and more sinister in its place. Street lamps cast long shadows between the Victorian houses, and the mountains loomed overhead like sleeping giants. In the distance, Ben could hear the sound of Tourmaline Creek rushing over the falls that gave the town its name—a constant whisper that seemed to carry secrets on the wind.

The town square was deserted, the shops and restaurants that catered to daytime tourists now dark and shuttered. The founders' monument stood in the center like a finger pointing accusingly at the sky, its granite surface gleaming dully in the moonlight.

Ben found Elara waiting in the shadow of the monument, a small backpack slung over her shoulder and a flashlight in her hand.

"Any trouble getting out?" she asked.

"No, but my dad's definitely on edge about something. He kept checking his phone all night."

Elara's expression darkened. "Some of the founding families still have connections in town. If word got out that we're digging into this..."

She didn't finish the thought, but Ben understood. Ashley Rosenthal's phone call that afternoon suddenly seemed a lot more ominous.

"So how do we find this hidden chamber?" Ben asked.

Elara pulled out her grandmother's journal and shone her flashlight on the hand-drawn map. "According to this, there should be a mechanism somewhere on the monument itself. A way to access what's underneath."

They began examining the granite obelisk, running their hands over every surface, looking for anything that might be a hidden switch or lever. The monument was covered in carved inscriptions—names of the founding families, dates, flowery language about prosperity and progress. But it all seemed solid, unmoving.

"There," Elara said suddenly, pointing to one of the bronze plaques at the base. "Look at the symbols."

Ben followed her gaze and saw what she meant. Carved into the bronze alongside the usual commemorative text were five small spirals, each one identical to the mark on his wrist.

"The Spiral of Binding," he breathed.

"Try pressing them in order," Elara suggested. "Carter, Brennan, Kelly, Rosenthal, Ashworth—the same order they founded the town."

Ben placed his fingers on the first spiral and pressed. Nothing happened. He tried the second, then the third. Still nothing.

"Wait," Elara said, consulting her grandmother's notes again. "What if it's not the founding order? What if it's the order of... selection?"

The taking order. The pattern in which children from each family had been chosen over the decades.

Ben's hands shook as he pressed the spirals in the new sequence. Carter first—his own family line. Then Brennan, for Mikey and the others before him. Kelly, Rosenthal, Ashworth.

On the final press, something clicked deep within the monument's base.

The ground beneath their feet shuddered, and Ben heard the sound of ancient mechanisms grinding to life. Slowly, incredibly, a section of the monument's base began to slide away, revealing a narrow opening that led down into darkness.

"My god," Elara whispered. "It's real."

The opening was barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through, with stone steps that descended into blackness. Cold air wafted up from below, carrying the scent of age and secrets.

"Last chance to back out," Ben said, though his own curiosity was overwhelming his fear.

"Not a chance," Elara replied, already swinging her legs over the edge. "We've come this far."

They descended carefully, their flashlights carving weak circles of light in the oppressive darkness. The steps were old and worn smooth by time, and Ben could feel the weight of the town above them pressing down like a physical thing.

After what felt like an eternity, they reached the bottom. Their lights revealed a small chamber carved directly into the bedrock, its walls lined with niches that held scrolls and bound documents. But it was the object in the center of the room that made Ben's breath catch in his throat.

A pedestal of black stone held a single book—leather-bound, ancient, and somehow wrong in a way that made his skin crawl just looking at it. The leather was too dark, too smooth, and it seemed to absorb their flashlight beams rather than reflect them.

"That's it," Elara whispered. "That has to be the original pact."

Ben approached the pedestal slowly, every instinct screaming at him to turn around and run. But they needed answers, and this book might be their only chance to find them.

The moment his fingers touched the leather cover, the world exploded into light and sound.

Vision crashed over him like a tidal wave—

Five men in old-fashioned clothes standing in this very chamber, their faces gaunt with desperation. The year was 1887, and Tourmaline Falls was nothing but a collection of ramshackle mining camps and broken dreams. The tourmaline deposits had played out faster than expected, and winter was coming with no food stores and no money to buy supplies.

"There has to be another way," one of them was saying—Carter, Ben realized with a shock. His own ancestor, looking exactly like his father but dressed in clothes from another century.

"The town is dying," another replied. "Unless we find new wealth, we'll all be dead before spring."

That's when the shadow stepped forward.

The thing that would later be called the Collector was smaller then, less substantial, but no less terrifying. It wore the same black suit, carried the same silver-topped cane, but its form flickered like smoke in the candlelight.

"I can offer you prosperity beyond your wildest dreams," it said in that voice like autumn leaves. "Your town shall thrive for generations. The tourmaline will flow like water, and wealth will pour into your coffers from sources you cannot imagine."

"What's the price?" Carter asked, though Ben could see in his ancestor's eyes that he already knew he would pay it.

The Collector reached into its coat and withdrew a crystal unlike anything Ben had ever seen. It pulsed with an inner light that seemed to contain entire galaxies, and when it touched the chamber's walls, veins of luminous tourmaline began to spread through the rock like living things.

"One child," the entity said simply. "From your bloodlines. Every few years, when I have need. They will come to serve in my gallery, preserved forever in perfect beauty."

"And if we refuse?" another founder asked.

The Collector's form flickered, and for a moment Ben saw something vast and terrible behind the human facade—something with too many eyes and teeth like broken glass.

"Then your town dies with the winter snows, and your children starve in the cold."

The five men looked at each other, weighing the lives of unknown future descendants against the immediate survival of their families. Ben watched in horror as his ancestor stepped forward and placed his hand on the pulsing crystal.

"We agree," Carter said. "The pact is sealed."

The crystal blazed with light, and the chamber filled with the sound of inhuman laughter...

Ben jerked back from the book, gasping and disoriented. Elara grabbed his arm to steady him.

"What happened? You were just standing there, staring at nothing."

"I saw it," Ben said, his voice hoarse. "The original pact. The founding fathers made a deal with that thing—prosperity for the town in exchange for children from their bloodlines."

He explained the vision in halting words, watching Elara's expression grow more horrified with each detail.

"The Heart of the Mountain," she said when he described the crystal. "That's what they called it in some of my grandmother's older notes. The source of the town's wealth."

Ben looked down at the book in his hands, no longer afraid to touch it. Now that he understood what it contained, it seemed less supernatural artifact and more legal document—a contract written in blood and sealed with desperation.

"There has to be a way out," he said, flipping through pages covered in archaic language and strange symbols. "Some kind of loophole or escape clause."

"There," Elara said, pointing to a passage near the end. "Look at that."

Ben read the faded text aloud: "'Should the chosen prove themselves a more worthy prize than that which they would replace, or should a worthy substitute be offered in their stead, the compact may be dissolved and the debt considered paid in full.'"

"A worthy substitute," Elara repeated. "Or proving yourself more worthy than what you'd replace. What do you think that means?"

Before Ben could answer, they heard it—echoing down from the chamber entrance above them. The measured sound of dress shoes on stone steps, accompanied by the soft scraping of a silver-topped cane.

Click. Click. Click.

The Collector was coming.

"We need to get out of here," Elara said urgently. "Now."

Ben clutched the leather-bound pact to his chest as they ran for the stone stairs. Behind them, the footsteps grew louder, more real, as if the entity was drawing strength from their proximity to the source of its power.

They burst out of the hidden chamber just as the first light of dawn was beginning to touch the eastern mountains. The monument's entrance sealed itself behind them with a grinding of ancient stone, but Ben could still hear those terrible footsteps echoing from somewhere far below.

"Nine days," he panted, checking his phone. "Nine days until July first."

Elara looked at the book in his hands, then at the spiral mark on his wrist that seemed to be glowing faintly in the pre-dawn light.

"Then we'd better figure out what 'a more worthy prize' means," she said. "Because I have a feeling that's our only way out of this."

As they hurried away from the town square, Ben couldn't shake the image from his vision—five desperate men making a deal with something inhuman, trading the lives of children they would never meet for the prosperity of a town that would forget their sacrifice.

The pact was real. The Collector was bound by its terms.

Now they just had to figure out how to use those terms against him.