Chapter 3: Same Blood, Same Visions

The pounding began just as the last light of day bled from the western sky.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Three measured knocks on the front door, followed by the muffled voice of Constable Morrison calling through the heavy wood. "Gideon? Gideon Shearer? We need to speak with you about the McGoverns."

Elias felt his blood turn to ice water in his veins. From his position at the kitchen table, where he had been staring at the ancient family Bible—the one that now seemed like a collection of beautiful lies—he could see his father's face go ashen. Gideon still clutched the Shear in his hands, the bone handle slick with perspiration and something darker.

"They're concerned about the screaming," Samantha observed pleasantly from her chair by the window. She had cleaned most of the blood from her hands, but dark stains still clung beneath her fingernails like crescent moons. "Mrs. Hartwell saw me walking home from the McGoverns'. She's probably told half the town by now."

The knocking came again, more insistent this time. Elias could hear other voices now—whispered conversations, the shuffle of multiple feet on the front steps. The entire situation was spiraling beyond their control, and he felt utterly unprepared for whatever revelation his father was clearly struggling to share.

"Gideon?" Constable Morrison's voice carried the authority of twenty years keeping peace in their small coastal community. "We know you're in there. Open the door."

"Tell them we're not receiving visitors," Gideon whispered, though his voice carried little conviction. Blood continued to seep through his fingers where they pressed against his abdomen, and Elias could see his father's strength ebbing with each labored breath.

"Father," Elias said urgently, "you need medical attention. Let me—"

"No." Gideon's voice cut through his son's words like the edge of the Shear itself. "First, you need to understand. Before they break down that door, before this all ends in ways I can't control, you need to know what we are."

Samantha began to hum again, that haunting melody their mother had once sung to lull them to sleep. But now it seemed to carry undertones of something else entirely—whispers in languages that predated human speech, harmonies that made the air itself seem to thicken with anticipation.

"The roses are getting excited," she murmured. "They can smell the fear gathering outside. It makes them so very hungry."

Elias turned to his father desperately. "What is she talking about? What roses? What does any of this mean?"

Gideon's eyes moved to the family Bible lying open on the table, its familiar pages now seeming to mock them with their conventional wisdom. "That book," he said quietly, "contains the stories we tell children. The comfortable lies we wrap around unbearable truths."

The pounding on the door grew more insistent. Elias could hear Constable Morrison conferring with someone else—probably Doctor Henley, judging by the refined cadence of the second voice. The town's entire authority structure was gathering on their doorstep, drawn by rumors of violence and the scent of secrets too long buried.

"In my study," Gideon continued, his voice growing weaker but more urgent. "Behind the false back of my writing desk. There's another book. Our real scripture. The true history of what the Shearer family serves."

Elias felt his world tilting again, the solid foundation of his faith cracking beneath the weight of his father's words. "What do you mean, 'what we serve'?"

"The Devouring Rose," Samantha answered before Gideon could speak. Her voice had taken on that otherworldly quality again, as if she were speaking from the bottom of a deep well. "It dreams in the garden of flesh, and we are its faithful gardeners. We have always been its gardeners."

"Stop," Elias whispered. "Please, just... stop."

But his sister continued, her dark eyes now reflecting something vast and alien that made his soul recoil. "Every generation, Elias. For centuries beyond counting. We tend its needs, we feed its hunger, we prune the excess growth of this world to make room for its glory."

The front door shuddered under a renewed assault from outside. Wood splintered, and Elias heard Constable Morrison cursing as he apparently threw his shoulder against the stubborn barrier.

"The book," Gideon gasped, blood now trickling from the corner of his mouth. "Get the book, boy. Before they break through. Before you're forced to choose between exposure and duty."

Elias stumbled toward his father's study, his legs feeling disconnected from his body. The small room that had been his sanctuary of learning now felt like a tomb, its walls lined with theological texts that seemed to watch him with accusing eyes. The writing desk sat in the corner where it had always been, but now he saw it with new understanding—not as a place of scholarship, but as a repository for secrets too dangerous for the light of day.

His hands shook as he felt along the back panel of the desk, searching for whatever mechanism might reveal the hidden compartment his father had described. After several heart-stopping moments, his fingers found a small depression in the wood. When he pressed it, a section of the panel swung inward with a soft click.

Inside, wrapped in oiled cloth like a sacred relic, lay another book.

This volume was older than the family Bible, its leather cover worn smooth by countless hands and stained with substances Elias preferred not to identify. The binding looked almost organic, as if it had been crafted from skin rather than traditional leather. Strange symbols were etched into its surface—not the familiar letters of any earthly alphabet, but sigils that seemed to writhe and shift when viewed directly.

The front door gave way with a tremendous crash just as Elias lifted the forbidden tome from its hiding place. Voices poured into their cottage—Constable Morrison barking orders, Doctor Henley calling for calm, other townspeople adding their confused and frightened contributions to the chaos.

"Nobody move!" Morrison's voice cut through the tumult with practiced authority.

Elias clutched the strange book to his chest and returned to the main room, where a tableau of impossible tensions had arranged itself. Constable Morrison stood in the doorway, his hand resting on the grip of his service pistol, his weathered face grave with the weight of whatever he had come to investigate. Behind him, Doctor Henley peered into the cottage with the clinical detachment of a man accustomed to human suffering. Several other townspeople crowded around the broken doorframe, their faces pale with the kind of fascinated horror that drew people to scenes of tragedy.

At the center of it all sat the Shearer family, suddenly exposed to a world that could never understand what they truly were. Gideon slumped in his chair, the Shear hidden beneath a fold of his jacket but still clearly visible to anyone who looked closely enough. Blood pooled on the floor beneath him, dark and viscous in the lamplight.

Samantha remained by the window, her serene smile never wavering as she regarded their unexpected guests with the same pleasant interest she might show a gathering of church ladies come to call.

And Elias stood frozen between his old life and whatever terrible revelation lay within the pages of the book he now held.

"Dear God," Doctor Henley breathed, taking in the scene with professional horror. "Gideon, you're bleeding. What happened here?"

"An accident," Gideon replied, his voice barely above a whisper. "Nothing that concerns the law."

Constable Morrison's eyes narrowed as he took in the bloodstains, the strange tension in the air, and the way both men seemed to be protecting something from view. "I'm afraid that's not your decision to make, Gideon. We've had reports of violence. Screaming. And the McGoverns haven't been seen since this afternoon."

"The McGoverns are resting," Samantha said helpfully. "They had such a tiring day. All that pruning can be so exhausting."

The words hung in the air like a curse, their innocent delivery making them somehow more ominous than any threat could have been. Elias saw understanding begin to dawn in the constable's eyes, the terrible recognition that something far worse than a simple domestic accident had occurred.

"Samantha," Gideon whispered urgently. "Be quiet."

But his daughter only smiled that beautiful, empty smile and began to hum again. The melody seemed to fill the cottage with its strange harmonies, and Elias could swear he smelled something blooming—something sweet and organic and utterly wrong.

Constable Morrison drew his pistol. "Nobody move. I want everyone to remain exactly where they are while we sort this out."

It was then that Elias felt something calling to him from within the forbidden book he clutched against his chest. Not words, exactly, but a presence—vast and patient and hungry beyond mortal comprehension. It whispered to him in his own blood, speaking truths that his rational mind rejected but that some deeper part of his being recognized with terrible familiarity.

Same blood, same visions, his father had said. Now, holding their true scripture in his trembling hands, Elias began to understand what those words actually meant.

The pounding in his temples grew stronger, matching rhythm with Samantha's humming, and somewhere in the growing darkness outside their cottage, something ancient and terrible began to stir.