Chapter 7: The Scribe's Bargain

Chapter 7: The Scribe's Bargain

“She went into the forest.”

His mother’s words detonated in Alex’s mind, blowing away every rational thought. Sarah was in there. In the coliseum. In the stomach of the beast. His attempt to save her had been a fool’s gambit, a child playing with cosmic fire, and he had aimed the resulting inferno directly at the one person he was trying to protect.

He was out of the car before he’d even fully registered ending the call, stumbling back toward the trailhead. The twilight had deepened into a bruised purple, and the shadows pooling between the impossibly tall pines were now absolute. He screamed her name, the sound swallowed whole by the oppressive silence. It was like shouting into thick wool.

"SARAH!"

No reply. Not even an echo. The forest was a soundproof room, and he knew with sickening certainty that it was listening.

Panic was a physical thing, a frantic bird beating its wings against the inside of his ribs. Where would he even start? The woods were vast, a labyrinth of identical trees and winding, meaningless trails. She could be anywhere. And the thing from his window—the pale, twitching Scribe—could be with her.

He spun around and sprinted back to his car, fumbling for the keys. He had to get help. The sheriff. A search party. Anything. But even as the thought formed, he knew it was useless. What would he tell them? That his ex-girlfriend was lost in the woods because of a cursed book that makes its victims write their own death sentences? They’d lock him up in the same padded cell he’d pretended to deserve for Sarah’s benefit.

He slammed his hands on the steering wheel, a choked sob of pure frustration escaping him. He was trapped. Powerless.

Then he felt it. The cold, familiar weight in his jacket. The book.

It was his only connection to the power that had taken her. It was the source of the plague, but it was also the rulebook. Maybe, just maybe, it would give him a clue.

With hands that shook so badly he could barely manage the simple task, he pulled the Ledger out and laid it on the passenger seat. He stared at the page with his own handwriting, the benign rule about the clock tower now feeling like a grotesque mockery. As he watched, the ink of that rule began to fade, the words dissolving back into the yellowed parchment until the page was blank once more.

And then new words bled into existence. Not in his handwriting this time, but in the Scribe’s elegant, cruel script. It wasn’t a rule. It was an offer. A transaction.

A soul for a soul. A memory for a memory. The forest has taken a Tithe it was not owed. It can be persuaded to return her.

But the Ledger must be balanced. A name was promised. A story was owed. Offer a replacement.

Below the words, a single, stark line appeared, followed by a colon, waiting to be filled.

Name:

Alex stared at it, his blood turning to ice. He understood instantly. This was the dark magic of the third rule—the power to make someone forgotten—being offered to him as a tool. He could write a name. Anyone. And Sarah would be safe. Mark, his friend who had seen too much? His grieving mother? The waitress from the diner? Some random person whose name he plucked from a phonebook?

The thought was so vile, so monstrous, it felt like a physical poison seeping into his skin. He remembered his father's hospital room, the crushing weight of guilt over a death he felt responsible for. The book was offering him a chance to do it again, but this time with full knowledge. With intent.

"No," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Never."

He snatched the book from the seat, his revulsion giving him a surge of strength. With a roar of fury, he hurled it out the open car window. It tumbled through the air and landed in a dark ditch by the side of the road. He slammed the car into drive and stomped on the accelerator, tires screeching on the asphalt as he sped away. He didn't look back. He didn't need to.

He drove for less than thirty seconds before a heavy thud on the passenger seat made him flinch so hard he nearly swerved into a tree. He glanced over. The Scribe's Ledger sat there, pristine, its leather cover seeming to mock him. It was inescapable. The game could not be refused; it could only be played.

There was only one other option. One person who knew the game. Eleanor.

He drove with reckless speed, the two-hour trip from his apartment now a frantic ten-minute blur through Havenwood’s quiet streets. He screeched to a halt in front of the library, but it was dark, the doors securely locked. Of course. It was late. He tried to remember where she lived—an old Victorian house on the edge of town, one he used to pass on his bike as a kid.

He found it minutes later. The house was set back from the road, partially obscured by overgrown lilac bushes. A single light burned in a downstairs window, casting a lonely yellow rectangle onto the unkempt lawn. But something was wrong. The front door was slightly ajar, a dark slash in the welcoming facade.

"Eleanor?" he called out, his voice tight with dread as he pushed the door open.

The scene inside was one of violent order. The small living room had been torn apart, but not with random vandalism. It had been searched. Cushions were sliced open, books pulled from shelves, but it was the towering stacks of archival boxes that had suffered the most. They were overturned, their contents—files, photographs, and handwritten notes—spilling across the floor like the entrails of a slaughtered animal. Whoever did this was looking for something specific.

"Eleanor!" he shouted again, his voice echoing in the ruined space. No answer. She was gone.

He was alone again. His only guide, his only source of information, had been taken from the board. He knelt amidst the chaos, a profound sense of defeat washing over him. Had the Ledger done this? Had it removed her from the game because she was helping him?

His eyes scanned the scattered papers, searching for anything that might help him. Most of it was historical research, town records, faded newspaper clippings. Then he saw it. Lying half-hidden under a pile of photographs was a large, heavy book, bound in simple, dark-green leather. It was a ledger, much like the cursed one he carried, but clearly of human make. On its cover, in elegant gold leaf, were the words: A History of Tithes to the Pines.

Eleanor’s research.

With trembling hands, he opened it. The first page was a hand-drawn map of the forest, with certain areas circled in red ink. The following pages were filled with Eleanor's neat, precise handwriting, detailing a history that stretched back over a century. It was a list. A list of names.

William Abernathy, 1923. Age 19. Tithe: A rejection letter from his beloved. Martha Owens, 1958. Age 42. Tithe: The memory of her stillborn child. David Chen, 1987. Age 28. Tithe: Confession of an affair.

On and on it went, a secret history of pain and sacrifice. Each entry was a ghost, a soul fed to the forest. For each name, Eleanor had painstakingly tried to piece together their story, who they were, and the regret that had been stolen from them to power the curse. These were the previous players. The ones who had lost the game.

He flipped to the last written page, his heart pounding. The final entry was dated thirty years ago. The name was smudged, almost illegible. Eleanor Vance. Age 38. Tithe: The face of the man who didn't return.

A cold shock went through him. Eleanor… she wasn't just a historian. She was a survivor. A former player.

As he stared at her name, a drop of black ink suddenly appeared at the bottom of the page, as if bleeding up through the fibers of the paper itself. Alex recoiled, dropping the book as if it had burned him. It was the same magical appearance of the words in his own Ledger. He watched in horror as the ink coalesced, forming letters, then words, written in the Scribe's perfect, hateful script.

A new entry was being written on the list of victims. Right now.

The script flowed onto the page, elegant and final.

Alex Ryder, Present Day. Designation: The Next Author.