The Ravenwood Palace

The Last Confession.

Morning in Elmridge was little more than a gray smear between night and storm. The mist had thickened, crawling low over the cobblestones, muffling even the crows. Lucas Blackwood walked with his collar up and hat brim low, Anna’s notebook heavy in his coat pocket, the memory of his sister heavier still.

The villagers watched him from behind curtains. A few made the sign of the cross as he passed, as though he were already marked for the grave.

He had been told there was one man still alive who remembered the night Ravenwood burned. A priest, Father Alden, older than the church itself if rumor was to be believed. They said he hadn’t rung the bells in years, that he lived more in the graveyard than in his chapel, tending the stones like family.

Lucas found him kneeling among the crooked headstones, his black robes damp with dew. The old man’s hands, mottled with age, brushed moss from a name half-swallowed by the earth.

“Father Alden,” Lucas said, voice low.

The priest turned, eyes sharp and strangely clear for his years. “You carry her notebook,” he said without greeting.

Lucas’s hand twitched toward his coat. “And how would you know that?”

“Because it carries weight,” Alden whispered, rising slowly. “Even from here I can feel it pulling at you, same as it pulled her.”

“Anna Fletcher?”

The priest shook his head, rain dripping from his silver hair. “No. Eveline. Eveline Ravenwood. You cannot hold her name in your mouth without feeding her. That girl… she thought she was hunting history. But history hunts back.”

Lucas lit a cigarette, letting the smoke curl against the fog. “Then tell me what happened the night of the fire.”

For a moment Alden only looked at him, as though measuring the depth of his shadow. Then he turned and began walking toward the chapel door. Lucas followed.

Inside, the church smelled of mildew and old wax. Candles burned weakly before the altar, their flames flickering though the air was still. Alden sat heavily in a pew, his voice brittle but steady.

“She was not like the others, Eveline. The last mistress of Ravenwood. Some say she was beautiful. Some say she was cruel. I say she was both, and more besides. She had… a hunger. For life, for power, for the old ways the church had long tried to bury. The villagers whispered that she called storms, that she walked among shadows as if they were her servants. I do not know if it was truth or blasphemy. I only know that the night of the fire, I rang the bells.”

Lucas frowned. “The records say no bells rang. That the villagers didn’t realize until the palace was already lost.”

Alden’s eyes glistened. “Records lie. I pulled the rope until my hands bled. The bells tolled of their own will, louder than thunder. Not to warn us — but to drown her screams. Because Eveline Ravenwood did not burn like a woman. She burned like a curse.”

The silence that followed was thick as smoke.

Lucas leaned forward, voice sharp. “And her body?”

The old priest’s lips tightened. “Never found. We buried an empty coffin. A box of ash and stone. But every year since, on the night of the fire, the bells ring again. No hand upon the rope. Just tolling.” His gaze fixed on Lucas. “And now you’ve come. Scarred by fire. Haunted by the same name. You think you’re here to find that missing girl — but I tell you, Detective, you were always coming to Ravenwood. Always.”

Lucas exhaled smoke, letting the words settle like lead. “Then perhaps it’s time I stopped running in circles.”

He rose, tipping his hat in a gesture more habit than courtesy. “Thank you, Father. You’ve given me enough.”

As he turned to leave, Alden’s voice broke the stillness one last time, soft as a prayer:

“She waits for you, Blackwood. In the east wing. Where the fire began.”

Lucas paused at the threshold, the mist curling like fingers beyond the door. Then he stepped out into the gray, Ravenwood’s jagged silhouette looming above the hills.

The climb awaited.