Chapter 4: The Whispering Roots

Chapter 4: The Whispering Roots

The dial tone echoed in Alex’s ear long after he’d lowered the phone. It was the sound of a door being bolted shut, of a bridge being burned. His father’s voice, shredded by a terror so potent it had curdled into rage, was a verdict. You are alone. The words weren’t just a denial; they were a command to suffer in silence.

He sat bathed in the cold blue light of his monitor, the search results for ‘Dybbuk’ casting long, dancing shadows across the room. Every line of text was a confirmation of his living nightmare. He wasn’t losing his mind. He was being methodically dismantled by something ancient and hungry, and his own family had knowingly left him in the cage with it.

For hours, he fell down a rabbit hole of digital folklore and paranormal accounts. He read about tormented souls and parasitic entities, about rituals of transference and the danger of empty spiritual shells. The words on the screen seemed to writhe, describing his nightly wanderings, his crushing exhaustion, the specific, soul-sucking cold that now clung to the corner of his bedroom like a predator waiting in its den. It was all there. A detailed blueprint for his own personal hell.

But it was all too broad, too generic. Ancient legends from nameless European villages. Terrified, anonymous posts on decade-old forums. It explained the what, but not the why. Why him? Why Great-Aunt Lillian?

A flicker of defiance sparked in the hollow space where his fear resided. His father had told him to forget Lillian. To leave the dead alone. That was the one thing Alex knew he couldn’t do. She was the beginning of this. The key.

His fingers, no longer trembling but moving with a grim purpose, flew across the keyboard. He abandoned the generic searches. His background in graphic design had made him an expert at digging through the internet’s deep, forgotten corners for obscure assets and information. Now, he turned that skill inward, toward his own history.

Lillian Vance obituary

Lillian Vance Blackwood Creek

Vance family folklore

The first few pages yielded nothing. A standard obituary notice. Public records. A link to the funeral home. Then, on the fourth page of his search, buried beneath irrelevant genealogy sites, a title caught his eye. It was a link to a small, unassuming blog.

The Blackwood Root: Local Legends and Forgotten Histories of the Creek.

His breath hitched. It was a simple site, with a dark green, ivy-themed background. The posts were academic, well-researched, and deeply unsettling. He scrolled through the titles: "The Weeping Woman of Miller's Bridge," "Whispers in the Hemlock Grove," and then, one that made the blood drain from his face.

"Ancestral Anchors: On Familial Tethers and Spirit Transference."

He clicked.

The post was long and dense, but Alex devoured it, his eyes flying across the text. It spoke of old bloodlines in the region bound by pacts to land and entities. It described rituals, passed down through generations, designed not to exorcise a spirit, but to pass it from one host to another.

…the transference requires a willing, or at least compliant, participant to act as the conduit, the article read. But the new vessel must be suitable. The entity, weakened by its host’s eventual death, seeks a space of quiet desperation. A soul marked by apathy or deep-seated loneliness. An empty house, so to speak, is far easier to occupy than one full of life…

Alex felt a jolt, as if the words on the screen had reached out and touched the cold, hollow part of him he had nurtured for so long. His numbness. His apathy. It hadn’t been a shield. It had been an invitation. A welcome mat.

He scrolled further, his heart pounding a sickening rhythm against his ribs. The article described the ceremony. It spoke of a funeral that was not for mourning, but for choosing. It mentioned a final, physical touch, a symbolic and literal passing of the torch.

David. The desperate, cold embrace. I’m so sorry, he’d said. It’s over. For me.

He wasn’t apologizing for Lillian’s death. He was apologizing for Alex’s.

A wave of nausea washed over him. He gripped the edge of his desk, the cheap particle board groaning under the pressure. At the very bottom of the post, beneath a list of archaic sources, was the author’s name.

Posted by Elara Vance.

Vance. The name hit him like a physical blow. He vaguely recalled hearing it mentioned in passing years ago. A distant cousin. Part of a branch of the family that had stayed in the ancestral hometown, a place the rest of them spoke of like a bad memory. She was family. But she was writing about this. Openly. Dissecting the family’s darkest secret for anyone to see.

Was she a lunatic? Or was she the only sane one left?

He had no other choice. His father had cast him out. His cousin had used him. He was alone with the whispers and the cold and the thing that wore his face in the dark. Taking a chance on a potential madwoman seemed like the most rational option he had left.

He found a ‘Contact’ page on the blog. An email address. His fingers hovered over the keys, a final moment of hesitation. This was it. A step off a cliff in the dark. He typed, his message short and stripped of all but the essential, desperate truth.

To: [email protected] Subject: Vance Family

My name is Alex Carter. My great-aunt was Lillian Vance. I read your article on spirit transference.

I think I need your help.

He stared at the words, his finger hovering over the send button. A cold spot formed directly behind his chair, the chill seeping into the back of his neck like a frozen hand. From the darkened living room, he heard a faint, dry whisper that sounded unnervingly like his own name.

He hit send.

He expected to wait for days, if he got a reply at all. He pushed back from his desk, ready to endure another long night of taut nerves and listening for footsteps that weren’t his own.

Ping.

An email notification. Less than a minute had passed. His blood ran cold. He leaned forward, his eyes locked on the screen. The reply was from Elara Vance. It was only three lines.

They chose you. The Vessel can't be empty for long.

Burn the mirror. Every piece.

Then come find me.