Chapter 8: Rooms We Never Entered
1411 Words
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That night, Clara didn’t sleep.
The ledger sat on her nightstand like it was breathing. She could almost hear the weight of it—name after name, child after child, reduced to initials and numbers in her father’s handwriting. Each one carried a story, a life, a silence no one dared to break.
She kept her lamp on and the tape recorder beside her. At some point after midnight, she turned it on—not the tape, but the recording function—and spoke softly into it.
> “My name is Clara Thompson. I was almost next. My brother was before me. I don’t know how deep this goes, or who else was part of it, but I know it starts here. And I’m not going to pretend anymore.”
Then she pressed stop and left the recorder running beside the ledger, like an offering to the truth.
---
In the morning, the fog hung low over Fairhaven.
It clung to rooftops, draped over power lines, and wrapped around tree limbs like a veil. The town looked like a place paused in grief. Or in denial.
Clara walked downtown with the ledger hidden in her coat.
She passed people who knew her name, people who had stopped her to say they were sorry when she first returned—but not one of them looked her in the eye now. As if some invisible alarm had gone off. As if they could sense she had seen too much.
When she reached the town hall, she found Daniel already waiting on the steps.
He looked up and gave a small nod. “You sure?”
“No,” Clara admitted. “But I don’t care anymore.”
They went inside together.
---
The council clerk, a man named Boyd, gave Clara a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“We weren’t expecting you.”
Clara placed the ledger on the counter. “I need to speak to Councilwoman Jennings. Now.”
Boyd blinked. “I’m not sure she’s in—”
“She’s in,” Daniel interrupted. “I saw her car out front. Tell her it’s about the land on Parcel 17. And the ledger that came from it.”
Boyd hesitated for a moment too long, then disappeared through the frosted glass doors.
Clara stared straight ahead, pulse thudding in her ears.
Within minutes, Councilwoman Jennings appeared.
She was tall, silver-haired, and polished—the kind of woman who had held her seat for years without ever really being questioned. But when she saw Clara and the ledger, her eyes flickered.
“Ms. Thompson,” she said coolly. “Let’s talk in my office.”
---
Jennings’ office was pristine. Leather-bound books, a clock that ticked too loudly, and a photograph of her shaking hands with Clara’s father.
Clara pointed at it.
“When was that taken?”
“1993,” Jennings said. “He donated to our coastal preservation fund.”
Clara opened the ledger to the page with the list of names.
“And did he mention this during the donation?”
Jennings' mouth tightened. “I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a list of children. All dead. Many of them unexplained. One of them was my brother.”
Jennings looked at her for a long moment.
Then sat down.
“I warned him once,” she said quietly. “Told him the old traditions had no place in a town like this. He told me Fairhaven was built on them.”
Clara’s blood chilled. “What traditions?”
“Protection,” Jennings said. “Sacrifice, they called it. But really it was control. Fear disguised as faith.”
“And you let it happen.”
“I tried to stop it,” she said. “I voted against every land permit he brought to us. But he had others. People you wouldn’t suspect. He called them caretakers.”
Clara felt nausea rise in her throat. “So who else was involved?”
Jennings hesitated. “He burned most of the names before he left. But if the ledger survived… someone wanted you to find it.”
---
They left town hall shaken but not surprised.
Clara sat with Daniel in his car, the ledger on her lap.
“So what now?” he asked.
“We go to the sheriff,” she said. “But not the old one. Someone new. Someone who hasn’t been bought.”
“That’s a short list.”
“Then we start with whoever’s willing to listen.”
---
Sheriff Nadia Torres was new to Fairhaven. Young. Sharp. Unbought.
She took one look at the ledger and listened without interrupting as Clara laid it all out—Ethan, the drawings, the shack, the tape, the photos, the land deeds.
When Clara finished, Sheriff Torres said, “I’ll open a cold case file. Quietly. If what you’re saying is true, we’re going to need more than this to make anything stick.”
Clara nodded. “I’m not trying to bury them. I’m trying to expose them.”
“And that makes you a target,” Torres said. “Be careful, Clara.”
---
That night, Clara returned home and found her mother in the kitchen, drinking tea in silence.
Anna looked up as Clara entered.
“You found it,” she said.
Clara didn’t pretend.
“Yes.”
Her mother stared into her cup. “I wanted to tell you. But he warned me.”
Clara’s throat tightened. “You could’ve stopped him.”
Anna’s hands trembled slightly. “I thought he loved us. I didn’t think he’d... I didn’t know what he was capable of.”
“He was capable of killing your son,” Clara snapped. “And he was planning to do the same to me.”
Anna flinched. “I’m sorry.”
Clara leaned in, voice trembling. “Sorry doesn’t bring him back. Sorry doesn’t undo what happened in those woods.”
“I know.”
They sat in silence, two women tethered by grief, by failure, by a boy who never got to grow up.
---
Clara couldn’t sleep.
So she walked.
Through the woods.
Down the path Ethan used to follow.
To the cliffside.
The wind was cold, biting at her skin.
She stood at the edge, staring down into the blackness below, and imagined him there—small, afraid, but brave.
“I'm still listening,” she whispered.
Something flickered in the darkness.
Not a sound.
Not a shape.
A feeling.
Like someone finally let go.
---
The next morning, Clara received a call from Sheriff Torres.
“I spoke to Brandon Rusk’s mother. She gave us her son’s drawings. They match Ethan’s. Same symbols. Same shadows.”
Clara closed her eyes.
“That's not a coincidence,” Torres said.
“No,” Clara replied. “It’s a pattern.”
“And I think we just found someone who was part of it,” the sheriff added. “A former groundskeeper. Worked for your father. He’s in hospice now. Wants to talk.”
Clara felt her heart thud.
“I’ll go,” she said.
---
The hospice smelled of antiseptic and fading time.
The man—Emory Dallin—was pale, his skin thin as parchment.
He looked up as Clara entered.
“You look like him,” he rasped.
“I’m not him,” Clara said coldly. “I’m what’s left.”
He laughed, a dry, cracked sound. “That ledger... I buried it. Thought it might save you.”
“Why?”
“Because I watched him change,” Emory whispered. “Something got into him. Not a ghost. Not madness. Something old.”
Clara’s skin prickled. “What do you mean?”
“He said the cliffs had rules. That they demanded things. I thought it was nonsense. But then the boys started dying.”
“Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I tried,” Emory said, coughing. “I tried. But he said if I interfered, I’d be next.”
Clara leaned closer. “Why me? Why was I next?”
Emory’s eyes filled with something—remorse? Terror?
“Because you were the one he couldn’t control.”
---
That night, Clara stood on the porch and listened to the wind.
In the distance, the sea roared like a beast no one ever tamed.
She didn’t know what was coming next.
But she wasn’t afraid anymore.
- Writer
