Chapter 8
522 Words
He returned to the chapel just before dusk.
The sky was a bruised lilac, the color of quiet grief, and the wind carried the scent of earth after rain. Edmund had barely slept since the dreams began, yet something in him felt more awake than ever.
The letters had never left his side.
He had read them all now, nearly sixty of them,tucked neatly between the pages of old books, hidden under floorboards, even pressed between the layers of a decaying mirror frame. Each one deepened the ache in his chest. Each one whispered: You didn’t see me when I was alive, but perhaps now… you will.
He pushed open the chapel door.
Dust swirled in golden shafts of light, catching on the crumbling mosaics and curling vines that had crept through the broken windows. It was as if the place itself remembered her,every shadow, every silence wrapped around her absence like a shroud.
But tonight, something was different.
He felt it the moment he stepped inside.
The stillness wasn’t empty. It felt… charged.
He paused, listening.
The faintest trace of lavender brushed his senses,her scent-but there were no flowers now. Only old stone and time. His skin prickled.
Then he heard it. The quietest sound.
A piano.
No… not a real one. The memory of a melody, echoing in his mind like a song from a dream. A tune Katherine once played when she believed no one was listening. She had called it “The Rain’s Lament.”
He followed the sound, heart in his throat.
The source led him to the old altar. Behind it, hidden beneath a slab of stone loosened by age, he discovered something wrapped in silk — a journal, older than the letters. This one bore no name. Just an emblem pressed into the leather: a single white flower.
He opened it.
Inside were sketches. Half-finished portraits of a woman,always the same face, always Katherine. But in different clothing, different eras. One wore a crown of thorns. Another, a soldier’s coat. One,impossibly-wore a modern dress, staring out from the page with tired eyes and a gentle smile.
The final page read:
“I dream of lives I have not lived. Or perhaps I have, and they remember me more than I remember them. There is always a man. Always those eyes. But he never knows me. Not until it’s too late.”
Edmund’s hand trembled as he traced the words. He didn’t know what to believe anymore.
Suddenly, a gust of wind swept through the chapel — but the doors hadn’t moved. The candles he hadn’t lit flickered to life, their flames burning steady, warm, golden. Not a draft. A presence.
He turned.
For a split second, he swore he saw her standing at the threshold of the doorway. Barefoot. Dressed in moonlight. Her eyes met his,not sorrowful this time, but waiting.
Then she was gone.
He dropped to his knees, the journal pressed to his chest. Tears blurred his vision.
She was reaching out.
Not just from memory. Not just from death.
From somewhere deeper.
And he,perhaps for the first time,was ready to reach back.
- Writer
