Chapter 5: A Promise in a Locket

Chapter 5: A Promise in a Locket

Elara Vance’s study was the antithesis of the cold, sterile horror of Leo’s house. It was a warm, cluttered haven, smelling of old books, brewed tea, and lemon polish. Floor-to-ceiling shelves overflowed with leather-bound volumes and dog-eared paperbacks. It was a room built for telling stories, and now it had become their war room.

Leo was huddled on a plush armchair, wrapped in a thick wool quilt, yet he shivered uncontrollably. The feverish heat of dehydration had given way to a deep, internal winter. His skin had a pale, waxy sheen, his eyes were sunken, and his lips were tinged with blue. He looked like a man already half-drowned.

Drew, his skepticism shattered and replaced by a raw, protective fear, paced the small space like a caged animal. He kept glancing from Leo’s frail form to the stained, foul-smelling hoodie that was now sealed in a plastic trash bag by the door. The memory of the black hair in the bathtub was a brand on his mind.

“He needs a hospital,” Drew insisted for the tenth time, his voice tight with panic.

“And we tell them what?” Elara countered, her tone calm but firm. She placed a steaming mug of tea on a coaster near Leo, though she knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—touch it. “That he’s haunted? That he’s coughing up ghosts? They’ll sedate him and lock him in a psych ward. Whatever this is, a doctor can’t fix it. Seraphina won’t let them.”

She said the name, and the air in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. Leo flinched, pulling the quilt tighter around his shoulders.

“The newspaper archives were a start,” Elara continued, her sharp gaze focused. “They gave us her name. But the truth of what happened to a poor girl from a modest family? That’s not the kind of thing that makes the official record, especially not when powerful people are involved. The stories that get buried are never written down in public.” She walked over to a large, cedar chest tucked under a window. “But they get whispered. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, someone writes down the whispers.”

She knelt and unlatched the heavy lid. A rich, earthy scent of aged paper and dried lavender filled the room. The chest was filled with old, cloth-bound journals and stacks of letters tied with faded ribbon.

“My great-aunt Florence Vance,” Elara explained, lifting out a thick, navy-blue diary. “She lived her entire ninety-four years in Oakridge. She knew everything about everyone, and she wrote it all down.”

For the next hour, the only sounds were the rustle of brittle pages and Drew’s anxious breathing. Elara scanned the elegant, looping cursive of her great-aunt’s hand, her brow furrowed in concentration. Leo drifted in and out of a delirious haze, the words and faces on the pages swimming before his eyes. He felt disconnected from his own body, a spectator to his own slow-motion demise. The thirst was a dull, constant throb now, a part of him.

“I’ve got something,” Elara whispered, her voice barely disturbing the room’s heavy silence. Drew stopped pacing and leaned over her shoulder.

She pointed a slender finger at an entry dated October 1958, two months after Seraphina Raine vanished.

“The whole town has given up on poor Seraphina Raine,” Elara read aloud, her voice soft. “They all say she ran off with a traveling salesman or fell into the creek’s autumn swell. But I saw her, just a week before she disappeared. I saw her down by the old footbridge over Willow Creek. And she was not alone.”

Leo’s head lifted, his foggy gaze sharpening.

Elara continued, “She was with young Alistair Ashford. He’s to be married to that Sinclair heiress from the city come spring, a match his father has been planning for years. He gave Seraphina a silver locket. I saw the glint of it myself. He was promising her the world, I’m sure of it. But I also saw the look in his eyes when a car passed on the main road. Not love. Fear. The kind a man gets when his reputation is on the line. Alistair Ashford is a charming boy, but he has his father’s cold ambition. One wonders what a boy like that would do to protect the family name. A girl like Seraphina, so full of hope, could be… an inconvenience.”

The name hung in the air, heavy and poisonous. Ashford.

“Ashford?” Drew’s voice was hoarse. “As in, Ashford Construction? The Ashfords who have owned half this town since forever?”

Elara’s face was pale, her eyes wide with a dawning horror. It was all clicking into place—the secret affair, the powerful family, the threat of scandal.

“The pool,” she breathed, looking from Drew to Leo. “Don’t you see? They filled in that part of Willow Creek to build the community pool the very next year. It was the Ashford family’s big public project.” Her voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “There’s a bronze plaque by the entrance. I’ve seen it a thousand times. ‘A gift to the people of Oakridge. Donated by the Ashford Family, 1959.’”

The ugly truth settled over them, suffocating and complete. Alistair Ashford hadn’t just killed Seraphina to save his marriage and his family’s reputation. He hadn’t just hidden her body. He had drowned her in Willow Creek and then, in the ultimate act of arrogant desecration, he had buried her story under a monument to his own family’s legacy. The pool wasn’t just built on her grave; it was a constant, daily insult to her memory. Every happy child, every sunbather, every swimmer was celebrating on the site of her murder, their joy made possible by her erasure.

As the full weight of the betrayal slammed into him, a violent convulsion racked Leo’s body. He was thrown forward in the chair, a choked, guttural sound tearing from his throat.

“Leo!” Drew shouted, rushing to his side, grabbing his shoulders to keep him from collapsing.

Leo’s back arched, his hands clawing at his throat. It wasn’t the dry, hacking cough of his dehydration. This was a deep, wet, rattling sound, the sound of lungs full of water. He doubled over, his body seized by a violent, productive retch.

A gush of liquid spilled from his mouth, splashing onto the priceless antique rug at his feet.

Elara gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Drew recoiled in sheer disbelief.

It wasn't bile. It wasn't blood.

It was murky, foul-smelling pond water, thick with silt and flecks of green algae and decayed leaves. It was the water of a long-stagnant creek bed, the water of an unmarked grave.

Leo collapsed back into the chair, gasping, the taste of mud and rot and a sixty-year-old murder filling his mouth. The shivering intensified, a bone-rattling cold that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. He could feel it now—the shock of the cold water, the weight of it in his lungs, the panicked, hopeless struggle in the dark. Seraphina’s death wasn’t just a story he had uncovered.

It was a memory, and it was replaying itself inside him.

“He drowned her,” Elara whispered, her eyes locked on the filthy puddle staining her floor. “He held her under the water in that creek. And now… she’s making Leo feel it.”

The truth hadn't set him free. It had just signed his death warrant.