Chapter 5: The Disgraced Folklorist

Chapter 5: The Disgraced Folklorist

The message sat in his inbox for two days. Two days of Liam pacing his small apartment, the digital silence screaming louder than any chant. He refreshed the forum page every five minutes, a compulsive ritual that frayed his nerves raw. He ate nothing. Sleep was a distant memory. He was a prisoner awaiting a verdict, and he didn’t know if it would be a reprieve or a death sentence.

When the notification finally appeared, his heart seized in his chest. A new message from Cassandra19. It was brutally short, devoid of any greeting or sympathy.

The photo is proof enough. Be at this address tomorrow at 3 PM. Second floor. The sign says “Vance Antiquarian Books.” Come alone. Don’t be followed.

Below the text was an address for a street in a rundown industrial district on the other side of the city, a place of brick warehouses and forgotten storefronts. It wasn't an invitation; it was a summons. The paranoia in the message was a mirror of his own, which was, paradoxically, the most reassuring thing he’d felt in years. A trap would have been friendly.

The next day, Liam’s journey to the address was a paranoid ordeal. Every person walking behind him was a follower. Every car that stayed in his rearview mirror for more than two blocks was a tail. He got off the bus three stops early and walked a circuitous, winding route through unfamiliar streets, his hand clutching the twig-and-tooth totem in his jacket pocket. It was his only proof, the terrible price of admission to this secret world.

Vance Antiquarian Books was less a store and more a mausoleum for paper. The windows were caked with a decade of grime, the gold-leaf lettering of the sign faded and peeling. The air inside smelled of dust, leather, and slow decay. Towers of books leaned at precarious angles, creating narrow canyons that seemed to absorb all sound and light. There was no one at the front desk.

“Hello?” he called out, his voice a dry croak.

A voice answered from a rickety staircase in the back. “Second floor. And lock the door behind you.”

Liam’s hand trembled as he slid the heavy deadbolt into place. The sound echoed in the silence like a closing cell door. He navigated the labyrinth of books and climbed the stairs, which groaned under his weight.

The second floor was a single, vast room, an office that seemed to have organically grown around its occupant. Bookshelves overflowed onto the floor, papers were stacked on every available surface, and strange artifacts—a rusted bear trap, a string of animal vertebrae, a framed piece of what looked like tattooed human skin—were interspersed among the clutter. Dominating the back wall was a huge, topographical map of the Appalachian mountain range. It was covered in a spiderweb of colored string, connecting dozens of pins stuck into remote, unnamed locations.

Behind a massive oak desk sat the woman from the forum. Cassandra19. She was in her late thirties, with intense, piercing eyes that seemed to see right through his fear. Streaks of silver ran through her dark hair, pulled back in a severe bun. She wore a practical grey sweater and dark trousers, and watched him with the unnerving stillness of a predator. This was Elara Vance.

“You’re Liam Carter,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “You look like hell.”

“I… feel like hell,” he managed, staying near the top of the stairs, unsure if he should approach.

“Show it to me,” she commanded, her voice sharp and impatient.

He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the twig. He walked forward and placed it carefully on the one clear space on her desk. She didn’t touch it. She leaned forward, her gaze forensic, examining the way the hair was tied, the specific type of tooth, the snap in the birch.

“They always use birch,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. She finally looked up, her eyes locking onto his. “Three years ago. The official report said a bear killed your friend, Greg Miller.”

Liam flinched, the sound of Greg’s name in this strange, dusty room a physical blow. “How did you know that?”

“It’s my business to know,” she said dismissively. “I cross-reference missing persons reports with local folklore clusters. Your case was flagged. A ‘bear attack’ where the survivor’s testimony includes phrases like ‘chanting circle’ and ‘bark masks.’ It stood out.” She leaned back in her chair, the springs groaning in protest. “So. They’ve reached out. That’s a new development. Tell me everything. Don’t leave out a single detail, no matter how insane you think it sounds. Especially the insane parts.”

For the next hour, Liam spoke. The story he had bottled up for three years, the truth he had been told was a symptom of trauma, poured out of him. He described the oppressive silence of the Hush, the robed figure by the creek, the ritualistically slain deer. He described the guttural chant and the bone masks with their fixed, skeletal grins. He described the whispers, the feeling of his own mind being invaded by cold, ancient thoughts, and the final, terrifying phrase: He sees you.

Elara listened without interruption, her expression unreadable. She steepled her fingers, her intense gaze never leaving his face. When he finished, the silence in the room was heavy with the weight of his confession.

“The Children of the Root,” she said, her voice flat. “That’s what they call themselves, or at least, that’s the closest translation I’ve been able to piece together. They’re not a cult in the modern sense. They’re older. A remnant. They worship an entity, a genius loci bound to that specific region of the mountains. The thing your whispers named. He Who Walks Beneath Roots.”

Liam felt a wave of vertigo. To hear her give names to his nightmares, to speak of them as concrete facts, was both a profound relief and an absolute terror. “So it’s real. I’m not crazy.”

“You’re not crazy,” Elara confirmed, a flicker of something that might have been pity in her eyes. “But you are in more danger than you can possibly imagine. The whispers, the note, this totem… it means you’ve been marked.”

“Marked?”

“They don’t leave loose ends,” she explained, her tone hardening. “When you escaped, you broke their circle. You took something from them—not a secret, but a piece of their ritual’s energy. The Mark is a psychic brand, a homing beacon. It’s their claim on you. For three years, it lay dormant. Now, for whatever reason, they’ve activated it. They’re not just reminding you that they exist. They’re calling you back.”

The desire to run, to flee the city and disappear, surged through him. But Elara’s next words killed that hope before it could form.

“You can’t run. You can’t hide. The Mark connects you to him. To the entity. The further you are from his territory, the more he’ll have to pull, and the worse it will get for you. They’re not hunting you, Liam. They’re reeling you in like a fish on a line.”

Hope turned to ash in his mouth. He looked at this strange, intense woman, his only lifeline in a sea of encroaching madness. “What do I do? You have to help me. You know about them.”

Elara’s face hardened, the brief flash of pity gone, replaced by a wall of cynical resolve. “I don’t have to do anything,” she said, her voice dropping, becoming cold and sharp as a shard of ice. “I research them. I catalogue them. I don’t fight them. You want to know why?”

She stood and walked to the massive map, her back to him. She pointed a finger at a pin circled in red, set apart from the others.

“The last person I ‘helped’ was Dr. Alistair Finch. My mentor. He was the one who wrote the post you found. It was his research. His obsession. He got too close, and they took him. He went into those same woods seven years ago to meet a supposed defector and never came back. His car was found by the side of the road. Another missing person, presumed dead from ‘exposure.’”

She turned back to face him, her eyes blazing with a cold fire that was part grief, part fury. “I see you, and I don't see a terrified young man. I see a walking liability. A living key that could open a door I have spent years trying to keep shut. You’re not just marked, you’re bait. And if I get too close to you, they will come for me too.”

The obstacle was no longer just the cult. It was her. Her fear, her loss, her deep, rational paranoia. He had found the one person in the world who could help him, and she was telling him he was poison.

“So you’re just going to let them take me?” Liam asked, his voice cracking with desperation.

Elara stared at him, her expression a cold, calculating mask. “I’m going to decide if the information you might provide is worth the risk of ending up just like Alistair.” She gestured to the door. “Go home, Liam. Lock your doors. And wait for what comes next. It’s already started, hasn’t it? The nightmares?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The truth was written all over his haunted face. He turned and walked down the creaking stairs, the weight of her words a heavier burden than his own fear. He had found an ally, but she was an ally who saw him as a tool, a risk, a ghost already in the making. He was no longer just running from the cult; he was now caught in the orbit of the disgraced folklorist and her long, bitter war.