Echoes of Past

Chapter 7: The Names We Bury

Clara woke to a new kind of silence.

Not the silence of grief or confusion, but of decision. There was a stillness in her chest she hadn’t felt in weeks — a cold clarity that sharpened her every breath. She knew now what she was facing. Not just the mystery of Ethan’s death. But her father’s legacy. Her mother’s silence. The rot that had grown in the roots of her family, quietly feeding on denial.

She would not be the vessel for it anymore.

Not Clara Thompson.

Not Ethan’s sister.

She was done being quiet.

---

She packed the tape and the notebook into her bag and returned to the cliffside — not to search, but to remember. She stood on the same outcropping where they used to race as children, where the wind would catch their laughter and carry it out to sea. She could almost hear it now, the echo of Ethan’s voice: “Race you to the end!”

He had loved this place. The view. The openness. But something about it had changed him in those final weeks. She saw it now — in the drawings, in the letter, in the recording. He’d known something terrifying. Something not meant for a ten-year-old heart.

And no one had protected him.

Not even her.

Clara sat on the edge of the rock, legs dangling over the bluff, the sea roaring below. She didn’t cry. Not anymore. There were no tears left — only resolve.

“I’m going to finish what you started,” she whispered.

---

At the library that afternoon, Clara met with the town’s archivist, a gentle man named Harris, who looked more like a retired actor than a keeper of dusty records.

“I’m looking for anything on my father,” she said plainly. “David Thompson. Land records. Criminal reports. Newspaper clippings. Anything from the 1980s onward.”

Harris blinked behind his glasses. “That’s... quite the range.”

“I know. But it’s important.”

He didn’t argue. Instead, he pushed a logbook toward her. “Start here. I’ll check the microfilm room.”

Clara scanned the register, tracing the surname column with her finger. Thompson. Thompson. And then:

> 1985 – Land deed transfer: Fairhaven Cliffs (Parcel 17) from Harold Thompson to David Thompson.

Parcel 17. The shack.

She flipped to the side note. It read:

> Structure permitted: Storage/utility. Use restricted. Personal liability waived under family contract.

Clara frowned. “What does that mean?”

Harris returned just then, holding a small stack of documents. “Found some stuff. Your dad made the news once. 1992. Lighthouse funding scandal.”

He laid the articles down.

There it was: a black-and-white photo of her father — younger, still sharp-eyed — standing beside a town councilman. The article mentioned a proposed renovation of the old lighthouse, funded partially by a “private donation” that was later retracted after zoning disputes. The renovation had never happened.

Another article from 1995 had a more unsettling headline:

> "Local Boy Claims Strange Rituals in Clifftop Woods. Parents Deny."

It wasn’t about Ethan — the date didn’t line up — but Clara’s heart froze.

The child’s name was Brandon Rusk.

And when she looked up the name later that night, she found an obituary.

> Brandon Rusk, age 11, died of a fall from the cliffs. Ruled accidental. Survived by parents Carla and Glenn.

Two years before Ethan.

---

Clara knocked on the Rusks’ door the next morning.

It was a modest home, slightly rundown, but with flowerpots in the window that told her someone still cared.

An older woman answered. Her eyes were wary, tired.

“Mrs. Rusk?” Clara asked gently. “I’m sorry to intrude. My name is Clara Thompson. My brother was Ethan.”

The woman’s face changed. Not surprise — recognition.

“I know who you are,” she said.

“May I come in?”

A pause. Then a nod.

Inside, the home was filled with photographs — Brandon’s smile in every frame. He looked like Ethan. Not in features, but in spirit. Curious. Mischievous. Bright.

“I’m sorry,” Clara said again. “I didn’t know about Brandon until yesterday.”

“Most don’t,” Carla replied, her voice brittle. “They buried it fast. Said it was an accident. He was always climbing trees, they said. Just another careless boy.”

“Do you think it was an accident?” Clara asked.

Carla looked at her with a strange, sad smile. “No. I never did.”

---

They talked for an hour.

Carla told her that Brandon had complained about “strange men” in the woods. About hearing things — voices, chanting. He’d drawn circles in his notebooks. Said they were symbols. He’d said her husband, Glenn, had started “acting strange.”

Glenn had died five years after Brandon. A car accident.

“But I think it wasn’t an accident,” Carla said quietly. “I think he was going to tell someone. And someone didn’t want that.”

Clara felt a chill crawl down her spine.

“How many boys have to fall before someone listens?” Carla whispered.

---

That night, Clara dreamed of the cliffs again.

But this time, Ethan wasn’t falling.

He was standing.

Calling to her.

But when she tried to reach him, the ground beneath her cracked — not from erosion, but from roots.

Dark, knotted roots that pulled at her feet.

Whispers rose from the soil.

She couldn’t understand the words.

But she understood the meaning.

There’s more beneath the surface.

---

In the morning, she went back to the shack. Alone.

The compass in her hand spun wildly as she entered.

She checked the floorboards this time.

Every creak, every groan of the rotting wood, felt like a breath from the past.

Near the fireplace, she noticed something odd: a board that looked newer than the others. Not new — just replaced.

She pried at it with the edge of her flashlight.

It lifted with a c***k.

Inside: a hollow space.

A box.

She pulled it out.

Inside — photographs. Dozens. Black and white. Some color. Some blurry.

All of children.

And one of Ethan — not smiling. Just watching something beyond the frame.

Clara’s hand trembled.

Beneath the photos: a ledger.

Names. Dates. Initials.

E.R.

B.R.

J.W.

E.T.

Clara stared at the list, her breath catching in her throat.

It was a record.

Of children.

Of deaths?

Or rituals?

The final page had a single name underlined:

> C.T.

Her.

---

She stumbled out of the shack, heart hammering, lungs burning.

The woods blurred.

She ran until she hit the clearing.

Until the sun finally found her.

She fell to her knees.

And for the first time since reading Ethan’s letter — she screamed.

---

Daniel found her an hour later, sitting in the grass just beyond the clearing, her hands dirty, her eyes distant. He didn’t ask what had happened. One look at her face and he knew something had shifted. Something irreversible.

Clara handed him the ledger without a word. Daniel flipped through it slowly, his expression tightening with every page. When he reached her initials at the end — C.T. — he stopped. He closed the book, exhaled sharply, and sat beside her. “They were planning something. For you.”

She nodded. “Or maybe they already started. Maybe that’s why I don’t remember things right. Why everything from that summer feels like shadows and noise.”

Daniel looked at her, jaw clenched. “Then we don’t just have a tragedy, Clara. We have a cover-up. And maybe a pattern.” He tapped the ledger. “This isn’t just your story anymore. This could be about more children. More lives.”

---

Clara’s voice was hoarse when she finally spoke. “What kind of people do this, Daniel? What kind of father writes down his daughter’s name like she’s… like she’s next?”

Daniel didn’t answer right away. He watched the wind bend the tall grass, the shack looming behind them like a wound that wouldn't close. “The kind of people who believe the past will stay buried if they just dig deep enough. But it doesn’t. It always finds a way to surface.”

Clara pressed her palms to her face. Her skin felt too tight, like it was holding something in that wanted to burst out. Rage. Horror. Grief. All of it. “He left town to escape the consequences. And the rest of them? They just stayed quiet.”

“Then you be the one who doesn’t,” Daniel said, his voice low but firm. “You survived, Clara. That means you’re the one who gets to speak.”