This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

New here? Start at the beginning...

The police interview room looks like every interview room Sophie has ever seen in movies and TV shows.

It is a cold, austere box with a table in the centre. Three chairs, one of which Sophie occupies. Opposite her; Peters. The third chair is empty, though it is pulled out as if someone has just left or is inviting someone to join them. There is a camera blinking red in the corner of the ceiling facing Sophie, and a tape recorder on a side table yet to be switched on.

Sophie is disappointed there is no mirror on the wall. She thought the double mirror in TV cop shows was a real thing in every interview room.

Peters sits back in his chair, wearing forced nonchalance, only serving to make him look more uptight. She is not sure if he is going to play good cop or bad cop. She thinks he doesn’t know either.

He folds his arms, mirroring Sophie, then leans forward, resting his arms on the table. A lone eyebrow arches. Bad cop, then.

“I’ll ask you one more time, Hamilton,” Peters begins. “Did you take anything from the crime scene?”

“So now you admit it is a crime scene?” Sophie surprises herself by saying. This isn’t her, she knows it isn’t her. Jessica was always the outspoken one, the brave one, the say-whatever-you-are-thinking one. In a fractured moment of thought, Sophie wonders if some dormant DNA has activated, triggered into response now her identical twin has gone and can no longer speak up for Sophie.

“Suicide is a crime,” Peters says, deadpan.

“What are you going to do? Arrest Rhian before they shove her in the ground? Don’t think she’ll tell you much either.”

Peters leans back. His chair groans, he sighs out.

He’s tired, Sophie thinks. And so is she. Tired of people withholding information from her. Tired of people telling her they don’t know anything about Jessica’s stay here.

He rubs his face, then pulls further forward and says, “You’ve been here less than a day and I’m already tired of you, Hamilton. But the bullshit stops now. You running around here asking questions—it isn’t helping anyone. You need to leave.”

Sophie shrugs. “I’m not leaving. And with all due respect, it’s not a crime to stay, so you can’t make me go.”

Peters tilts his head left and right as if weighing her words. “Maybe, maybe not.”

He leans back in his chair again, regarding her, and a realisation dawns on Sophie.

“You didn’t bring me here to talk about Rhian, did you?”

“I think it is for the best if you and your goofy sidekick leave what’s happening in this town for us to deal with.” Peters speaks slowly as if he doesn’t trust himself—doesn’t trust words or clues may slip out unbidden if he doesn’t concentrate.

“So, you admit something is happening here?” she raises her eyebrows, but Peters remains silent, anger seething within. She doesn’t know why, but she has an urge to push his buttons. Like the urge she used to get as a child to open the car door when it was flying down the motorway… just to see what would happen. Just to see if she’d survive. In her mind’s eye, she sees Jessica’s tiny face - her eight-year-old face - solemnly shaking her head no in the car next to her, as if her twin could read her thoughts. Don’t do it. Sophie didn’t do it back then, but Jessica isn’t here to stop her now: “You must know I’m not going anywhere until I have answers.”

She braces herself for Peters’ onslaught, but he switches to good cop. Softening his shoulders, his gaze, the tight lines around his lips. He sighs again. An emptying out.

“Do you honestly believe you’re going to somehow find answers for why Jessica did what she did?” he shifts his weight onto his elbows, rests his chin on his steepled hands. “Do you honestly believe there is an answer that will satisfy you?”

These questions are of a different sort, Sophie notices. The words are not threats wrapped up in vocabulary, but emotions dressed up as words. He means it. And the truth of his sentiments sting.

“I…” she starts but trails off. He waits as her mind wanders back to the morgue, then to an imagined graveside, the only inevitable future for Jessica’s once vibrant life. She imagines blackened soil edged in perfect angles to fit a cheap coffin. A deep, dark crevice like the tear she feels across her soul now that she is one. The hole in the ground being filled with the thump of earth—though the hole in her heart remaining open for all time. Her sister in the ground. Waiting. Her reflection in the mirror, calling.

Then, her thoughts merge into something else: Peters standing by his car in the pouring rain, staring at Sophie in… What? Curiosity? Intrigue? Recognition?

The world tilts on its axis.

“Sergeant Peters,” Sophie says, clearing her throat to remove the lump of grief forming. “I didn’t tell you about Jessica. I didn’t even mention her name.”

Peters pulls upright, his lips open, but no words slip out.

“Which can only mean you know about her death—know it’s somehow connected to this town, to Rhian, to the others—to why I am here.”

Peters leans back in his creaking chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. He faces upwards to the heavens, but his eyes are closed, as if he can’t quite allow himself to believe in such a thing.

“You met her, didn’t you?” Sophie presses. “You recognised me—in the park. There are signs of her everywhere, and I’m not going anywhere until I find out what the actual fuck she was doing in this town, and what the actual fuck really happened. She was brought here by Rhian, and now both of them are dead.”

Peters doesn’t answer for a long time, but the silence is not uncomfortable. It feels like a strange relief. When he finally speaks, it is not with an answer but more questions.

“Were you surprised?” Peters asks, his voice low and melodious. “When you found out what happened? What the coroner over at Chester concluded her cause of death? Was it out of character?”

Sophie doesn’t answer immediately.

She doesn’t know the correct answer.

Jessica was always the strong one. Always supporting Sophie through her anxiety episodes and extended bouts of depression. Her sister had been everything Sophie was not. Jessica could cope with their childhood loss; drunk with lust and love for life and adventure. Dreaming of better things to come. Creating a better life. Jessica had believed where Sophie had given up.

But was that true?

Sophie thinks back to when they were housed at their first foster home, huddled in a room with other lonely and forgotten children. Jessica would tell stories to help Sophie believe their lives would get better, whispering them into the darkness while huddled under blankets. Jessica began with classic tales about pauper princesses and orphaned children who married into royalty. Always, the stories involved twins, identical in every way except for one difference—one always had a key in her pocket that would unlock the world’s secrets, or the door in the dragon’s cave, or the portal on the pirate ship; the elixir every hero’s journey needs. The key was a symbol, a talisman, that made its little cameo in every telling - something Jessica always looked for in her beloved folklore and mythology studies.

Sophie can’t pinpoint the time when Jessica’s cheerful adventures became fuelled with mystery and secrets and loss and sadness. Perhaps when they were teens, a truer reflection of their own lives. But somehow, Sophie remembers feeling more comforted by this.

By the truth.

It’s not a thought she wants to admit. But, deep down, Sophie knows when she identified her twin on the cold mortuary table - and if she’s honest with herself - she had a terrible thought. A thought so deep she wasn’t even conscious of it back then. But just for one fleeting moment, she wondered if she finally understood the meaning of the key, and Jessica’s secret was unlocked.

Perhaps, Sophie considers now Peters has asked the question, Jessica had never been happy. Perhaps she had never been a believer. Perhaps, she had spent her life not only trying to convince Sophie things would be okay, but also trying to convince herself. And Sophie had done nothing to help support her sister. She had taken all and given nothing.

Had Jessica unlocked the door to end her own suffering?

And there’s Jessica, alive in her mind. She is sitting, legs crossed, on the tatty armchair in the corner of the living room; Mac perched on her lap, notebook full of scribbles on her knee, a glass of wine in her hand as she hoots with victorious triumph. “Ha! I’ve got it, Soph,” she says with her warm baritone voice—her strong voice. “This is the secret to discovering the meaning of any story—you’ve got to find the key, the symbol, the one thing that holds the threads of the story together. And I’ve got it!” She takes a swig of her wine then, a mischievous and slightly embarrassed smile on her face, “Reckon you can whip up the essay for me if I tell you what it is?”

Sophie comes back to the present moment. Peters is staring at her with those storm black eyes, swallowing her up whole. He hasn’t moved a muscle, waiting stoically for her response.

No, Sophie won’t believe this was the path Jessica took. She can still see that magical glint in Jessica’s golden eyes whenever she spoke. She can still feel her sister’s energy as she danced under the falling autumn leaves totally, absorbed in the moment, unabashed by the strangers watching her as they passed by.

When Sophie finally speaks, her tone is resolute, because no matter what her survivor’s guilt tells her, she knows the truth of Jessica’s mind.

“What they think Jessica did is too far out of character to even consider,” Sophie lies. Because she has considered it. But still. “I know there is another reason for her death.” Sophie leans forward. “And you are going to tell me everything you know about Jessica’s time in this town, Peters. Everything.”

Peters laughs as he stands, but the laughter stops with an abrupt halt. His tone is beyond condescending when he says, “I just love how painfully ignorant and naive you are, Hamilton.”

He spreads his hands wide on the table, lowering his body so his face is inches from her own. Sophie feels herself brace. Any confidence won, quickly morphing into fear-fuelled adrenaline.

He lowers his gruff voice to almost a whisper. “We can do this the easy way, or you can do it the hard way, but I’m warning you, so help me God, if you don’t—”

But whatever he is about to say goes unsaid.

A scream, a wild cry, erupts from outside the room. Stunned, they turn to the door.

“What the hell?” Peters growls, rising and spinning to look at the door.

Another guttural howl explodes. Sophie scrambles to stand, her chair clattering to the floor as the shrieks intensify. She can’t make out words within the feral cries. There are several grunts. Someone swears. Deeper yells. Scuffling feet and the squeak of rubber soles against the floor. The screams are muffled for but a moment before they burst out again like an explosion.

Peters is at the door in a flash, yanking it open—the screams, yells, and grunts intensify, pooling into the room, filling it with feral cries. A flash of wrestling officers scramble past the door. Peters turns to Sophie.

“You…” he points a menacing finger. “Stay put.”

The door slams behind him, leaving Sophie alone, though she hears his muted yells all the same. “Jesus Christ Almighty. Call the Doctor. Call the fucking doctor!”

Peters’ orders, the scuffles, and the screams dim as further along the corridor they go. And Sophie can’t help herself. She creeps towards the door, cracks it open, and gasps.

I promise that The Study of Quiet Things would be forever free for readers here on Substack - but if you feel called to support my writing and keep the hearth lit in The Teller’s House, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fuelled.

Buy me a Coffee x

This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

New here? Start at the beginning...

Coffee is made. Pleasantries are passed.

Keeping busy? You’re looking well. You haven’t aged a bit. I read your white paper in Scientist Today magazine. I was sorry to hear about Claudia. How’s your father? He was a good man. No kids. You never moved then? How long has it been? Ten years?

They both know how long it has been. Nobody needs to ask, but they are both skirting safely around the edges of a conversation they know must happen; and keeping a generous distance around the one question they both want answered.

What is Kai doing here?

Their coffee cups are empty now, and so too are the safe, surface level topics.

And Kai wonders if this was his plan all along. If his study was born, knowing it would eventually but unequivocally lead him here, even if with trepidation and hesitation. To this house. To this man. To that night.

“Another coffee?” Josh asks, but there is tension beneath the politeness, and when Kai meets Josh’s eyes to nod a yes to coffee, he can tell his old friend his holding back a damn.

Josh sucks air through his teeth. “I’ve got to say, Kai,” he smiles, but his words feel sharp, “You’re lucky you kept those good looks of yours because honestly, I swore if I ever saw your face again, I’d stick my fist through it.”

Josh turns his face away as he pours coffee from the pot, but he can’t hide the telltale blush spreading across the side of his face. Anger or embarrassment? Kai can’t tell, and isn’t sure he likes where this conversation is going, so; “Did you get the email?”

Josh turns, taken aback. “About the paranormal investigation for Rhian? Yeah, I got it. I thought it was a sick joke to be honest, mate.”

Mate. Kai knows Josh hates that term, it’s the passive aggressive term his old friend uses when he’s trying really hard not to Lose His Shit.

Kai can no longer sit. He’s feeling restless and he can sense Josh is about to have one of his explosions. Ten years might have passed, but now Kai is here, in this familiar house, with this familiar man, time has shrunk away. Disappeared. It’s as if that night only happened yesterday, and Kai isn’t sure ten years is enough time to make that okay. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here. It was a genuine call for help. The girl who sent the email? She died yest—”

“—Wait? She what?” Josh’s eyes are as wide as dinner plates. “The girl with the symbol?”

“Yes?” Kai is taken aback. “How did you know she had the tattoo?”

“I didn’t.”

“What?”

“Shit.” Josh turns to stare out the window, hands gripping the kitchen counter, giving Kai a moment to analyse their disjointed conversation.

“Look, about that night…” Kai starts, but he can’t go any further.

“You want to talk about it?” Josh prompts. “Because this is connected, right? We both know it’s connected, and if it is, it means…”

Kai’s mouth bobs open, then closed again. Josh blows a short laugh from his nose.

“You don’t have to feel bad,” Josh says in a way that makes Kai feel really bad. “It’s all water under the bridge.”

But is it? Kai thinks. Because ten years of water standing stagnant under said bridge, will make it a swamp. A quagmire. And that’s how he feels now. Stuck in the mud, equally wanting to know if the symbol he saw on the floorboards beneath Sophie’s bed, and what he may or may not have seen that night have anything in common. But to discover a connection would mean to admit what couldn’t have happened did indeed happen, and Kai’s scientific mind won’t allow him to go there.

He realises now, he doesn’t want to ask Josh the question he drove here to ask. And he knows his reluctance to ask goes against his scientific mind. It goes against your Virgo sensibilities, Claudia would say. But still. Kai’s mouth is dry. He is well aware of confirmation bias, and for the last decade of his life, he has sought his own version of confirmation time and time again.

There is a scientific reason for everything. Everything except for that night. But only because he hasn’t measured it, Kai reminds himself. He knows there is only one way to figure out if his memory serves him right. Kai takes the deepest breath of his life, then: “We need to talk about that night.”

Josh cracks that devastating smile again, and his eyes dance mischievously.

“That’s the hammer!” Josh says. “God, I’ve waited a long time for this.” And he beckons Kai to follow him out of the room, leaving their coffee cups abandoned on the counter, growing cold.

The rumpus room is exactly how Kai remembers it. Space Invaders beanbags. An old-school Nintendo and Sega game consoles. The lines of Star Wars figurines haphazardly placed along the shelves. Classic board games stacked in the corner; their boxes falling apart with time and age.

It looks like a set from The Big Bang Theory.

Kai can’t help himself. He picks up a half-elf druid figurine and cracks a smile, shaking his head in disbelief.

“You still playing?” Kai asks, holding the figurine in thumb and forefinger.

Josh: “Na, mate. Just waiting for you to make your next move.”

Kai offers a self-conscious half smile. “I can’t believe you kept all these things.” But even as Kai says it, childlike wonder resurfaces, the memories of weekend long Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and Sonic marathons on the Sega.

“They’re relics. Not just of our past, but history itself,” Josh says. He lowers himself to his knees at the oversized corner console, sorting through video tapes; the unmistakable pop of the plain white plastic boxes reminding Kai of stormy nights with an onslaught of Nightmare on Elm Street viewings.

Shall we watch another? Pop. The click-clack of the VHS ejecting, and the clack-click of another inserting. These physical sounds emitted from physical things.

Video, tape, film, Polaroids, vinyl, Super 8s — all coming back in fashion as fashion is wont to do. This circular continuum of time revisiting itself; like the aged collapsed in their corner chairs in a home that is not their home, staring back in time to revisit youthful days long gone. Even time longs to look back, to see itself with a new sense of awe and appreciation that can only be felt through retrospect.

But Josh and Kai loved these things well before they made their modern-day comeback, and had Josh’s father clinging to his own version of youth to thank for that. Kai can’t deny it. This charm might be one reason he resists high-tech devices. It’s not only the hidden danger of EMF - though since Claudia’s death it has played the largest role, but it’s the idea of the impermanence of a digital life. How entire lives can be wiped out with one hacked virus, decades of uploaded photo memories, correspondence, collated information — gone. Identity, digits in your bank account (where money no longer truly exists), all held in a space in the ether. It’s not real. Not tangible. Not solid matter.

And as a data scientist, that’s where Kai feels safe. Where he can measure quantifiable results. Like this figurine in his hand. He can hold it. Feel it. His fingerprints revisiting themselves after all this time. But the silent danger of a mobile phone, the secret energy emitted from the 5G towers. You can’t feel the danger. You can’t even see it; though it burrows through your skin and leaks into your veins all the same—like it did Claudia.

And so, this is why he tests, to show a physical result within the physical world of unseen dangers. As if he has dedicated the last decade of his life to confirming his truth; everything is measurable. Everything has reason. Results. Data.

Everything, but that night.

“Got it!” Josh says, holding a VHS aloft.

And here it is. His memory caught on tape from all those years ago. The unfinished sentence.

Would this innocuous reel of film show the truth? Will it confirm his memory of the night? Or would it prove his memory distorted by time and perception?

Josh looks edgy too; edgy and excited. There is sweat on his temples, and now Kai comes to think about it, his friend is looking a bit peaky—dark skin paling, the whites of his eyes yellowing.

The tape clacks into the video player.

History to be replayed.

The non-digital TV screen flickers to life, monochrome horizontal lines of black and white arguing over each other. Josh slams the pause button. A gap in his forced joviality.

A pause before the sentence resumes.

“Wait. Before we watch this…” Josh scratches the top of his head, which Kai suspects is more of a stalling tactic, winning a second or more for his thoughts to converge into words that won’t offend.

“Why now?” Kai anticipates the question from his long-ago companion. And Josh nods.

“Yeah. Why now?”

Sophie.

Kai’s eyes dart about the room, it is as if he is searching for Claudia’s disapproving glare, having caught him looking at a pretty girl for longer than is appropriate. But it is not Claudia he sees in his mind’s eye, but Sophie; her beautifully sad face as she walked into Carmen Beaufort’s soulless mansion. Her unconcealed surprise when their eyes met in the village pub. Her disbelief when she stared down at the symbol etched again and again beneath her bed at The Coach House—and that tiny win; the smile when he dropped her off at the library.

But all this is a fraction of a second.

“Kai?” Josh’s arms fall to his side, limp, as he waits for Kai’s answer. “Why now?”

Seeing Josh like this, confused and dejected, stirs Kai’s deep-seated guilt in the pit of his stomach. It’s the same look Josh had on his face the last time Kai saw him a decade ago; before Kai fled in a flurry of expletives.

“Look, Josh. I’m sorry,” Kai says, and he means it.

“Like I said, water under the bridge. What matters is you’re here now. We both did what we thought we needed to do after that night. Your coping mechanism was denial—”

“—Oh, hang on a minute, Josh. That’s not exactly true—” Kai says.

“Mate! You fucked off that night and never came back. Disappeared, started again, never got back in touch with me. Denied it ever happened.”

“It was the last night of Uni. Of course, I started again. Isn’t that what people do?” Kai says, defending himself.

“Oh, what?” Josh laughs, but he’s not really laughing. He’s mad. He’s ten years of suppressed emotions mad. “Just fuck off your best mate? What? Was I not good enough for you in the real world with your posh Oxford fucking accent and your dad’s country estate? Is that what it is, then?”

“That’s not fair!” Kai shoots up to stand.

“No, it’s not.” Josh finishes for him. “Did you pal up with me in uni because nobody else, apart from Claudia, would put up with your fucking fastidiousness? Because nobody else would listen to your fucking conspiracy theories?”

Now Kai laughs, stepping forward. “Conspiracy theories?!” His snort is outrageously dismissive. He’s amazed or indigent; the room too taut to allow time to consider which. How could Josh possibly think his theories were ever based on conspiracy?

“That’s bullshit, Josh, and you know it,” Kai says. “I deal with facts. You’re the one with outlandish ideas!”

“Facts?!” Josh says. “That’s rich. That’s a fucking classic, mate. The fact is you can’t cope with the truth.”

“I knew this was a bad idea.” Kai spits. He can barely breathe. He turns, leaving the room, and as stomps down the stairs yells, “You know what, Josh. You haven’t changed one bit.”

It smacks of the putdown he intended, though doesn’t mean.

“Go on, run away,” Josh laughs his angry laugh. “Just like you always do.”

Kai ignores the jibe. He doesn’t always run away. He stayed with Claudia until the very, very end. And he realises as he accidentally brushes past a framed photo on the wall that tips to the side, that maybe he is still with her, and maybe, this is part of his problem.

“This close.” Josh shouts, hanging over the balancer on the upstairs landing. Kai stops on the bottom step, looking up. Josh’s thumb and forefinger of his left hand are a mere inch apart. “You came this close to the truth and regaining my respect.”

Kai’s jaw clenches, biting down on his guilt bubbling up as anger. His breath is short and sharp.

And they stay there like this for several long seconds. Eyes burning, both already regretting the escalation. Kai lowers his head first, an apology blazing in his stomach, hesitating on the tip of his tongue. He didn’t come here to argue, he thinks, and stares down at his feet—so he doesn’t see Josh lob the video case. It smashes Kai square on the shoulder.

“There’s your fucking truth. Do what you want with it. I’m done. Haven’t needed your opinion for ten years and don’t need it now.” Josh spits.

Kai swallows his apology, though it catches in his throat.

“And close the fucking door behind you.”

I promise that The Study of Quiet Things would be forever free for readers here on Substack - but if you feel called to support my writing and keep the hearth lit in The Teller’s House, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fuelled.

Buy me a Coffee x

This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

New here? Start at the beginning...

Even within the confines of his little yellow Mini, Kai finds his mood lifts the further he drives out of Llangellen. His early observational evidence, the little he has gathered, points to a strong possibility the EMF in the town is too high, but he is yet to formally test this hypothesis. It would be an interesting study, he thinks, to measure the vibrational thought frequency generated by a group of negative-thinking people clustered in one location.

Could the mere fact that so many people in the small town seem to be afflicted with some form of malaise, from depression to apathy, combined with the sheer contagiousness of negative energy, play a part in the suicides? An epidemic within young, susceptible minds?

Or, and this is his big question, are these low moods, as he has originally hypothesised, created because of the super high frequencies emitted by local 5G towers—and, are these higher frequency waves interacting with the radiations emitted from the old coal mine upon which the town was built?

Adding the coal mine into the mix is a stretch, he knows, but something might be happening in this town to amplify the higher than normal EMF frequencies, the much higher than normal suicide rates. He tuts to himself, then thinks, as if such a tragedy could be simplified into data and statistics. He surveys the land through the windscreen as he drives; the immense mountain ranges surrounding Llangellen, and wonders if, somehow, the EMF frequencies are held in, maybe amplified by the topography of the land.

And what about the giant wind turbines standing sentinel in every direction? Although they do not create electromagnetic frequencies, they emit low frequencies and infrasound, which absolutely could add to the depressive and agitated state of most of the rather, how can he put it politely, odd residents he has encountered.

He sighs.

Kai realises now that this is a much bigger project than he originally thought when he packed his overnight bag. His hope of pointing a finger in his peer’s face with a big fat, I told you so bunch of data stacks is ebbing away with the enormity of the task at hand. This project isn’t going to take a few days to test. It’ll take months, maybe even years, to gather enough evidence across multiple locations to understand if EMF interacts with the topography of the land. But even if he does complete his study, and even if he can prove the link to suicides in this town - in other hotspots - would it make a difference? Because the bigger problem is that people just don’t care enough to ditch their Wi-Fi.

Convenience rules over intelligence, he thinks.

He wishes people would realise these microcomputers they keep in their pockets near their Crown Jewels, for God’s sake, emit frequencies that activate a cellular stress response—like the ants on The Coach House’s wall—and can actually break DNA strands. There are papers on it, proper medical papers, and yet, it is still considered a pseudo-science. There have even been experiments on rats that prove, conclusively, there is a link between EMF and cancer… and yet, only yesterday Kai saw a mobile phone playing white noise in a baby’s pram—emitting deadly frequencies right next to the child’s soft squishy head.

He sighs again out as he drives, and Mabel joins in with a mewl of her own—he thanks her for her support. And Kai realises he is more than a little under-equipped for this substantial study. Perhaps this trip might be a waste of time.

Not a complete waste of time, he considers, because he has seen the symbol before… somewhere.

And if he can clarify its origins, he might be able to help the girl (there he goes again, calling any woman under thirty a girl—just as he calls anyone under twenty, twelve; a sign of creeping middle age, he is sure). He ponders, if he can fix Sophie’s broken smile, then the trip would be worthwhile (here, he laughs at his rhyming capabilities, and mocks to himself that love makes poets out of us all).

Immediately he feels guilty, and whispers a sorry in his mind to Claudia. Claudia of the Gone. Claudia of the Never Coming Back. Claudia of the Patient Zero of his EMF Studies. He smiles, it’s lopsided and painful, because he can see now a correlation between himself and Sophie. He told her earlier that he didn’t understand what she was doing in Llangellen, running around trying to discover patterns and evidence that might prove a reason for her twin’s death. He wondered why she didn’t just go home—mourn; grieve.

But now he understands with absolute clarity, because, in his own way, he is doing the same thing as she is with his own studies. If he spends his time trying to find a reason, trying to find something else, someone else to blame for Claudia’s death, then he doesn’t have to blame… himself.

Kai punches on the stereo, the crackling song slamming a stop to his wondering thoughts he knows he will revisit again soon. Too soon. He gives himself wholly to the music; singing on top of his voice, head thrown back, hands thumping the rhythm of the song on the steering wheel as the radio blasts. He hasn’t quite got the voice, or the moves, for it - but what he lacks in rhythm he makes up for in enthusiasm. This outburst of song and singing, he thinks, acts as a great way to neutralise the thoughts in his head that he doesn’t want to hear. And thus, it continues, until he finally crosses the border from Wales to England and enters the walled cathedral town of Chester.

There shouldn’t be a difference, but there is. As soon as Kai crosses the border into England, he feels his feet back on solid ground. This, he knows, has nothing to do with science and everything to do with belonging. He simply doesn’t feel like he belongs in Wales, particularly in the strange town of Llangellen, and he wonders where Sophie belongs. Her accent isn’t anything he can pinpoint, like his strong Oxfordshire accent placing his roots firmly in the county. Her voice is a sad song: the lonely chirp of a small bird at midnight.

Displaced.

Unsettled.

Untethered.

Lost.

And that’s exactly what Kai is now, as he rounds crescents and no-through roads and streets toward a place he once knew so well during his uni days. Memories bombard him, bee stings in his mind—even the honey sweet memories hurt. It’s been ten years since he’s seen these old buildings, this charming town.

Landmarks, buildings, pubs, park benches… it’s as if he’s finding pieces of himself he left behind, old fragments of his youth he had forgotten even existed. And he can’t help but collect them as he goes along, picking up the memories like precious seashells to place in his pocket. Not to weigh him down, but as mementos to carry home with him.

And of course, Claudia is everywhere; her mouth open wide with laughter, head thrown back as she gives herself to the moment completely. Her red hair a mane of chaotic fire trailing down her back. All passion and flickering flames. Seeing her now as he did then, it’s impossible to think that flame could ever blow out, extinguish. He can’t bear to take the road to the University of Chester. He can’t bear to see the place he first met her. He can’t bear to believe a place so full of Claudia can exist without her.

But then, he was never intending to drive to the university, was he? And it wasn’t Claudia he intended to think about when he started this trip to Chester. He was thinking about someone else. He was thinking about something else; that night—another moment hidden from his memory, this one on purpose. He had tucked it away into a make-believe box labelled ‘never happened.’ And even the town itself colludes with him; building up houses and offices and byways, sending him along roads that never used to exist. He can almost make himself believe this side trip, this strange little diversion from his study (urged on by Sophie’s sad face, the etchings beneath her bed, and tattooed on her dead twin’s ankle) is a figment of his imagination.

But then he finds the house.

And all the old emotions stir at the sight of that postcard-perfect dwelling. That modest, manicured lawn, that bright red painted door. The red windowsills set against the white-washed stone, and the thatched roof looking like someone has recently restored with artistic precision. A simple but perfect little dwelling he has tried to scratch from his mind’s eye for a decade, trying to rid himself of the memories that happened inside. The emotions are a tsunami: pride, guilt, fear, denial; a comma or an em-dash, inviting a conversation that never finished to continue.

Fuck.

He pulls up, turns off the ignition. Mabel looks at him through the rear-view window with hopeful curiosity.

“Sorry, Pusskins. I won’t be long. Promise.”

She scowls, turning her little cat face away as Kai gets out of the car. Before he has time to change him mind, he strides along the same path he did many years ago on a drunken midnight sojourn into curiosity and stops at the bright red door. Here, he almost turns back before steeling himself. He takes a breath and lifts his hand to knock but lowers it again. He looks back at the car.

What the hell am I doing here? he questions himself. His stomach is coiling around in thick knots.

Fuck, he thinks again, his expletive somehow giving him renewed confidence, and he raps on the door with tight, white knuckles. He hears murmuring voices from a TV or radio from behind the door, indicating someone is at home.

Double fuck.

There are footsteps coming towards him, a shadow getting closer in the mottled glass. Kai holds his breath, and the door swings open.

Surprise grips the man over the threshold with so much intensity he stumbles back a step. His knuckles tighten white as he grips the red door.

“Josh,” Kai says, because he’s lost the sense of all other vocabulary.

For a moment, Kai thinks the man on the threshold is going to slam the door - or his fist - in Kai’s face. But then Josh’s face morphs from shock to something else, and his slight harelip lips crack open into that devastating smile he is known for.

“Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and the little baby donkey as well.” Josh shakes his head. “I didn’t think I’d ever see your face again.”

Kai, nervous, pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his forefinger.

“Come here, you daft bastard!” the man called Josh says.

He embraces Kai in a bear hug that transcends time. Ascend logic. And without reason or rationale, Kai hugs his once best friend straight back.

I promise that The Study of Quiet Things would be forever free for readers here on Substack - but if you feel called to support my writing and keep the hearth lit in The Teller’s House, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fuelled.

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This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

New here? Start at the beginning...

The smell of history wafts as Sophie opens the mysterious book. The first page is all but blank, with a small design on the bottom quarter of the page. The publisher’s logo. The design is familiar. It’s a symbol; the symbol.

Her eyes flick up to the librarian’s astute stare, but her hunger for knowledge is too strong; and her attention is drawn immediately back to the book. Sophie holds her breath tight with anticipation, and her greedy fingers tremble when she turns the page.

It reveals an eerie illustration filling the page in its entirety.

The main subject is a deer’s head; its black eyes peering out at the viewer. The antlers morph into tree branches, cutting off at the paper’s edge - though Sophie can imagine them extending out into reality.

The deer’s head obscures flourishes and faded designs in the background that are, at first glance, lost to the compulsion to stare at the main subject. But on closer inspection, there is deeper storytelling here; hidden in the background, hidden in plain sight, overshadowed by something more obvious; a silent, wordless tale. Sophie raises the book to her eyes to see that the flourishes are bodies and faces writhing in agony. Bodies hang from antlers, hooded and cloaked. She closes her eyes, and the snapshot appears.

A flash of rippling black fabric, an effigy swaying from a branch in a forest muted by mist and mystery.

She flicks the page back over to the publisher’s logo. But she sees something else in its shape now, with its upside-down cross, the circle on the top like a head, the upside-down triangle beneath that—like a body. She squints in her mind’s eye, superimposing the symbol over the hanging effigies. It fits.

Perfectly.

Sophie’s finger traces the hanging bodies. “I’ve seen these before, in the woods?”

“The Black Forest.” The Librarian offers. “We raise the effigies in remembrance of the lost souls. To make sure we keep their story alive.”

Sophie hesitates. “Lost souls?”

Sophie can tell by the way the librarian’s face arranges and rearranges that she is weighing up how much to tell Sophie, but compelled by the book, she doesn’t wait for the woman’s response before turning the next page.

“Oh.”

Angry black marks cover the entire page, and the next, and the next, and the next. Big black marker blotting out the words, casting the sentiments beneath into obscurity forever.

“This book is unreadable,” Sophie says, desperation in her tone.

The librarian’s eyes widen. “Give me that,” she says, snatching the book.

She stares—horrified, ruffling through all the pages, before snapping the book shut. She hugs it protectively to her chest. “No. No, no, no, no, no, no!” Her childlike voice rises and rises, a crescendo of panic.

The small woman, still clutching the book, flies from the room, the door slamming shut on her departure. It takes Sophie a stunned few moments before she follows suit.

The woman shuffles along as fast as she can without running, and Sophie trails her, having to jog several paces to catch up. Puffing, the librarian reaches the front desk, rises the glasses from around her neck, and taps manically on a keyboard; pulling her face close and squinting at an archaic screen, all the while mumbling beneath her breath.

“It was last read seven days ago.”

“Seven days?” Sophie repeats, thoughts racing.

The librarian stops tapping and straightens up. She glares at the screen, then at Sophie. “The culprit going by the name of—”

“Sophie Hamilton,” a booming voice interrupts, “just the person I wanted to see.”

Sophie starts.

She knows the voice and feels Sergeant Peters’ presence even before she turns to face him. She snaps back to the librarian.

“Was it Jessica? Jessica Hamilton?” she asks the librarian.

Peters puts a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Sophie, I am going to have to ask you to come to the station with me.”

She shrugs off his hand, ignoring him. “Tell me?” Sophie yells. She slams her palms on the desk between her and the librarian. “Tell me, God damn it!”

“Hamilton?” Peters’ voice booms over her own. “Now!”

She spins. “Am I under arrest or something?” she spits.

“Do you have reason to believe you should? Anything you can think of? Stealing vital evidence from a crime scene, perhaps?” he stares for too long. Silent.

Sophie lets out an indignant laugh, but it sounds guilty. She feels guilty. How could he possibly know?

“Come on, you’re coming with me.” Peters nods to the rain-spattered windows obscuring the police car outside. “It’s pissing down out there. I’ll give you a lift, save you from getting drowned.”

Drowned.

The word slaps Sophie in the face, and for a moment she forgets about the book. All she sees in her mind’s eye is Jessica’s sodden blue toes on the mortuary table. Her skin flaking away, exposing dead flesh. The tattoo above her ankle. The soft sound of the ocean coming from Jessica’s blue lips.

Shhhhhhhhhhhh.

Sophie, timid, lowers her head to listen to the sound.

Closer.

Closer still.

She pushes her hair behind her ear as her face reaches her sister’s, listening to the sound.

Shhhhhhhhhh.

Jessica’s hand springs up, gripping Sophie’s wrist.

“Hamilton!” Peters yells.

She shakes herself from her memory, no, nightmare, bad dream, anything but memory, Sophie convinces herself. Peters holds her wrist in the exact place Jessica had in her mind’s eye, catching her as her knees buckle.

“Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with you?” he spits, all anger and venom.

Wobbly, confused, angry, and frustrated, Sophie tries to gather her composure. “I’m fine.” She stutters. “I’m just… I’m fine.”

She takes deliberate, slow breaths, and Peters shakes his head.

“Nice try. Pull yourself together, Hamilton.”

He gives the librarian a knowing nod, and she returns his gesture. And for a moment, Sophie is too confused, too emotionally wrought to argue, and allows him to guide her away from the desk toward the door.

Thinking, thinking.

Sophie wriggles beneath his hold, weak at first. But urgency has energy, and she breaks free from his firm grip wrapped around her upper arm, sprinting back to the desk.

“Tell me who it was. Who was the last person to borrow this book?” she whispers urgently.

The librarian looks on only in disgust. She still clutches the book to her bosom. “I can’t.”

“Hamilton!” Peters yells, and Sophie knows she is running out of time. She changes tactics.

“Why not?!”

“Because whichever member of staff lent the book out didn’t input the culprit’s name.” The librarian says, her words tinged with disgust.

“Then the name of the book?” Sophie urges. “What’s the name of the book?”

“I can’t,” she says again.

Sophie thumps the table. “Please!”

Peters’ footsteps are closing behind her. The librarian looks over Sophie’s shoulder at him, and her face alters; her mind is weighing up something heavy.

The librarian whispers, spitting her world like bullets. “I can’t tell you the name of the book because it doesn’t have one. We know it only as The Story.”

“Sophie!” Peters yells, losing patience.

The librarian picks up her pace. “There is one other. It’s a twin set, only…” the librarian takes a breath, then swallows; committing. “... only it’s not truly identical. One cannot have light without the dark.”

And Sophie understands what she means. Understands the dynamics. It’s how she and Jessica existed in this cruel world. Peters’ rough hand is on her shoulder now.

“Do you have it here?” Sophie asks quickly.

“Sophie-bloody-Hamilton.” Peters grabs her collar, dragging her away.

“Get off me!” Sophie spits, then to the librarian, shouting now as the distance between them increases. “Do you have the other? Is the twin here?”

The librarian shakes her head with a slow no. Then the door whomps open, and the cold, damp air wraps around Sophie in a frigid embrace.

I promise that The Study of Quiet Things would be forever free for readers here on Substack - but if you feel called to support my writing and keep the hearth lit in The Teller’s House, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fuelled.

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This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

New here? Start at the beginning...

Sophie thinks this might just be the most beautiful library she has ever seen. A multi-level labyrinth of books await in a low glow. A place lost in time. Short candles drip from candelabras scattered here and there, making shadows dance and flicker. A howl of wind screams through the air, dancing around the building and playing through Sophie’s hair. Behind her, the library door slams shut; blowing out the closest candles. Smoke coalesces toward her like tendrils. But none of this bothers Sophie. She is enthralled.

If contentment could be wrapped up in a moment of time, this would be it; fingers trailing a labyrinth of cracked spines, walls of leather clad tomes—moss green and blood red; the dark navy of a midnight sky—towering in a maze of wisdom-drenched aisles. Golden letters embossed like tattoos sinking into skin where fingers begin to trace and leave their mark. The stark musk of century old unread words. The vault of forgotten books. The candle lit nooks holding a cemetery of ideas, and hopes, and dreams, and despair. The worn Chesterfield chair. A clock upon the wall that never chimes. The losing of one’s mind to the stories of others. The siren call of a new-to-you book whispering your name.

The blessed hope that this time, you might just forget yourself and your own story entirely.

Only, there is something a little off, Sophie notices, as she wanders the nooks and crevices of a library preserved in time. It might be the way the shadows flicker at the wrong angle. It might be the sense of being watched—or being observed—which is a slightly different thing. She slows to a stop, glancing over both shoulders, though nothing but books await her stare. No footsteps, no slice of a turning page. No whispered conversations to cut through the quiet. But the silence is not sound peaceful; it sounds like anticipation. It sounds like an interlude. The gap between breath.

An unnatural childlike voice rises behind her.

“You?” the voice says simply. “You’re not from around here.”

Sophie spins. Before her is a woman, tiny in stature, and she stares up at Sophie with milky full moon eyes, a twisted smile on her face. In her arms, a stack of dark bound books.

Sophie doesn’t quite know how to react, so she says nothing.

“We don’t lend books to strangers,” the woman says.

Welcome to Wales, Sophie thinks. “I’m just looking for information, really.” Sophie says. She digs through her pockets, fishing out her mobile phone. “I’m trying to find out the origin of this symbol and wondered if you might have seen it before.”

She unlocks her phone and casts the screen, showing the angry etchings from under the bed.

The woman recoils. “Where did you find this?” she asks.

Her words are quick and sharp. And though her voice has a high-pitched tone that belongs to a child, she is nothing of the sort. Despite her lack of height, there is nothing small about this woman. Like the land in Llangellen, there is a barely contained wildness about her, and Sophie feels an overwhelming energy pulsate; a strong, unfettered power that spans the border of being both compelling and repelling at the same time.

“So, you’ve seen it before?” Sophie asks, though it isn’t really a question.

The librarian considers Sophie for a long while, then:

“You’ll want to follow me.”

And the woman turns on her heels and walks away.

The librarian leads Sophie up a wide, shadowy staircase gaping open to the mezzanine level that skirts around the perimeter of the main concourse. Sophie leans over the balcony, taking in the ground floor in its entirety.

“Careful,” the librarian says. “You wouldn’t want to fall.”

Like Jessica, Sophie finishes the sentence in her mind and follows the woman past lonely reading nooks with low-set coffee tables awaiting guests she suspects will never arrive.

“Watch your head,” the librarian says, though the woman has no need herself to duck as they step up through a doorway leading into a low-ceilinged, narrow corridor.

They come to a wooden door, black and ornately carved with Celtic art. A ‘strictly staff only’ sign hangs askew on a rusted nail at the centre. The librarian looks at Sophie over her shoulder before pushing open the door.

The room appears forgotten—not to time like the rest of the old-fashioned building, but forgotten to mind; like an unwanted thought. Pushed away. Neglected. Shunned, perhaps. No candles burn here, nor is there any hint of warmth. Dust motes swirl in a cold light shining narrow beams through the only window; a tiny square - not much bigger than a book itself, that looks out onto a hint of lawn and a suggestion of the mist concealed mountains beyond; like a tiny landscape picture.

Sophie stands on the threshold, taking note of the shelves filled entirely with the black leather clad books. Void of colour, just like the rest of the room; no patterned rug or comfy old reading chairs to invite readers to stay. Everything about the room tells Sophie to move on, to leave, to close the door behind her and not come back.

The librarian switches on a standing lamp which acts only to highlight the coldness of the room with its stark, pallid light, then pounds her stack of books on a table, leaning forward. Her face a thundercloud ready to roar.

“Whatever you think you are doing here, child, stop,” the librarian warns.

Her venom is palpable, her sharp tongue darting in and out of her mouth as she enunciates her words to the letter. Sophie stares.

“I’m not doing anything.” Sophie protests. “I just want to know what the symbol means.”

“You do not.”

The librarian does a good job of regaining her cool compose… but it seems practiced. Forced, even. Sophie hears the woman’s dry throat click as she swallows; watches as she flattens down her faded orange and brown dress.

“This symbol?” Sophie says. “I found it under my bed at The Coach House—”

“The Coach House is not a place for visitors,” the librarian says, stopping Sophie’s flow.

But she will not be stopped. Not this time. There are too many coincidences, and she knows this means there is a pattern. And if there is a pattern, there are answers. She ignores the interruption and continues with hard won gumption.

“I also found the same image in my dead sister’s notebook - the tattoo fresh on her ankle at the morgue. But it’s not just her. There’re other people, people who have died in similar ways, here, in this town, with this tattoo. I know you’ve seen this before. I know you know what it means.”

In her mind’s eye, Sophie sees Sergeant Peters callously roll Rhian’s dead body over with his boot: the cold, dead eyes staring back, the tattoo on her clavicle exposed like an invitation. The girl on the news, Carry? Carys? In the chaos of her thinking, she forgets the name, but she doesn’t forget the mark. The mark that brought her here.

“I need to know the connection.”

Sophie thrusts the screen at the librarian again, to show her the sinister etches from under her bed. But the small woman is astute. She clocks the red voice record icon at the top of the screen and bats the phone from Sophie’s hand.

“You’re recording? Turn that off!” The woman stares at Sophie, her face an explosion of rage, or rage’s twin; fear… “Now!”

Scolded, Sophie retrieves her phone, pretending to turn off the recording as she slips it back into her pocket. The librarian continues chastising her. “The only commonality in this is you meddling with something better left dead and buried.”

“Not telling me won’t stop me from investigating.”

“Then, child, I guess you’ll find out soon enough. There is only one way this ends if you get involved.”

“Are you… threatening me?” Sophie asks, calm.

The librarian smiles her twisted smile. “I’m not threatening you. I am warning you.”

She holds her milky eyed gaze.

“Look,” Sophie says, stepping forward. She places her hands on the old wooden table between herself and the librarian. She leans forward, mirroring the woman. “I don’t know what’s happening in this town, but I do know this. I won’t stop trying to find out why these teens did what they did, why my twin sister wound up dead, if it’s the last thing I do.”

The librarian regards her.

“It may well be,” the librarian says.

The librarian gives a resigned shrug and turns away. She clutches a sliding ladder that lets out a piercing squeal as the librarian slides it to the right. Step by stilted step, the woman clambers up each ring to reach for the very last book on the very top shelf.

“You can’t understand a place until you know its history, its story. Every town has a story.” The librarian pulls the book from its place and begins her descent. “I don’t want you going around this village asking people this and that. Better you find out for yourself if you are so hell bent on your demise.”

The woman returns to the table.

“I’ll give you an hour, but the book doesn’t leave this room.”

As the book is set down on the table, a dull thud pounds the window.

Sophie jolts in time to see a magpie’s body slide down the tiny pane. It leaves a smear of blood that patterns in the pounding rain. A small fracture cracks in the glass and the wind instantly fills the gap, whistling its eerie tune.

“Oh my God,” Sophie mutters beneath her breath. She looks closer; her reflection in the window cracks down the middle of her face, the blood looks to spill from her mouth.

“What’s wrong with this town?” Sophie actually laughs, unnerved.

The librarian flicks the incident away with an unbothered hand. “That’s nothing. The glass is mirrored. The birds think they are flying into the sky. They think what they see in their reflection is reality, but the only reality is their inevitable death.”

The woman raps the top black leather tome, then draws a moth-eaten curtain, a tiny swath of fabric over the tiny window, hiding the evidence beneath a rich, black velvet. “Too many magpies in the area, anyway. Vermin. The lot of them.”

Sophie looks down at the book. “So, this is where I’ll discover the answers?” she asks, hardly daring to believe.

“If you’re smart, but you won’t be the first one to fail.” She nods at the book.

Sophie scowls and, as if unravelling a secret she doesn’t want to expose, she opens the book.

I promise that The Study of Quiet Things would be forever free for readers here on Substack - but if you feel called to support my writing and keep the hearth lit in The Teller’s House, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fuelled.

Buy me a Coffee x

This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

New here? Start at the beginning...

The yellow Mini scuttles along a winding ribbon of country road, dwarfed by the immensity of gloom filled landscape. It didn’t take long for the weather to turn. It is not so much rain, but mist; heavy enough to obscure the view from the windscreen, but not enough to pacify the wipers, which squeal and snag in intermittent protest across the glass. But there is a definite promise of heavier storms to come, by the way the dark clouds coalesce into each other like the ants on the wall at twilight.

Sophie observes the scenery through the windscreen. Inside, the car is hot and stuffy, the hum of the heaters on full blast to stop the condensation is stifling. She wishes she had taken off her jacket before getting inside—it’s too much of a mission to remove such a cumbersome item inside the small car, and so she silently overheats instead.

Kai has been suspiciously quiet since they left The Coach House. Come to think of it, he was suspiciously quiet over breakfast too. Sophie hadn’t noticed then because she was too deep in her own thoughts, pondering on where and why Mrs Howells disappeared, and if it had anything to do with the symbols etched into the floorboards beneath her bed. She can’t help but wonder if the etchings were there before Jessica stayed in the room or if… her mind trails off to the scribbles in Jessica’s notebooks. If it wasn’t for Rhian’s envelope, Jessica would be the obvious culprit. But Sophie can’t be sure. She looks over at Kai. He’s biting the edges of his thumbnail as he drives—he’s worried.

“Thanks for the lift,” she says, just to say something. In the short time she’s known Kai, silence hasn’t been something he’s exuded before. He’s usually all jazz hands and pantomime jokes.

“It’s the least I could do,” he doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “Honestly, I still feel so guilty about the vase thing and you losing your job, and that was before I found out, well, you know.”

“About Jessica?” she asks, knowing full well what he meant. But she likes to say her name aloud. She likes to think if she can say her twin’s name, then somehow, Jessica still exists.

“I’m not prying, honestly,” Kai says, and Sophie senses his sincerity. “It’s just… I can’t understand what you’re doing here, given your loss.”

And Sophie doesn’t know why she opens up, but she tells him everything. As they twist and turn through the countryside, Sophie shares her last twenty-four hours with Kai. She tells him all about Jessica. About the podcast. About how different they are. About Jessica running off after Rhian’s email, what happened with Peters at the crime scene; she even tells him about the photos in the envelope, the braids of hair, and the correlation to her sister’s death. The whole lot, spewed out like a tsunami, leaving her feeling wrecked and ruined. Because now she says all this together as one chain of events, she knows without a shadow of a doubt that her sister’s death is related to the others. It doesn’t matter that Jessica’s body was recovered near Chester. Maybe it was here she jumped. No, not jumped—she tells herself again, Jessica would never have jumped. Sophie wonders if she repeats this enough times, it will become true, that her doubt about Jessica’s last note and motive will be overruled.

Kai says not a word for the longest time, but his eyebrows are pulled together, and he still chews the edges of his thumbnail—thinking. Finally;

“I’ve got a question,” he says, all matter-of-fact. “Jessica’s research? When she came here to gather info, was she doing it for her PhD or for the podcast?”

The question surprises Sophie. But more than that. It stumps her. She stutters. “I… I don’t actually know. I wonder if she said it was a research trip just as an excuse to go? Maybe she was just curious about Rhian and her story?”

“Mmmm.” He’s rubbing the fine stubble on the back of his head. “Interesting.”

“Do you think it makes a difference?” she asks.

He shrugs, turning down the heater in her car. Thank God. “I don’t know yet. But if you’re here investigating what really happened, why it happened, this is the sort of data you’ll need to know. It’s no good if you haven’t got a full picture.”

It’s no good, even if I have, she thinks looking back at him. He’s wearing the same look as when they both discovered the symbols under the bed, and an inkling rises.

“You’ve seen the symbol before, haven’t you?” She asks.

“Me?” he shoots her a quick glance. “Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. You kinda looked freaked out.”

“It’s a pretty freaky thing to find.”

He has a point.

“There’s something unsettling about it, right?” Sophie says. “Something Blair Witch.”

He scoffs a laugh. And Sophie continues. “You know the first thought I had when I saw them scratched on the floorboards like that?” She pauses, unsure whether she should say it, but she has told him so much already; “I thought occult. It reminds me of black magic.”

“Christ on a bike!” Kai spits, just as they drive over a cattle grid. The rumble beneath tyres and the vibration of the car colludes with his words, as if to add an extra exclamation point. “Don’t tell me you believe in that supernatural tosh?”

The road rambles across common land now—a slice of pot-holed tarmac mutilating nature’s canvas; where sheep graze and amble on either side of the asphalt scar.

“I’m not saying I do,” Sophie says defensively. “But that doesn’t stop whoever did it believing, does it? People love the uncanny. You should see how many followers listen to our podcast, just because it’s about mysteries and spooky shit.”

“Your podcast is about ghosts?”

“No!” Sophie says defensively. “I mean, yes, but not because we believe.” She notices the plural she used. “But they’re just stories—fiction, right? I guess I was just inspired by Jessica’s syllabus, and before I knew it, the stories for the podcast, the essays for Jessica’s coursework were flying out of me, and—”

“—You wrote essays on ghosts?”

“Not just ghosts but folklore...” Sophie says before she stops herself, and she wishes she could suck those words back into her mouth. She hopes the meaning of what she just said goes unnoticed, but:

“But it was your sister who was studying, right?” Kai asks. There is no condescension in his tone. Not the same tone used when Carmen joked about Sophie’s bright twin—the clever one with all the charm and brains. Kai’s tone is closer to the truth, closer to suspicion… or realisation.

If Kai has come to the true assumption that it was Sophie writing Jessica’s coursework and essays, he keeps it to himself, surprising Sophie again. He changes the subject.

“So, just to ascertain. You don’t believe in ghosts?”

“Honestly? The way I see it, the only things that haunt us are our regrets.”

But those regrets are tangible things, Sophie thinks. Heavy and palpable. Of course, she is thinking of Jessica—how the ghost of her sister’s shape haunts her every time she sees her reflection in a passing window. “It’s just not everybody sees it that way. Maybe the person who etched the symbol a million times under my bed didn’t see it that way. People want the mystery of the unknown.” She brings herself back to the conversation. “I mean, look at the success of Josh Harringbow and his show on Netflix. What’s it called? I’ll Haunt you Down? It’s number one worldwide.”

Kai shoots her a venomous look. “Josh Harringbow is a charlatan!”

He snaps his head forward and:

SLAM!

“Fuck!” Sophie and Kai swear in tandem as the brakes bite with a squeal.

Sophie’s entire body shunts forward, the seatbelt yanking tight against her chest. The cat carrier in the back smashes into the front seat. Mabel wails.

The wheels continue squealing on the wet road; the car sliding forward with a screech until it finally comes to a halt.

The shock, the sudden stillness, reverberates inside the car. Sophie and Kai exhale a relieved breath as one and stare, dumbstruck, out of the window ahead.

Mere inches away, in the middle of the road, a stupefied sheep stares back. It lets out a single indignant bleat, then begins to chew the cud, blissfully unaware of how close it came to death.

Perhaps as we all are, Sophie thinks as the dumb animal slowly ambles to the edge of the road to graze. Perhaps we are always on the perilous edge of something dangerous.

“Wales,” Kai says, shaking his head.

And Mabel mewls in complete agreement.

In the short time it takes Sophie and Kai to arrive at their destination, the sky is low; an expanse of grey canvas too heavy to support itself. It bears down on the building ahead. Slender turrets impale the gloom, and its graceful arches seem to underpin the thunderclouds, preventing them from crashing to the ground. As they continue along the library’s sweeping driveway, Sophie imagines the neo-gothic building would look quite beautiful on a sunny day. Today, however, in the relentless rain and the strange half-light of autumn’s gloom, the building looks more like a foreboding threat. A place for shadows and secrets to hide. More castle than library with its scale; its ornate decorative features suited for any gothic mystery.

It seems a fitting place to unravel her own.

“Look, I don’t know how you’ll feel about this,” Kai says as he turns into the library car park. His indicator clicks, but there is no one around to see it. The place is deserted; the library yet to open. Rain bounces hard against the ground and windscreen; creating tinny pings on the roof. “I think we can combine our efforts. You’re up here investigating the deaths, I’m up here investigating the deaths, and well, I know we’re coming from different sides of the investigation, but it’s essentially the same project—”

“—This isn’t some kind of project.” Sophie snaps, but Kai eyes her curiously, his demeanour shifting to a seriousness Sophie hasn’t seen before.

“Are you sure?” Kai asks.

And in that moment, Sophie is not sure. Is it true she is here solely for answers, to discover why Jessica may have killed herself? Or is there something else? An angle, a story? Some way to keep her love for writing and the Hidden Shadows podcast alive without her sister’s charm? Sophie turns away, looking through the passenger window. Her defences rise around her. Her leg beings to bounce. Her fingers fidget with her cuffs. She snaps a glance at the time on the dashboard, wishing away the minutes before the library opens to end this intimate awkwardness.

“But I just want to be clear, if we’re partnering up,” Kai begins, and Sophie thinks he’s going to whip out some terms and conditions. “I’m Scully, and you’re Mulder.”

Sophie stares, dumbfounded. It wasn’t what she was expecting, but the relief of his joviality softens the grip around her throat. But still… “Why would I be Mulder? You’re the one who believes in invisible frequencies.”

Kai lifts his finger, making a point. “No, Sophie.” He waggles his finger at her, inches from her nose. “I’m researching science—but folklore and mythology? Black magic? Creepy symbols? You, my friend, are researching—”

“—I am not your friend.”

Kai sighs. “God, you are miserable. Has anyone ever told you that?”

Sophie should be offended, but he says it with such light-heartedness she feels the corners of her lips tug upward and before she can stop herself; she is smiling—and Kai, is smiling back. Some tiny part of her softens. She’s never really had any friends of her own as an adult—never needed them. Jessica was her everything. But she’s beginning to wonder if she is making one now.

The swish of the window wipers fills the silence. He smiles—wider, kinder, and Sophie finds she doesn’t know what to do. Then, a window in the library ahead glows yellow, then another, and another, placing Sophie’s smile back into the shadows with the gravity of the task at hand.

“Okay,” she says finally, opening the car door and letting the rain and wind scream in. She raises her voice against the weather. “We team up—but only if I’m Scully.”

She doesn’t wait for an answer before slamming the door.

Rain pounds the car park. Sophie flings her rucksack over her shoulders and pulls her beanie further down her head. She races through the rain toward the imposing building, attempting to dodge puddles along a pathway slicing two immaculate lawns in half. Before she reaches the arched entryway concealing the old oak door, Sophie is already soaked through.

She stands beneath the cold, damp, stonework, gathering herself before entering. She watches Kai’s yellow car scuttle away and then reaches for the ornate brass handle. The door moans open, and the scent of ancient pages wafts toward her, beckoning her forward into the muted silence of hidden knowledge; unexplored words and worlds.

And all at once, Sophie feels at home.

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The one thing worse than a hangover is the crippling embarrassment and anxiety that comes with it. The what did I do’s, the what did I say’s—and the only thing worse than not knowing is having evidence to show you what a complete and utter tosser you have been.

This is what Josh is thinking as he watches back the footage he recorded the night before at the Westfield Sanatorium. Far from confirming his drunken memory of ghostly spirits and disembodied voices, the video acts only to highlight just how wrapped up in the moment Josh had become - how much he wanted to believe there was something there. And this self-told lie makes him no better than his director trying to fabricate the truth by smashing glass on set to create a jump scare.

The truth.

Josh laughs. How can anyone ever truly understand the truth, the real truth—absolute reality? Because all our perceptions are tainted by our own experiences, he muses, which colours what we see with our own history. He thinks of that old saying, there are three sides to the truth: what you see, what I see, and what really happened. But if we are all biased, who can witness the absolute?

One thing he knows for sure, listening to himself hyperventilate and nearly piss his pants as he sprints from the sanatorium only to trip up and pass out on the ground, is that last night he was a class A wanker. Thank God the cabby did swing back around after his drop-off to find Josh as a passed out mess on the ground. All he can hope now is that the cabbie didn’t recognise him, or if he did, that he didn’t record or take any photos to sell to the press. Those trashy magazines lining the checkout aisles in the supermarkets would love the scoop of Home Today’s Hottest Man October Edition as a drunken charlatan fallen from grace.

Isn’t that how showbiz works? Because from what he’s seen, there is only one thing that gives people more pleasure than watching someone’s meteoric journey to fame and celebrity status, and that’s watching the same celebrity tumble from the very pedestal they placed them upon.

Josh pours himself a pint of water from the tap and downs it, hoping to rid himself of the alcohol induced headache. It’s just a hangover, he thinks to himself, trying not to hear Doctor Holly Anne’s warning the day before, ‘The headaches. Have they started again? Let me know if they do, okay? We both know what the headaches can signal.’

He belches beneath his breath, thumps his chest, and pardon me’s - despite nobody around to witness it, before flopping on the couch in a kind of dying swan pose. He needs to shape up, he has a prime time interview this evening and needs to get himself to London by early evening.

The joy.

The couch is delightfully soft, and Josh wonders if a little nap might be on the cards, despite only rising from slumber less than an hour ago. It’s while he lies there - thoughts swirling and dancing as they are wont to do when sleep grapples at the edges of consciousness, he realises two things.

One, is that last night strengthened Holly-Anne’s hypothesis, with the type of clarity only the morning after the night before can bring. Josh realises that no matter how real he thought that voice was, he has irrefutable evidence proving nobody (or nothing) was there at all. There was no voice. It was all in his head.

And two, he is furious with his old friend, Kai, for getting in touch with him and stirring up all these old thoughts. He’s thinking about that night. The night Josh last saw him, and he swears to himself, as he nods off to sleep, that if he ever sees that old bugger again, he’ll deck him.

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Call it kismet. Call it a coincidence. Call it following a lead…

We didn’t get to speak to Carys again today. We’re not in the same classes for everything, and she is an expert at slipping out of sight just when my eyes land upon her. Like a ghost in the corner of my eye, there then not there. Or an apparition or mirage. It’s almost like she has some sixth sense or something.

Sometimes, I feel eyes upon me, watching from the shadows, and I turn hoping Carys has decided to talk. But there is nobody or nothing there except a question mark, or perhaps better, an ellipsis… a pause, a waiting space to be filled.

But honestly, I’m so paranoid now I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.

More likely, Carys is just avoiding us and our questions because she doesn’t like me.

But still, we have something. A little nugget she let slip. She told us she’s been listening to the Hidden Shadows podcast, and so Joe suggested to get into Carys’s head, we need to know what goes into her head, literally… we listened to the poddy, and struck gold.

Hidden Shadows is a strange show, kind of blending different genres; experimental, spooky, and horror, but not in the blood and guts and gore kind of way. More in the creeping sense of dread way. The rambling stories are fiction, but a substitute English teacher once told me fictitious stories are always based on an element of truth, and it got me wondering what original stories these spooky episodes might be based upon.

I googled the podcast creators, the Hamilton Twins, and discovered one of them, Jessica, is some sort of folklore expert studying for her PhD. And better than that, she had written a paper on suicide within folklore. Something about that triggered a gut feeling.

“This is exactly who we need.” I told Joe, but she was sceptical. I had to press: “If she is some kind of expert in folklore, she might understand what’s happening in Llangellen.”

But Joe needed more convincing. She said she had googled through the night until the dawn crept through her curtains, and still couldn’t find anything related to our local nursery rhyme or the symbols we discovered in the yearbooks. I told her an actual expert trumps Google and Reddit posts any time.

“What if this folklore isn’t written in history because it is being created in real time?” I asked and even surprised myself with this idea. Joe paused, cocked her head to the side.

And that really got me thinking, because have you ever noticed how all these folklores and legends and stuff are based in the past? Well, isn’t this moment in the past, too? As soon as it has gone? What will people see in twenty, fifty, one hundred years’ time when they look back? What stories will they tell of us? How will this era be embellished or misinterpreted or adjusted to fit into their own narrative of the current time?

And I have to question whether I might be doing the same. Trying to read between lines that are not there. Making up my own version of events.

Joe told me to snap out of it because I was staring into space while I thought up a storm. She said we needed to keep it together if we want to find out what’s going on, and more importantly, if we plan to stop it. She said we need to concentrate on the information we do have and go from there. So, the hair…

In her all-night googling down the rabbit hole session, she discovered that through the ages, hair has been considered to hold strength. I felt for the braid of Kate’s hair I still keep in my pocket.

Hair has power, folklore and allegories say. We all know the story of Samson, or a version of it. Cutting hair off takes power away. So, what does it mean that Kate cut her hair off before doing what she did? That the others did too? Joe is swinging back around to the idea that someone else must be involved in the deaths, someone else must be cutting their hair before killing them off, one-by-one.

“But that doesn’t explain the yearbooks? The symbols?” I said, but she just shrugged.

“Only because we haven’t found the connection yet,” Joe mumbled.

If she is right, what does it mean that she found the yearbooks defaced in her house? What does it mean that our parent’s faces have been marked? When were they marked? Who marked them?

I honestly don’t know which is more disturbing anymore: if Kate did this to herself or if someone else did it to her… and what if there is another version of this story? What if she was forced to do it.

And if the latter is true… who is next?

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A shaft of pale sunlight forces itself through a gap in a thunderous cloud. For a few brief moments, it floods through the windowpanes, misty with condensation; the beam highlighting the contours of Kai’s face. He waves his EMF machine where the ants had congregated overnight. There are no ants now, but the machine still picks up traces of something.

It bleeps and squeals at different frequencies, and flashes red. Kai stops intermittently to take notes with his worn-down pencil, barely two inches left, he keeps behind his ear.

“Honestly now, love. You don’t have to make a fuss,” Mrs Howells says on the threshold. She’s fiddling with a pendant around her neck, then she calls over her shoulder, “Gwen?”

Sophie hears a scuttle of footsteps before Gwen appears, barefooted and carrying a bundle of towels and bedsheets in her arms. She looks younger in the daylight, Sophie guesses seventeen or eighteen tops, but seems to bear the weight of the world on her tight, scrunched up shoulders.

“Be a good girl and go get the ant killer, will you, love?” Mrs Howells says—a neat eyebrow raised at Kai’s machine.

The teenager nods a silent reply but stands on the threshold for several long seconds observing Sophie before she turns and scarpers away.

Mrs Howells calls after her. “If you can’t find it under the sink, there’s a spare one in the utility room.”

Sophie feels awkward, again, seeing too much of herself in the girl’s submission, and her innards recoil.

“Honestly Kai, love,” Mrs Howells continues, “you don’t need to worry about waggling that thing of yours around—”

Sophie barks a cheap laugh that she quickly covers up as a cough. Mrs Howells seems oblivious, but Kai catches Sophie’s eye. He shakes his head at her, but she can tell he is concealing his amusement as he goes back to the task at hand. It is some time before he lowers his machine. His hand spreads across the surface of the wall.

“I am assuming there are old cables behind this wall throwing out huge measures of dirty electricity, and of course, you’ve got this dimmer switch just here.” Kai says. He’s looking over the top of his circular reading glasses that don’t quite suit his almost handsome face. “I’m happy to investigate the entire house for free, Mrs H, if you let me use the findings in my research paper. Mind you, given the results here, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ll need someone to take a better look at rewiring the entire property. And you’ll want to get rid of all your dimmer switches, the hateful little things—it’ll help lessen the EMF effects.”

“Huey,” Mrs Howells says. “There is nothing wrong with the electricity here, just old is all. No need for this fan dangled modern who-ha. I’ve never even heard of EMS.”

“It’s EM-F,” Sophie says. Her face is lit with a smattering of humour. “Which is either a ’90s band or something paranormal investigators use to locate ghosts.”

Kai points a finger at her. “We’ve talked about this.”

But Mrs Howells shoots her a curious look, head tilted to the side like a broken doll.

“What about ghosts?” Gwen suddenly says, returning with the ant killer. Her voice as fragile as a gust of wind.

Kai sighs with the wholly dramatic flair of an amateur thespian. “Nothing, Gwen. This has absolutely nothing to do with imaginary, made-up, fictional spirits.” He points a finger at Sophie again. “You know, it’s comments like that which give EMF scientists a bad rap?” Kai says, then, to Mrs Howells and Gwen; “EMF - Electrical Magnetic Fields. It’s the invisible frequency your mobiles and Wi-Fi omits, and—”

“—Yeah, yeah, we know,” Sophie says. “You’ve said… a lot. But what’s that got to do with ants?”

Kai turns the machine back on, allowing it to demonstrate with its high-pitched bleeping. His arm sweeps over the wall in a flamboyant arc like he’s a weatherman announcing nationwide rain. “Critters; ants, insects in general really, are attracted to this frequency. They have these little magnetic receptors in their antennae.” He stops, beaming. “Antennae, get it?!”

He waits, Sophie thinks, for applause.

“Jeez, you’re a tough crowd,” he says when the awkward silence lingers. “Anyway, these antennae pick up magnetic frequencies from the earth poles, for example. That’s how ants know north to south, east to west, etcetera. Thing is, though, this manmade magnetic frequency confuses them. It’s too high, right? Unnatural. They’re attracted to it, but it kinda shocks them, which, in turn, releases a pheromone; an alarm system, if you like, that warns its worker ants it needs help, and the workers come to fight.”

“But there was no trail of ants,” Sophie says, invested in his insights. “So where were they coming from?”

“I can’t answer where they came from, but you see, after a while, spending time in these EMF areas confuses the ants enough to break trail, they stop sending the right signals to each other. There’s a lot of papers researching this phenomenon.” Kai gives a lopsided smile and scratches the top of his head. “And a few entertaining Reddit posts, too.”

Sophie’s ears perk up. “Reddit? Are you serious!”

“You don’t like Reddit?” he asks.

“I fucking love Reddit. I just didn’t think I’d find scientists lurking around the chat rooms with a bunch of teenagers and basement trolls.”

A flush of pink rises across his cheeks and bridge of his nose. “Guilty pleasure.” He says—it sounds like an apology.

Mrs Howells huffs out a loud sigh.

“Here, let me show you this,” Kai says, and beckons Mrs Howells closer to see his notes, but she shakes her head and backs away. A firm no.

“I don’t like this room,” she says as her simple explanation.

Kai smiles, victorious.

“Ha!” his outburst makes Sophie jump. “That’s exactly my point, Mrs Howells. You see, EMF frequencies, while attractive to insects, repels humans. It’s like our bodies innately understand this frequency is bad for us. And it is—truly.” His machine bleeps louder as he wanders the room. He raises his voice over the sound. “This frequency makes the cells in our bodies uneasy, which makes our emotions uneasy. Over time, long exposure to this type of frequency goes further than causing dis-ease and causes actual physical disease—”

“—Like what?” Sophie asks, cutting off his long-practised speech.

“Leukaemia, for a start, that’s what the top EMF scientist’s biggest concern is with the rollout of 5G. Seriously, go look it up.” Kai says when Mrs Howells rolls her eyes at him. His jaw is tense now, Sophie wonders if he is having to rein in his passion and concern, because, although he keeps his tone level, she can almost sense his emotions bubbling beneath the surface of his geniality. “Mind you, it doesn’t stop there. We’re talking cancer, futility problems—even, and especially, mental health issues. Brain fog, memory issues, disturbed sleep, increased chances of depression, anxiety. The whole shebang. But in relation to my research, I’m also considering the local mine and the combination of its natural vibration and radiation in correlation to—”

“—Suicide.” Sophie finished for him, finally understanding and connecting the dots to how EMF brought him here.

Mrs Howells sucks air between her teeth. Kai clicks his fingers, pointing at Sophie.

“Ha! Awesome! Ten points to contestant number one.”

Mrs Howells utters a strangled sound full of distaste.

“Do you think there might be a scientific reason for what’s going on in this town?” Gwen asks, her voice a plea of hope.

“Gwen?” Mrs Howells gives her a warning look, which the girl lets slide over her.

“Quite possibly,” Kai says, ignoring the tension - or, because of the tension.

“I don’t think that machine of yours will stop what’s happening here,” for such a tiny presence, Gwen’s words hold the room.

“Thank you, Gwen,” Mrs Howells says forcibly. “That will be all. Perhaps you’ll see to breakfast, is it?”

But Gwen stays put, unnerving in her stillness. Her hands are held in tight fists, arms rigid next to her body. Her black eyes are wide, but Sophie detects there’s something beneath her defiance. Something primal.

Fear.

Gwen’s stare slides from Sophie’s face to her bedside cabinet, and when Sophie follows her line of sight, she stiffens.

The envelope, the photos: the cryptic messages from a dead girl.

“Go on now, Gwen. Go see to the breakfast, there’s a good girl,” Mrs Howells orders. She wrings her hands as she watches the girl turn and skulk away. “I apologise for Gwen’s unsavoury demeanour. She’s suffered a tragic loss of friends very recently and isn’t quite herself.”

“We heard the news,” Sophie says, speaking for both herself and Kai. It’s been days since she has referred to herself as we, a plural, and the word grips her heart, and she wonders if there is anything lonelier than a single vowel. But Sophie notices the opening. This is her moment to ask—she knows Mrs Howells is cagey about answering questions about Jessica’s stay, so; “Do you know what happened to Kate, Carys, and Rhian—the others?”

“It’s a sad old town with a sad old history. You can’t unravel mysteries with science,” Mrs Howells says, then flicks her attention to Sophie before steeling herself and stepping over the threshold into the room. “History always reveals a story.”

The old woman reaches Sophie and stares over her shoulder through the window. A darkness presses, bruised-coloured clouds covering the place the autumn sun had shone. It creates a heavier atmosphere in the room, a deeper hue of grey, a place in which only to whisper. And whisper Mrs Howells does.

“History tells us things we could never imagine.” Mrs Howells reaches forward, her fingers rest on the photo of Jessica. She locks eyes with Sophie. Sophie’s heart pounds against her ribcage.

“Mrs Howells?” she begins. “Do you think what happened to Jessica is connected to Rhian? To the others?”

A stony silence.

It’s only when a meow rises in the room that Sophie and Mrs Howells break their gaze.

“Oh, look who’s made an appearance,” Kai says, walking to the threshold and bending down to stroke Mabel, but he snaps his hand back sharp. “Oh, gross!”

The little black cat has brought a gift. A nearly dead mouse hangs limply from her mouth, twitching a back leg every now and again; a tiny puncture wound of blood on its side. The cat bolts through the room, between Mrs Howells and Sophie, to hide under the bed.

“Yeah, sure,” Sophie says to Kai. “An army of ants, why not add dead mice to the menagerie?”

“You can’t stop the nature of things,” Mrs Howells says. She’s staring into space now, her right hand fondling a gold pendant around her neck. “You’ll do well to remember that.”

“Mabel?” Kai calls, breaking the spell. His voice is gentle and high pitched, the type of voice used only to cajole precocious toddlers and supercilious cats. Then, in the same sweet tone, “Come on, you little shit-bag.”

Sophie laughs, an unexpected expression that surprises her. Kai grabs the edge of the bed. “Here, help me move this aside and I’ll grab the little feline rat-bag.”

Sophie joins him. “And the mouse,” Sophie confirms. The bed judders across the wooden floorboards as she pulls.

“Absolutely not,” Kai laughs. “The mouse is a gift from Mabel to you. Oh…”

They stop, dropping their hands and their heads to stare at the bare floorboards beneath the bed. After a moment, in tandem, Kai and Sophie raise their gaze to stare at one another, then lower their eyes once more. But they are not looking at the cat pawing at its prey.

They’re looking at the symbol.

This same symbol: in Jessica’s notebooks—on Jessica’s ankle, Rhian’s note and goth girl’s doodles, and now, here it is; etched in deep angry gauges in the wooden floorboards beneath the exact area Sophie had been sleeping. She squats, fingers following the trail.

“Mrs Howells?” she asks, turning her head over her shoulder.

But there is only a glaring gap where Mrs Howells once stood; holding space for yet another secret to emerge.

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This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

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Sophie’s sleep is both deep and fitful. She dreams of Jessica again—the same dream that has haunted her for weeks. The murky depths underwater, Jessica’s wide-open mouth and eyes trying to impart a secret taken to her grave. Only this time, Sophie has an awareness that Jessica is not the only one in the dream. Sophie is both observing and mirroring her sister. She doesn’t just see but feels the cold embrace of icy water against her skin, the burning of aching lungs convulsing in an attempt to take a traitorous last breath. She watches and experiences her mouth opening wider, splitting, snapping at the jaw; unhinged.

There is a natural urge to scream, a primal force roaring from her stomach towards her mouth. It builds in tempo, anger, fear; and when the scream reaches her lips, it morphs.

It is not a cry for help that erupts into the sullied waters.

Rancid blackness spews forth and in that moment, Sophie knows it is bottomless. She feels the depths of it within—a gaping hole the size of the universe in the pit of her stomach. Yet through the thrashing, the purging, the pounding of ocean waves rolling into themselves above her, pushing her deeper and deeper into the darkness, Sophie has an awareness.

The darkness has a sound and the semi-conscious part of her brain waking from slumber knows she has heard it before. As she ascends through the layers of dreams and nightmares, Sophie tries to grapple with it, to clutch it, to bring the sound with her into conscious awareness as she wakes.

She comes alive with a jolt, catapulting from the pillow with a heaving gasp. Her lungs ache. Her sheets saturated with cold sweat. Her hair tangled and wet. A sheen glistens against her skin in the pallid moonlight sneaking through a crack in the curtains. Sophie wipes her forehead with the back of her hand, stopping drips of cold sweat rolling into her stinging, salty eyes. Even in the darkness, she sees her hand comes away blackened. Intrigued, she rubs her forearms and the cold sweat smears black against her skin. She thinks of the dark water in the shower. The dark water in her dream.

“I’m dreaming,” Sophie gulps. “I’m still dreaming.”

She goes through her ‘recommended exercises’ to help eliminate the stress brought on by recurring nightmares; closing her eyes, she counts her breath to the rhythm of long inhales and longer exhales, rubs her temples and loosens her jaw. She repeats the mantra in her mind:

Inhale: I breathe in calm.

Exhale: All is well.

Sophie extends the well to the end of her breath, and soon, after several repetitions, her heart stops pounding quite as violently. Her body relaxes from its trembles. And her breath slows—misting as it hits the chill air in front of her face. She opens her eyes.

A splinter of predawn light oozes through a crack in the curtains, along her body, her bed, and upon the wall ahead of her. And something squirms on this wall in the crack of light. A dark mass coalescing. A scratching and static white noise.

Sophie scowls and pulls the duvet from her. The air is close to freezing against her cold, sweating skin; the chill has settled in her bones. She reaches for her rucksack and pulls out her prescription—shit!

The bottle is empty. Sophie curses herself for keeping spent bottles in her bedside drawer. She must have picked up the wrong bottle in her haste to leave Reading. She hesitates, then searches deeper, pulling out the clear snap-bag containing several small blue pills. Just at the sight of them, she feels her body’s reaction; a calming need, an angry ache to feel nothing. She downs a pill without water, a practiced manoeuvre. Then, she opens the curtains fully behind her, allowing the muted pre-dawn to illuminate the room. There are patches of ice forming on the inside of the windows, creeping along the tiny Tudor lead squares.

With the room near lit with twilight, Sophie sees the moving pattern on the wall is real, not her imagination, and bigger than the crack of light originally suggested. Much bigger, and with it comes that sound of ticking and scratching—a tiny macabre chorus. She creeps toward it, hesitant—checking a radiator as she walks by. It is still hot to touch, which surprises Sophie, given her breath fogging white and spreading into the frigid air.

Up close, Sophie squints.

Ants.

Thousands, perhaps millions, of them congregating in a circular patch on the wall wider than Sophie’s arm span. Their tiny black bodies climb and clamber over themselves in their hurried, chaotic dance. Sophie backs away, looking for the trail of origin. But there is none. They are just there, scratching and squirming, and spreading across the surface of the wall like a disease.

She feels trapped, knowing she will get no more rest with the repulsive scuttling on her bedroom wall. But it is too early to rise and creep around a cold, expansive house alone. Still, she must do something with her time. Her pills are yet to calm the pulse of anxiety; mind still racing, her body still tight with stress, she reaches for her phone. Her fingers scroll several downloaded meditations, trying to locate the audio file her psychologist says is perfect for when her mind starts to run away with her. Perfect for when she wakes from her reoccurring nightmares, believing there is more involved than her subconscious mind trying to process grief and trauma. Perfect, she assumes, for when she wakes up in the middle of a mystery in the middle of fuck-knows-where, unable to decipher reality from her imagination, and the truth begins to blur.

I promise that The Study of Quiet Things would be forever free for readers here on Substack - but if you feel called to support my writing and keep the hearth lit in The Teller’s House, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fuelled.

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This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

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Ever wondered where nursery rhymes come from?

Ever listened to the words, like, really listened? Forget the twee tune; dissect the words, line by line. Ever wondered about the history behind these words?

Every nursery rhyme has a history, an origin story. Every town, every village, every story. Even people. We all have a past we think we can escape, but we can’t cut ties. I don’t reckon time works like that. It’s like we carry all that’s come before in invisible backpacks over our shoulders, and the weight of the past gets us down. Maybe that’s why old people shrink, get all hunched up and that—maybe they can’t bear the weight of their past mistakes anymore.

Ring, oh ring of roses, is about people dropping dead from the plague.

Mary, Mary quite Contrary, how does your Garden grow, is about Bloody Mary killing Protestants and burying them in her graveyard. Those cockleshells and silver bells? Torture devices - mad, right?

Then you’ve got stories like the Pied Piper - in its original telling, a man hypnotised young children and sent them into the river to drown in an act of revenge. And yet, this fable has an element of truth. Children did go missing. Children did die. And still to this day, it is illegal to play music on the main street of Hamlin.

Every ancient village has a history that shapes its character and inhabitants. The secret is finding out what it is.

Red Riding Hood warns us not to speak to strangers, or else. Hansel and Gretel tells us not to go into the woods alone, or else. Cinderella tells us girls to remain quiet in the face of injustice and wait to be saved by someone else, or else stay enslaved and impoverished forever...

So, you see, these folklores are threats. Do this or else…

We have a tradition here in Llangellen… and we have a nursery rhyme. We have our own myths and folklore. We have a past, and it’s tragic.

It reminds me of the school motto indoctrinated into all of us, ‘There is great power in silence.’

Do you see? Another threat, like the one wrapped up in the story our parents and grandparents told us as kids, frightening us out of our wits. A story that makes you keep your own counsel as Mam always tells me. A story that threatens children with loose tongues. And just like any fairy tale or folklore, the outcome for not following the rules is deadly.

Carys is playing by the rules. She is keeping her own counsel. She is remaining silent.

Maybe Kate didn’t follow the rules. Maybe Joe and I aren’t.

Are you beginning to understand what I am saying?

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The envelope in Sophie’s hand shakes as her trembling fingers reach inside for the contents. She tries to shake the contents out, but they stick, a stubborn reluctance to be seen, so instead, she has to fish for the contents. She pulls out a single sheet of paper and two small braids of hair. One braid is dirty brown, matted with a dull sheen. The other is freshly washed. Sophie can still smell the fragrant shampoo upon the sleek golden locks. Rhian’s golden locks?

She holds them both in her palm, regarding them while a knot forms in her brow.

Strange.

She fishes in the pockets of her jeans crumpled on the floor beside her—this is not the first time Sophie has seen braids like this. She pulls out Jessica’s ebony plait from a pocket and it lies, dull and lifeless, in the palm of Sophie’s hand, alongside the others. Seeing its lifelessness causes a memory flash: Jessica’s cold body on the morgue table fills Sophie’s mind. Her twin’s cold grey skin, her jagged cropped hair with random long locks left in patches. Her lips parted as if to whisper a secret she never had a chance to share. The memory holds, and Sophie is no longer in the dank bedroom of the Coach House, but beside Jessica’s inert body on the gurney.

She sees Jessica now as she did then and leans in toward her sister’s bluish lips. Sophie is sure she can hear a sound—the soft ebb and flow of the ocean shoreline, a raspy breath from within.

Jessica? Sophie says. Jessica?

Sophie leans in closer. Jessica’s dead hand shoots up, grabbing hold of Sophie’s own.

Sophie jolts herself from her memory: no, my imagination, because that’s not what really happened, Sophie reminds herself. Couldn’t have.

She places the three braids in a neat row on her bedside table, then her fingers slip inside the envelope to pull out a collection of Polaroids. The first shows three girls hugging in a blurry party shot. Even though she has only seen her dead, Sophie recognises Rhian immediately. Her lips—instead of her throat—parted in a wide smile. A red cross in marker pen sprawls across Rhian’s chest like an evil promise.

And Sophie knows she has seen this photo before, or one very similar on the news earlier today. The one showing Carys Forester. The photo in the news had blurred out two faces, only leaving Carys’s visible for the news report, but this is not what the polaroid shows.

In this photo, Carys’s face is scraped out with deep gouges—a triangle drawn in red pen with her head should be. The girl in the middle of the shot, sitting on the sofa with the others, is the same long-haired goth girl from the bus, though she doesn’t look quite so haunted, and in the same red pen, someone has drawn a question mark over her chest.

None of this makes sense.

Sophie turns over the photo to discover notes written in red directly behind the girls’ faces.

1) Story Dweller

2) Story Listener

3) Storyteller / Story Dweller???

Unable to form any meaning, Sophie places the photo to the back of the collection and looks at the next.

There is a derelict building, the roof half caved in. Thickets of ivy climb the wall, nature reclaiming itself.

There is no message written on the other side, so this too goes to the back of the pile.

Stuck over the final Polaroid is a Post-it note. Upon it is drawn a symbol in blue biro. The circle, the upside-down triangle held together on an upside down cross. It’s the same symbol inked onto her dead twin’s ankle. The same symbol the goth girl was scribbling in her notebook on the bus. She peels the post-it note off to reveal the final photo.

Sophie freezes. For a while she just stares—as if the connection from eyes-to-brain-to-thought has faltered. She doesn’t dare take a closer look at first, lowering it in a moment of disbelief. But when her curiosity outweighs her shock, she raises the photo to her eyes again, fingers trembling.

It’s an obscure shot, taken from far away. The subject in the distance seems unaware of the photographer, who appears to be hiding behind a copse of trees by the way the blurry, close-up branches frame the subject perfectly, acting to show a depth of field. The subject stands at the centre of the shot, looking to the side in confusion.

The subject is Jessica.

Sophie feels her breath restrict but turns the photo over to reveal just one written boldly across the centre.

STORYTELLER

The photos flutter from Sophie’s fingertips; Jessica - falling and tumbling once more.

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Gwen is a strange creature.

She is tiny and timid, and Sophie hates the way the young woman reminds her of herself; paid help for someone with more money and self-worth than she. Sophie can see it in the girl’s pitch-black eyes that never meet her own gaze, that awareness of her place in society. Gwen is a mirror showing Sophie all the traits she dislikes so much about herself. But something is changing. Because, as Sophie looks back to her last few interactions—with Sergeant Peters, the goth girl, and now Mrs Howells, she recognises a new resolve within, a new strength; as if Jessica left her a parting gift, a voice with which to speak.

Without a word, Gwen leads Sophie up a wide staircase. It is low lit and spirals around itself like a sleeping snake. Sophie ascends, stairs creaking beneath her feet in the dim amber glow. The top of the staircase yawns open to a long and narrow corridor flanked with tiny wall lamps; their glow neither reaching floor nor ceiling, and the far end of the corridor simply disappears into darkness. To Sophie, it feels like walking into a cavernous mouth; hungry and endless.

There are many doors along this hallway, all of which are closed tight—though a blueish hue of night escapes from the small gap beneath the doors on the right-hand side. Sophie looks down to her feet stepping between light and shadow, and wonders if her soles trace the very same steps as her sister once had. Wonders, if by doing so, they connect through time and space—morph, into one being. One soul. It’s stupid, she knows, but she thinks she hears Jessica calling from beyond.

Sophie, follow my voice. This way. Find me.

Sophie feels eyes upon her, and a natural urge to look towards her observer. Sophie turns to her left - the side in which Jessica always walked by her side, and notices old fashioned family photos lining the wall. They have a familiarity about them, as all old-time photographs are wont to do. The same sepia colours, the serious, sombre expressions, as if people didn’t know how to smile back then; a sentiment Sophie can readily understand. Their faces are blurred by time, and as she follows the line of frames, she experiences the intense feeling of being watched. Eyes charting her journey into darkness. She gasps and stops short.

“What is it?” Gwen asks, spinning to face Sophie for the first time.

“I…” Sophie trails off, staring at a long-muted image framed with extravagant gilding. A dark sheen covers the glass, and black mottled marks distort it in random patches. It takes Sophie several panicked breaths before she realises what she is looking at—not a ghost of the past, not the eyes of some sentinel being following her every move. But her own tired reflection staring back through the glass lit dimly. Sombre and expressionless, just like the long dead people in the preceding frames.

“It’s nothing,” Sophie says, and Gwen nods, solemn.

“Your room is this way.”

There is no lamp nor light at the end of the corridor, and so Gwen’s foot steps become hesitant as she creeps into deeper darkness. Tentative, as if her eyes are yet to make out the shadowy shapes, the young woman reaches the door right at the end of the hallway, and almost seems to steal her hand back into herself before she grasps the handle.

Sophie believes it is a trick of the mind that the temperature drops as she steps into tenebrosity. This happens when light and colour extinguish. She knows this on both the physical and metaphysical planes of consciousness. After all, the coldness she exudes into the world has increased since her light, her warmth; her sister, was smothered—snuffed out like a midnight candle.

Finally, Gwen turns the knob and the door groans open. She doesn’t walk over the threshold and instead extends an arm, inviting Sophie to enter the room herself.

“You’ll find clean sheets in the linen cupboard. I weren’t prepared for guests as Mrs Howells said. You’ve got an ensuite an’ all, just through that door by there.”

Sophie steps over the threshold into a dark, sparse room, with none of the warmth or character from the rest of the house. Ahead is a large balcony window where a crescent moon, now exposed between gaps in the rolling black clouds, shines blue, casting shadows and unseen monsters in blackened corners. The open curtains ripple ever so slightly as wind whistles through small gaps in the Tudor lead framed windows.

Sophie flicks a switch and a dull glow casts faint illumination from a standing lamp in the corner of the room.

Gwen stares a while as Sophie does a double turn, taking in the scant surroundings.

Her breath fogs and Sophie huddles herself from the cold.

The timid creature shakes her head. “You look so much like her and not like her all at the same time.” A sad smile appears and disappears on her porcelain-perfect face.

Sophie turns sharp—as do her reflections in the old-fashioned trio of dressing-table mirrors; four Sophie’s peering at Gwen with acute curiosity.

“You met my twin, Jessica?” she asks.

Gwen nods.

Sophie fights the urge to ask a million questions because Mrs Howells’s passive aggressive threat still lingers. Still… she can’t help herself. She whispers. “Did you speak with her?”

Gwen nods. “She was friendly.” Sophie hears the unspoken words—Jessica had charm, a warmth, unlike her own standoffish energy. “But then…”

Gwen trails off, pulling her lips into a tight line as if to stop anymore words from tumbling out.

“But then, what?” Sophie asks, and she is almost sure the girl is about to say when:

“Gwen!” Mrs Howells calls from downstairs, and without a word, the girl turns tail and scarpers away.

Sophie shimmies her rucksack off her shoulders. She takes off her jacket and hangs it on the back of a chair at the old-fashioned dressing table. Holding her breath, she pulls out the snap bag from her pocket and places it on the dresser’s high gloss veneer, smothered by settled dust. And now she is here, alone to read the contents in peace, she hesitates. There should be more ceremony, more gravitas than standing in a cold room reading a dead girl’s last words held in a plastic snap bag.

A wicked cold creeps up her spine, and she huddles into herself, rubbing her arms to warm her clammy skin. Her clothes are damp, and that dampness has seeped into her bones. She checks the radiator and although it’s hot to touch, the heat doesn’t fill the surrounding space. There is only one way to dispel the cold after it has penetrated skin and sinew, and so Sophie reaches for the linen cupboard. She pulls out clean sheets and flings them onto the bed as she searches for towels; the only two she finds are mismatched and tired looking—coarse to the touch. Towels in hand, she stares at the envelope.

It’s peculiar, this sensation—the moment before a secret is revealed and the magic is lost—the unknowing. The mystery. Right now, anything can be inside the envelope: answers, questions—disappointment. But once she opens it, there will only be the final words.

It makes her think of Jessica’s final words she sent in the poem: I howl in the bleak darkness. There is nothing else.

Sophie is not ready for nothing. She is not ready full stop. And so, she turns her back on Rhian’s letter and opens the ensuite door instead.

It moans open. Sophie peers inside. All is black. She pats the wall to locate the switch and, with a buzz, a solo naked bulb flickers to life. The bathroom is austere and utilitarian. There is an antique-looking tub with brass clawed feet, green with patina, standing lonely and misplaced off centre. A glass encased shower waits for company, door ajar in invitation. A single sink unit offers the percussion of a lone drip, drip, drip from an ancient tap.

The pale, almost sick-looking, green tiles are inset with grout speckled with mould. It makes the shower feel soiled as Sophie enters. The tap is stiff, and squeals as it turns. Water spits and gargles from the shower head for a few seconds before a gushing cascade of black water pounds down. Sophie jumps back from the rancid cascade, bumping into and bouncing off the glass wall behind her. The glass shudders. She screws up her face with distaste as the thick, black water flows. The stench reminds Sophie of dead animals decomposing in forest loam.

“Fuck,” she says eloquently. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

She coughs, covering her nose and mouth with her hand, but it doesn’t take long for the water to clear and the smell to lift.

After much deliberation, and watching the water run clear for some time, the compulsion to warm her body overcomes her distaste, and Sophie finally submerges herself.

Some small part of her mind rationalises the water may have been sitting for a long time. It doesn’t sound like the Coach House receives many visitors. Perhaps there has been a build-up of old leaves, becoming stuck within pipes hardly used. Yet, another part of Sophie’s morbid mind can’t help but creep to sinister thoughts. She’s thinking about one of the bookmarks on Jessica’s laptop—The Elevator Game—not the B-rated movie, but the origin story from which the myths derived. Years ago, the mystery surrounding the elevator game (as it was coined on YouTube) at the Cecil Hotel was plastered all over the dark corners of the web, regarding the strange disappearance of a student. The last known footage of the missing girl was from a security cam in the lift, or elevator as they say in the States, which saw the girl behaving with remarkable strangeness. That night, the student went missing and days later, that student was discovered floating dead in the hotel’s water tank. The guests soon complained of a strange taste in the water—the blackened hue—that caused the maintenance men to check the tank and find the body.

She looks down at her own body, and although the water is still running clear, the plughole is partially blocked with a tangle of old hair, making the water slow to drain. A black murk swirls around her toes and toward her ankles. It’s enough to make her turn off the taps that squeal in protest.

The cold wraps around her skin immediately, and as she dries herself with a rough towel, exfoliating her skin as much as drying it, she wonders if the black water and the connection to Jessica’s research is a coincidence.

Of course it is, she thinks, but immediately remembers her conversation with Kai; I don’t believe in coincidences.

Once dried, Sophie plugs her phone in to charge - still no reception - and drapes her sodden clothes over the two radiators in the room. The smell of dampness rises from the garments. She is warmer but not warm. For a few moments she ignores it, but then Sophie shoots a look at the envelope on the old wooden dressing table, and three versions of herself in the trio of mirrors atop the dresser stare back, urging her forward. She pushes out a hard exhale through pursed lips.

It is time.

The floorboards creak beneath the weight of her expectation as her feet whisper towards Rhian’s secret. She grabs the snap bag quickly as if someone might steal it from her, and rips apart the seal.

Sophie stands like this, peering inside, for a long time.

There is a deep-rooted feeling that once she opens this letter, everything will change. As if this is a marker of everything that happened before in her life, and everything that happens after. She tries to name the feeling reeling around her stomach; the clenching of her heart—the squeezing of lungs.

And she realises what this feeling is; it’s dread.

Her throat is dry, clicking as she swallows. Her fingers reach inside the bag and she fishes out the envelope.

The paper is cold to the touch, and with held breath, Sophie opens the envelope.

I promise that The Study of Quiet Things would be forever free for readers here on Substack - but if you feel called to support my writing and keep the hearth lit in The Teller’s House, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fuelled.

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This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

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The house is set in another time, a relic of the past. But it’s inviting in a peculiar, homely way. A sense of safety from the outside world engulfs Sophie like a cocoon, sweeping tiredness over her like a tsunami.

Only now she really feels the pressure of the day; her body and mind ravaged, destroyed, flooded by the events that have taken place. But there is still one more layer to add to the already multifaceted mystery cascading before her. The letter from Rhian Thomas in her pocket. What did the dead girl know about Jessica? What did she intend to say?

“Did they give you my room number?” Sophie asks, taking off her beanie and stuffing it into her pocket. “Think I’ll duck straight to bed.”

The doors slam shut behind them, making them start, and the violin squeals to a stop. Sophie shrugs off her rucksack. Slow, shuffling footsteps creep toward them.

The old woman emerges from the shadows of the long, narrow corridor, holding her arms wide in welcome—a violin clutched in her right hand.

“Hello, Kai love. Oh, look at you. You’re soaked through. Come on in, Kai, come on in.” The old woman teeters toward them. Sophie steps aside from behind Kai’s back. “Oh.”

She claps eyes on Sophie and stops; her smile and arms drop. The violin falls from her limp hand, clanging to the ground with a strike of a minor chord haunting the air. The old woman stares at Sophie long enough for Kai to bark an awkward laugh.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Mrs Howells,” Kai laughs.

Mrs Howells shoots him a careful glance.

“You play beautifully,” Sophie says, hoping to ease the tension that seems to be the village’s default temperament whenever they see her. “I used to try, but my twin was always the musical one. She played that song beautifully, too.”

A small smile alters Mrs Howells’s face. “It’s never too late to practice, love.”

“It is for my sister,” Sophie says and immediately regrets it when the old woman’s face flusters.

“Gosh, where are my manners?” Kai says. “Mrs Howells, this is Sophie. Sophie, Mrs Howells.”

Mrs Howells offers an attempted smile; appearing and disappearing quickly upon her lips.

“Of course, Sophie, isn’t it, love? The young man did say on the phone earlier,” she taps her temple three times. “Memory’s not as good as it used to be.”

Mrs Howells collects herself, retrieving her violin and her geniality. “Forget my head if it wasn’t screwed to my neck. Come on through to the kitchen, my loves. I’ve made some broth and got some lovely homemade Welsh Cakes on the go. Look at you both, soaked through. If the rain doesn’t get you on the common, the damp will. Can’t win.”

“Thanks,” Sophie says. “But if you don’t mind, I might just go straight up to my room. I’m… exhausted.”

“Absolutely not!” Mrs Howells says. “I won’t have it. Look at the state of you. Warm up your bones and your belly first, and you’ll sleep better, I promise.”

There is something about the homeyness, the mothering, that pulls Sophie away from her urgency. And as if in conspiracy with Mrs Howells, Sophie’s stomach grumbles loudly enough for all to hear.

“Enough said,” says Kai.

“Here,” Mrs Howells begins. “Let me help you out of those sodden jackets. I’ll pop them on a radiator to dry.”

Kai shuffles out of his anorak, and Mabel meows in the cat carrier softly.

“You know, you could have kept Mabel here, love. No need to cart her up and down dale.” Mrs Howells offers.

“Thanks, Mrs H,” Kai says, opening the cage door. Mabel scarpers out, then mills around Kai’s legs, rubbing up to him and purring as he makes his way into the kitchen. “You’ve been good enough to let her stay. Wouldn’t want her getting under your feet when I’m not around. Oops!”

Right on cue, he trips over the cat and rights himself as he disappears into the kitchen. Mrs Howells gives him an amused tut-tut and a shake of her head - her immaculate blow-dried grey hair dancing as she does so. She turns to Sophie, still amused, and attempts to help her out of her jacket, but Sophie pulls back, shoving one hand deep in her pocket to feel for the note. She wraps her fingers around the snap bag like closed lips around a secret.

“I can manage,” Sophie says, backing further away. She bumps into an aged side dresser, knocking an old leather guest book that tumbles to the flagstone floor.

She lowers to retrieve it, hoping to conceal her flaming red cheeks.

“Goodness, you’re all sixes and sevens,” Mrs Howells says. She places a gentle hand on Sophie’s arm. “Are you okay, love?”

Sophie turns away—she can’t bear the concern in the old woman’s eyes. As she does, Sophie glimpses her reflection in the dresser’s antique mirror dulled by time. She looks like shit. And now she thinks of it, she feels like shit too after her soiree with loss, dead bodies, tequila, and cheap wine.

“You look like death warmed up,” Mrs Howells says regarding Sophie for a very long time, holding out her hand to take the guestbook.

Sophie replaces the book on the dresser, feigning interest in the pages to distract her mind from Mrs Howell’s words. Death warmed up; a living replica of Jessica, but without the charm, without the drive. A shell, a shadow of the girl who once shone. There’s a pitiful number of signatures on the page, with months between visitors, sometimes years, Sophie notices. Though the book itself is thick, pages aged yellow with time. She stops short, eyes burning into the page, into a name, into the looping cursive she knows almost as well as the lines on her own hands.

J.S Hamilton.

She looks up at Mrs Howells.

“My sister stayed here?”

Mrs Howell’s mouth bobs open, but no words come out. She looks to the doorway in which Kai disappeared, then to the violin in her hand, then to the guest book—anywhere but Sophie’s gaze.

“I see her name,” Sophie says. “She stayed here, why didn’t you say?”

“I didn’t hide the fact,” Mrs Howells says, all high-pitched and defensive. “I was just confused. You looked so much like her and… I just… I just wasn’t sure what to say.”

“Have you spoken to the police?” Sophie barks, causing Kai to poke his head around the door. He’s chewing a mouthful of food and looks utterly confused.

“What’s happening?” He asks, but his voice is drowned out by Mrs Howell’s reply.

“Why on earth would I have spoken to the police?” Mrs Howell’s voice is shrill now, giving not enough and too much away at the same time.

“Because my sister is dead, and this might have been one of the last places she stayed.”

Sophie looks at the date on the book. It was the same day Jessica left Reading in a rush and flurry. The same day Jessica received the email from Rhian asking for help.

“Oh, gosh.” Mrs Howells mutters. “Oh, gosh. I am sorry.” The old woman turns an unhealthy shade of grey and wobbles ever so slightly, but enough that Kai skips forward, grabbing her elbow in attempt to steady her.

“Are you okay, Mrs H?” he asks. Then, to Sophie, “What did I miss?”

“The date… the date Jessica, my identical twin, checked in here. The coroner suspects she died three days ago. She was staying here leading up to that time.”

Mrs Howells’s posture suddenly changes. She raises her chin and her chest, shoulders bolt back. Her stare is full of resolve. “Listen here, love. You can’t come into my home and start questioning me—throwing around all these accusations. I am sorry to hear about your sister. I really am. But I know absolutely nothing other than she stayed here for a couple of days and left. Just like any other visitor.”

Kai backs away from the woman as she continues.

“Perhaps you might want to consider staying somewhere else in the village?”

Sophie panics; there is nowhere to stay. Nowhere else to go. And she is so exhausted. Fighting the urge to demand more answers, she stutters an apology. “I’m sorry, Mrs Howells. I just—” she sighs out, squeezing her eyes tight—against the images of the day, the fear, the confusion, the loss, the tears forming. “I think I’m a bit overwhelmed. I didn’t mean to accuse you, I just…” she trails off because Mrs Howells head cocks to the side, an eyebrow arches high. “I would really appreciate it if I could stay the night. In the same room.”

Mrs Howells lips pinch, she looks to the door as if considering but her hard eyes soften. “It’s late, and dark outside. You may stay, but you can’t stay in that room. I haven’t made it up.”

“I don’t mind. I can make the bed,” Sophie says.

“It hasn’t been cleaned. It’s not ready for guests.”

“I don’t mind.”

Mrs Howells is about to refuse again, Sophie can tell, so she jumps in first. “I just want to feel close to my sister.”

And the old woman relents, nodding her head ever so slightly.

“Gwen will see you to your room, okay love?” Mrs Howells says, she shrinks back to the old woman she was when Sophie first walked in, as if aged by their interaction. “If there’s anything you need, you just let her know. But… she’s a sensitive soul. I would appreciate it greatly if you refrain from questioning her as you did me.”

Sophie hears the threat beneath the niceties, and despite the urge at ask more, she needs to stay, needs to gain the woman’s trust so she can find out more about Jessica’s last few days. And she knows that is not going to happen tonight.

“Gwen?! Gwen!?” Mrs Howells yells, and immediately, Sophie hears the soft tread of footsteps overhead.

Which a curt nod, Mrs Howells leaves Sophie and Kai standing stock-still at the bottom of the yawning staircase.

Kai steps closer to Sophie. “Hey,” he says, face crumpled like a discarded note. “I heard you mention your sister, about… my gosh. Do you need to talk?”

“No,” she says flatly. She doesn’t need to talk. What she needs, she thinks as her hands dig deep in her pockets, is to finally read Rhian’s last words, and discover what they might have to do with Jessica.

I promise that The Study of Quiet Things would be forever free for readers here on Substack - but if you feel called to support my writing and keep the hearth lit in The Teller’s House, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fuelled.

Buy me a Coffee x

This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

New here? Start at the beginning...

There is a crunch of leaves underfoot as Sophie walks the long driveway flanked by mature trees. The branches curve from one side to the other, joining in the middle overhead like a sternum of a ribcage. The black sky locked behind. Or perhaps, Sophie considers, she is locked inside, her footsteps the beating heart.

“Have you noticed?” Sophie begins, observing the trees still clinging to their autumn leaves. “Everywhere else looks like winter. This is the only place that still shows signs of autumn.”

“Not that unusual,” Kai suggests matter-of-fact. “It’s less exposed here, in the valley—protected in its depression.”

Sophie nods. She wonders if this is true of humans as well as geological studies. Wonders if depression is a way to protect the soul from the onslaught of turbulent emotions that storm and bluster, leaving the person less exposed to the world outside.

For a brief moment, a thought sneaks through her mind; a possibility that Jessica was protecting herself from the outside world with her insatiable lust for life and love and laughter. A bright facade, a cheerful veneer, while, deep inside, winter grasped. But this is a fleeting thought, because to believe this would be to believe the coroner. And Sophie doesn’t believe.

Doesn’t want to believe, she reminds herself.

On the canvas of her mind, she sees Jessica’s face on the gurney, and it morphs to Rhian’s, to the girl called Carys she saw on the news this morning. But what she really sees is a connection. Parts of a Frankenstein puzzle with the pieces missing. She is still thinking of her resolve to find those missing pieces when they round a corner, exposing the Coach House in its entirety.

“Whoa!” Sophie stops like held breath.

The Coach House is majestic, far exceeding the beauty and grandeur of Carmen’s London home with the devil’s eye door. And it’s different. Different from the other houses she’s seen in the desolate and impoverished town of Llangellen.

It’s beautiful.

Thick fog levitates above the dwelling, partially concealing the roof and chimneys (of which, Sophie counts twelve but senses there’re more), making the chimney tops look like they are suspended in midair. Warm yellow lights dot the Tudor style windows, scattered across three levels, and the faint sound of a violin serenades into the night.

“Kai, wait,” Sophie says. She stops at the bottom of the stairway that leads to the grand dwelling. She feels sick in her stomach to ask this question. “This place looks… expensive. How much do they charge a night?”

She thinks about her pitiful bank account, and though it sickens her, she thinks about how much it might cost to bury her sister, if she can even afford to bury her. Because believe the coroner or not, one thing is certain. Jessica will still end up in the ground, rotting away to nothing.

Kai spits a bemused laugh. “You’re not in London now—it’s as cheap as chips.”

Easy for you to say. Sophie’s bank account holds little more than three hundred pounds and won’t be rising anytime soon if she doesn’t sort out new employment. So, as cheap as chips are, one night in this majestic dwelling might cause bankruptcy. The Coach House’s beauty suddenly becomes intimidating.

Only once does Sophie ever remember experiencing opulence firsthand, as opposed to the countless times she has lived it vicariously through cleaning stately homes for her wealthy employers.

It’s a distant memory—a fractured memory, almost out of reach. She sees the snapshots in her mind. The rich burgundy carpet plush between her bare toes. Morning sunlight dancing through a gap in the curtains upon rows and rows of leather-bound books, the illegible titles she is too young to decipher glinting gold. Smokey aromas of a morning fire crackling in an open hearth bigger than she. Jessica’s tiny hand in her own. Her own name called by the voice of an angel. A world beyond her. The peculiar and never-again sense of belonging. Of comfort. Of safety.

As an adult looking back on history—the limited family history Sophie has available to her—she knows herself to have been four when this memory was forged. Her fourth birthday—their—birthday, was when everything changed, and her sister became the only familiar thing in a suddenly fearful world full of strangers and cold, dark, empty places.

And she heard the angel’s voice no more.

A shiver runs up Sophie’s spine, and the hairs on the back of her neck tingle. She feels watched. She turns to Kai, but he’s paying no attention to her. He’s clicked off his torch now the house lights the way and is rummaging through his pockets. By the jingle it produces, he’s found the front door key. Perhaps the shame from her childhood memory resurfacing is making her feel on edge, much in the way the sense of being watched plagues the guilty. She doesn’t like to remember the past and what her life could have been if not struck by tragedy and misfortune. But there is something, a delicate sense of connection between an observer and the observed. Sophie wonders if this is true by reflecting on memories? Does the past feel the eyes of the future looking back, the same sense perhaps, alerting a deer to stiffen and raise her head before a hunter’s shot?

Sophie feels this sensation now.

She looks over her shoulder at the sprawling gardens hidden by nighttime’s cloak. There is something—someone, in the shadows; a smudge of darkness blacker than the surrounding night. Her eyes squint, attempting to decipher the tall, bulky shape, but it moves back into the silhouette of a giant oak and stills, as if hoping to remain unseen.

“There’s someone watching us,” Sophie whispers, but Kai has already gone ahead to the grand entrance. Sophie climbs the steps, and once behind Kai, looks back over her shoulder—but is nothing there but the ghost of an idea; a fragment of her own imagination playing tricks under the night’s shroud.

The double doors moan open, and a muted sepia glow floods across the flagstone floor surrounding Sophie. From within, the haunting violin continues its solo lament, calling Sophie forward.

She steps over the threshold…

I promise that The Study of Quiet Things would be forever free for readers here on Substack - but if you feel called to support my writing and keep the hearth lit in The Teller’s House, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fuelled.

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This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

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A lone light, an orb, penetrates through the swirling mist in the otherwise blackness of night. Around it glows a stark halo, as the full moon is wont to do on a clear night, fading as it reaches outward, devoured by night. But it is not a clear night, and if there is a moon, it is concealed and hidden from sight.

There is nothing here, and no sounds other than the soft squelch and suction of mud pulling beneath two pairs of feet on unfamiliar terrain. The torch light—the orb—bobs as they meander the marshland, the dampness of the night seeping through skin and sinew. Kai tries not to think about his chattering teeth. He’s trying to relax into the cold. Trying to Whimhof his way out of the freezing fog—convincing his mind that he can cope with the conditions in the hope that his body will believe him.

So far, it doesn’t.

He’s wishing, like the girl he is walking with, that he’d brought a woollen hat to cover his bald head—not bald, he reminds himself, just shaved. He runs a cold hand over the soft regrowth, and he can’t help but think of Claudia. How her hair, the wild auburn mane, never grew back when she lost it. And Kai supposes now, as he has done before, that the reason he has never allowed his hair to grow back fully is out of respect to her, just as shaving it off was out of support.

The girl called Sophie beside him is quiet and determined. She hasn’t said a word since he led her to the moors, and he’s been a little detached too, if he’s being honest—because the moors look different in the dark, and he must concentrate hard to retrace his steps in the brume.

He senses her turn towards him, sees the movement from the corner of his eye, and pans his torchlight towards her face.

“Jesus! Do you have to?” Sophie curses, squinting before covering her eyes with her forearm.

“Sorry,” Kai says and pans the torch across the landscape that illuminates nothing. “It looks different in the dark. We might have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”

Sophie sighs. “Great. I suppose this is the part where I find out you’re a serial killer and you’re about to kill me.”

“If I were going to kill you, I’d wait for a place where you couldn’t escape.” Kai considers. Well, not actually considers. He’s surmising, if he were a serial killer, he’d probably have a better plan of attack. He waves his torch in the thick wall of mist. “It’s too foggy here. I might lose you if you took flight.”

“That’s reassuring,” the girl mutters. She shoves her hands deep into her pockets as if she’s trying to find loose change caught up in the corners.

“Probably should have thought of that before walking into the marshes alone—in the dark—with a complete stranger.” He pans the light into her face, and she squints again. “And his cat.”

Sophie pushes his torch away from her face. “Thought you said she wasn’t yours?”

“She not. She’s… She’s just Mabel.”

“Okay…” Sophie laughs, confused. “It’s nice to meet you, Just Mabel.”

“Don’t be so sure. She’s got more killer instinct than I have.”

Mabel mewls in perfect time that makes both Kai and Sophie laugh. For some reason, Kai thinks the girl’s laugh sounds like the saddest song in the world.

“I’ll hedge my bets,” Sophie says, her smile quickly vanishing. “Reckon I’m safer here with you and Mabel than I would’ve been staying back at the pub with the locals. Did you get the vibe? Felt like I was in a cut scene from The American Werewolf of God knows where.”

Kai makes a strange sound; a cross between a snort-type of nose-laugh and resigned recognition. Yes, he felt it, felt it as soon as he walked into the bar—the sullen faces, the standoffish glares. He tried hard not to show how much it unnerved him, in his typical way. The way Claudia took as denial, ‘I’m dying Kai, and all you can do is crack jokes.’

He changes the subject. “What happened? Back there?”

“What do you mean?” Sophie asks.

He notices a defensive tone in her words.

“You know? With that goth girl? With the copper?” He’s thinking about how the beefcake of a man loomed over Sophie—taking up space with his territorial demeanour. “Did I hear P.C Biceps wants a statement from you?”

“Can I be honest?” Sophie says. Her face is scrunched up. It looks like an apology. “I’m not really one for small talk.”

“What about big talk?”

She sighs. He sneaks a look, hoping to see at least a small curl to the corners of her lips, but they remain as straight as a strike through across unwanted text. She shakes her head. “Jesus,” she mutters beneath her breath, before; “Okay. You heard there’s been another suicide—apparent suicide, in the town. I found the dead body today, okay?”

“Whoa!” He didn’t expect that. “That’s so funny!” he winces when Sophie shoots him an incredulous glare.

“Oh, it’s hilarious,” she says deadpan. “My sides are slitting like the dead girl’s throat.”

He gives a frustrated sigh. “I don’t mean funny ha-ha. I mean, it’s funny you’ve wound up here connected to the suicides… That’s what I was trying to tell you back in the pub before we got interrupted by that burly bugger. I’m here to investigate the suicides—”

“—You’re investigating the suicides?” Sophie asks, incredulous. “I thought you were EMF testing?”

Kai’s torch surveys the land again, exposing skeletal trees and dancing shadows in the mist. “You’d be surprised by how closely linked I think they might be.”

Sophie stops in her tracks. “You want to elaborate?”

His pace quickens. Mabel growls in disapproval as the cat carrier bobs, and Sophie trots to keep up with his long-legged stride.

“Did you know there were a whole bunch of suicides here a couple of years ago?” Kai asks.

Sophie shoots him a questioning look that goes unnoticed in the darkness. “Yeah, I read something about it on The Daily Mews. There was an article coining Llangellen as the Death Town or something.”

“It’s definitely something. Pretty grim stuff, hey? I was planning to measure the EMF in the area during that spate of suicides. Despite what the World Health Organisation will have you believe, the higher the EMF in an area, the higher the mental health issues—did you know that? But some… personal issues cropped up, and I got… distracted with life.”

And death, he thinks to himself but doesn’t say. “In amongst all that, I completely forgot about this place and the Google Search I saved, to be honest… until I had a ping last night.”

“With the death of Carys Forester?”

Kai nods, then turns to Sophie. It’s her face that does it. He can’t quite understand how somebody can look so pretty and so haunted all at the same time. His own face softens into something that looks like concern. “Are you okay, you know, after finding the… did you know her?”

She shakes her head, Kai notices, and bites her bottom lip. “Her name was Rhian. She had emailed my sister, completely out of the blue about…” She pauses, and Kai can tell she is holding back, considering what to say and what to conceal. “…about things that were happening here. Said she needed help. I came here to meet her and find out more. That’s how I came to find her body.”

“What about your sister?”

“What about her?” Sophie spits, cagey.

Her words so sharp, Kai backs up as if avoiding a knife to his throat. “You said this dead girl contacted your sister.”

“The dead girl has a name you know.”

“Whoa!” Kai’s hands fly up—a nonverbal communication that says I’m no threat. He looks at her, really looks at her—her eyes are watery and rimmed with red. “Are you okay?”

Sophie stares ahead, all anger and something else he can’t quite name.

He chooses his next words carefully; he’s worried she might be in shock. “You discovered a dead body. Rhian’s body. It’s kind of a big deal seeing a dead person.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” She laughs a sad, sarcastic laugh. A private joke he can’t understand.

But something triggers his mind. Something about the dead girl’s name. “Do you know what? It’s funny—”

“—Funny? I’d call it fucked up,” Sophie says.

“Not funny-ha-ha. It’s funny-strange that you got an email out of the blue from a girl called Rhian.” He doesn’t like this. “So did I.”

They both stop dead.

“About the suicides?”

“No,” Kai says, swinging the torch in Sophie’s face. “She was looking for a ghost hunter.”

Sophie is so shocked, she barks an incredulous laugh. “A ghost hunter? You can’t be serious?”

“Well, she certainly was.” He sighs out and begins walking ahead once more, it’s as if he wants to get away from all these coincidences. “She didn’t actually say the term ghost hunter, in her defence. But she did want to know if my EMF services included discovering paranormal activity. It happens. People watch these trashy YouTube ghost hunter shows and think EMF is linked.”

“Isn’t it?” Sophie asks, surprised.

“Newsflash.” He turns the torch in her face. “Ghosts don’t exist. You’ve been letting YouTube fry your brains too, huh?”

“Talking about frying my brains, I want my EarPods back, you thieving bastard.” She nudges him with her elbow. It’s an almost playful gesture given the circumstances.

“Too bad. I chucked them.”

“Jesus,” Sophie sighs. Then, in a quiet, questioning voice; “Do you think it was the same girl? The same Rhian?”

“Doubt it.” Kai is thinking of probabilities and possibilities, and this seems to be an impossible equation.

“You didn’t come here because of Rhian’s email, then?” Sophie asks.

“No, I threw her email in the trash.” Kai tries to keep his voice level, but he has to admit to himself that he is unsettled. “I’m here because of Carys Forester. Because of the four kids who topped themselves just a few weeks before her. Because this also happened two years ago, and there must be a reason for it. And I think that reason is high levels of EMF.”

“I don’t think they killed themselves,” Sophie says quietly.

“What?” he stops dead. “What do you think has happened, then? Do you know something you’re not telling me?”

But Sophie doesn’t appear to be listening. It’s almost as if she is thinking out loud. “I don’t think they did, or Jessica did.”

“Who the heck is Jessica?” he asks, but Sophie is still staring ahead, deep in her own thoughts.

As if struck by clarity, she suddenly turns to Kai. “What was Rhian’s email address?”

Again. Not what he was expecting. Kai just stands there, dumb.

“Was it SVH blogging or something?” she asks.

“I can’t really remember.” Kai says, feeling harried. This entire conversation has left him feeling edgy, uncomfortable, because the email address does sound familiar. “Maybe.”

“Fuck, Kai. It’s the same girl. It’s got to be.” She has an aliveness about her now, as if this idea has somehow answered a riddle and prompted another.

She opens her mouth to speak but a sudden insidious chill envelopes them; Kai can feel it wrapping around his body, sneaking through the gaps of his clothes and clutching at his skin. His breath, already clouds of white in the darkened air, intensifies. It’s his imagination playing tricks on him, he knows it. The fog is coalescing, getting thicker and more opaque. And Mabel lets out a mournful yowl from the cage. She feels it too?

“—Can you feel that?” Sophie asks.

“You mean the cold?” Kai brings his mind back to matter, back to the real world. “We’re in a hollow, that’s all. It’s just ground fog collecting. Looks like those EarPod have definitely already fried your brains.”

But Mabel is still moaning beneath her breath.

“Come on,” Kai says, walking forward, hoping to leave the conversation in the moors. He calls over his shoulder. “I recognise the path ahead. It’s not far now.”

Sophie trots a few paces to catch up. She doesn’t want to drop the subject; “Why would she want help from a folklore expert and a ghost hunter?”

Kai doesn’t miss a beat. “We’ll never know now, will we? If she was the same girl, she’s dead, and the dead don’t come back to haunt us.”

Kai doesn’t know it, but his words cut right through the heart of Sophie; the finality of them. This full stop. This closed book. This sudden end of story. And he couldn’t possibly know that she doesn’t believe his sentiments are entirely true. Because, already Sophie knows that Jessica haunts her; she haunts her thoughts, her nightmares, her loneliest moments—an invisible space beside her, demanding to be seen.

I promise that The Study of Quiet Things would be forever free for readers here on Substack - but if you feel called to support my writing and keep the hearth lit in The Teller’s House, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fuelled.

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This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

New here? Start at the beginning...

Download Audio File ⬇️

I recorded the conversation with Carys this morning. I’m not sure if you can download the files or not, but just in case you can’t, here’s a transcript to properly document what is happening. I’ve added some extra information on top of the recording from memory when parts needed context.

The ambient sound is noisy. Loud conversations, crowds of footsteps, lockers opening and slamming shut. The 8.50 school rush before the 9 a.m bell rings.

Joe: What are you doing?

Rhian: What does it look like?

Joe: It looks like you’re trying to be Nancy bloody Drew

Rhian: Didn’t know you were so well-read.

Joe: Ha bloody ha. Seriously though?

Rhian: If we’re investigating, we need to compile evidence. We might not remember everything she says, but the voice recorder will.

Joe: Just don’t make it weird. I don’t know why you just don’t ask your mam about the yearbook.

Rhian: Why don’t you ask yours?

Joe: That’s not fair. You know why I can’t ask mine. It’s not like your mam’s a raging alcoholic.

Rhian: Yeah, but she’s that obsessed with the council and so doped up on anti-depressants, she may as well be.

Joe: God. I’m getting out of this shit hole as soon as I get my passport. I promise I won’t be sticking around.

Rhian: Yeah, well, I’m not sure there’s anywhere outside for people like us.

Joe: People like us? What does that even mean?

Rhian: No-one leaves Llangellen. Ever noticed.

Joe: Wait up. Here comes Carys.

Rhian: Act normal.

Joe: As if.

Rhian: Hey Carys... Carys?

Joe: Earth to space bunny?

Rhian: (Shouting) Carys?

Carys: Hey?!

Rhian: Oh, sorry. I didn’t see your EarPods.

Carys: What do you want?

Rhian: Hi Rhian, how are you Rhian?

Carys: Whatever. You interrupted my podcast and I wanna finish it before class starts, so be quick.

Joe: I love podcasts, what are you listening to?

Rhian: Forget the podcast, what do you know about Kate?

There is a long silence filled by an argument breaking out in the background. A schoolteacher shouts somewhere far away.

Carys: I know she’s dead. What else do you want to know?

Rhian: Joe said she saw you with her the day before it happened.

Joe: Throw me under the bus, why don’t you?

Rhian: Why were you holding hands?

Carys: Why do you think?

Rhian: You weren’t--

Carys: --We were. Okay? What’s it to you? Not my fault you were too slow to make a move.

A gasping sound.

Carys: Jesus, don’t cry. Shit. I’m sorry, okay. I’m just... so fucking angry about what happened. If it means anything to you, she always talked about you. I kinda thought if you had the balls to make a move, she would have dropped my arse in a heartbeat, so. Now you know. Happy?

Rhian: I can’t believe Kate didn’t tell me you and her... I can’t believe she didn’t say.

Carys: There’s a lot she didn’t say.

Rhian: Great. So, my best friend wasn’t my best friend, after all.

Carys: Hey, she was trying to protect you.

Rhian: Protect me? What are you talking about?

Carys: The best thing to do is to drop this.

Joe: Drop what?

(This was when Carys’s eyes slid from ours to the yearbook under my arm)

Carys: Fuck.

(There is a long-puzzled pause)

Rhian: You know something…

Carys: About the story?

Rhian: What story?

Carys: The one you’re telling.

Joe: Okay. I’m confused. We don’t know anything about a story.

(Carys looked at me with one of those know-it-all looks. Maybe she has read my blog.)

Carys: You sure?

(Then she did something really strange. She drew a circle on my chest with her finger, then tried to draw something on Joe’s, but she batted her hand away).

Joe: Get off, freak.

Carys: That’s rich coming from you.

(This was when I opened the old yearbook with all the faces of the gone crossed out, faces of others marked with a circle or a triangle... my mam being one of them)

Rhian: You know something about this, don’t you? Kate knew something?

(A girlish scream cuts the air in the background, followed by high pitched laughter. For the record, Carys just stares at me for several long heartbeats.)

Carys: Ever thought about the burden of responsibility a storyteller bears? All those threads of truths and lies mixed together to share with others. Do you ever think about how the storyteller controls your thoughts? Your feelings? Your perception of the world? Your reality, even? Ever thought about how a story can control your emotions and therefore your actions? Some stories are like an infectious disease, Rhian, spreading and infecting everyone who reads it, or hears it... who tells it. A story like this will stick in your head and there’s only one way to silence it.

Joe: Okay, so, this has just gone way past weird.

Carys: You’re right, it has. Notice how nobody else is talking about any of this? Ever wondered why?

Rhian: That’s exactly why we’re talking to you. Because you know something, something about Kate that we don’t.

Carys: Drop it. The sooner you do, the better. Now, if you don’t mind, I have an episode of Hidden Shadows to finish.

(Joe and I watched dumbstruck as Carys put her EarPods back in and walked away)

The school bell rang out.

Joe: Saved by the bell

Rhian: I wouldn’t be so sure. Notice how she drew one of the symbols on my chest?

Joe: Yeah... like the ones in the yearbook. That’s why I pushed her hand away. It’s freaky.

Rhian: You bet it is. But do you know what thinking?

Joe: That they’re not random marks, but a key. Like each symbol means something?

Mrs Jones: Stop loitering, girls. You’ll be late for assembly. Go on! Off with you.

(The recording clicks off)

Continue Reading:

I promise that The Study of Quiet Things would be forever free for readers here on Substack - but if you feel called to support my writing and keep the hearth lit in The Teller’s House, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fuelled.

Buy me a Coffee x

This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

New here? Start at the beginning...

Josh wonders if he would be standing outside the Westfield Sanatorium if he hadn’t had those three, no… four, double-fingered glasses of whiskey with Holly-Anne. In fact, he’s pretty sure the last glass was bigger than that. The amber nectar had flowed as easily as their conversation once they switched from Therapist and Patient to Old Friends. And it’s those conversations that are worth her exorbitant fees.

Still—here he is, revisiting the set he left only yesterday, hoping this time, he’ll capture something TV worthy—or at least, that’s what he tells himself. The thing with ghosts and paranormal activity, Josh thinks, is you need to create an open space to encourage communication. A gaggle of crew, film equipment, noise, and the eagerness to stick to a script instead of allowing the moment to unfold naturally, all conspire to drown out the subtle whispers of the gone.

Mind, saying that, so too does alcohol. Still, he shrugs, I’m here now.

Behind him is the hum of a car. The cabby who just dropped him off winds the window down and calls out, “You sure you’re alright here, mate?”

The light is still on inside the cab, highlighting the concern on the old man’s face.

“I’m all good,” Josh calls back. “Thanks for the ride.”

But the cabby doesn’t immediately drive off. “I can swing around after my next drop off if you like, pick you up?”

This time, Josh says nothing, but raises a hand to wave the man off. It isn’t until the car slowly crawls away that the reality of his drunken stupidity hits him. In the darkness he surveys his surroundings—the old building that refuses to die would put the willies up anyone. Chance would be a fine thing, Josh thinks light-heartedly. He’s trying to lighten his mood. He’s trying to keep his heart rate calm. He’s trying not to think of The Calling—just as Holly-Anne advised. Yet:

Isn’t that why I’m here? Exactly why I’m here.

He doesn’t want to admit it, but he can feel the pull of coincidence—of synchronicity. He has a hunch, as certain as any drunken-fuelled thought, that it wasn’t chance he happened to be here, in this very building, when he received the email from Kai, the email that would lead to the symbol. To his mother. To this moment and his childhood ruin.

Josh is torn, again—a jagged scrape across his centre pulling him in two different directions. To choose either will leave him cleaved; he knows this, he’s lived this, and so here he is again—looking for the part of himself he lost when he decided to leave The Calling behind. And he knows it is looking for him too; because that’s how it works. You hear it. You invite it in. And it takes over.

Isn’t that what his mother said twenty-eight years ago in this very building the night before the west wing went up in flames?

Once it has you in its clutches, there is only ever one escape, her voice lost to memory, but the words themselves imprinted forever in his mind.

Josh attempts to dampen the flickering memories by focusing on the now, noticing the immediate (if not slightly blurred) details; the derelict building sprawling ahead of him falling to rack and ruin. The large empty carpark, claimed back by nature, like some post-apocalyptic movie scene; weeds and grasses growing through any crack they can find in this undesirable place—insidious, just like the way The Calling creeps its way inside.

He starts walking, passing a burnt-out car to his right—exposing the skeleton of a long dead Vauxhall Corsa. There is not a streetlight in sight; no pedestrians, no cars, no apartment blocks, no nothing, but the waxing moon looking down; and even she turns a blind eye as a black cloud passes over her face, taking away any glimpse of light.

He’s only known utter darkness like this twice in his life.

Once, in the aforementioned tribal research trip—but there, the darkness was like a gentle cocoon, wrapping him up with nature’s lullaby of crickets, frogs, and nocturnal animals in flight. It was a peaceful goodnight, a way in which the world soothed you into the deepest of sleeps.

The other was like being swallowed by the universe. A never-ending darkness stretching into infinity. The sense of being utterly alone, and yet, surrounded by a pitch black so dense it had energy—an unfettered wildness that crawled beneath his skin.

Doctor Holly-Anne called this place Grief.

Josh has only one way to describe it: The Calling.

He can hear it now as he steps over the threshold of the crumbling building, coming to stand in the empty doorway. Here, he pauses—afraid to listen, afraid to turn his head and catch a glimpse of it in his nighttime shadow. This moment has officially turned into A Very Bad Idea. And the last Bad Idea he had led to his best friend ditching him for a decade.

This is his point of no return, he thinks to himself. If he walks inside with the intention in his mind, there is no turning back. His head hurts from the pressure of it all.

Let me know if the headaches start again. We both know what that can signal, Holly Anne’s voice advises. But surely this headache is the whiskey talking, the alcohol dehydrating his brain, its ethanol dilating his blood vessels, causing dehydration and all that jazz. Surely. Surely?

He looks over his shoulder at the blackened carpark shrouded in night, then ahead into the even darker corridor before him. The TV show, he tells himself. I’m doing this for I’ll Haunt You Down, so the victims of the fire finally get a voice. He wonders what the viewers would think if they knew his mother’s role in the sanatorium’s macabre history. He shakes his head at himself—the action rendering him immobile with the head splitting pain, as if his brain has just bashed the contours of his skull. When the throbbing clears, he determines to omit the role his mother played here, after all, some stories should never be told. Some stories should remain in the grave.

But still…

He pulls out his phone and opens his filmicpro app to ensure the recording quality is good enough for TV, should he capture something to splice into the footage the crew already has in the can. This is it. This is the moment. He turns the phone to landscape mode instead of the self-obsessive portrait mode he hates so much, and presses record:

INT. WESTFIELD SANATORIUM - NIGHT

The corridor is long and lonesome, disappearing into a cavernous black hole ahead. Paint peels from walls covered in mould and graffiti. Ivy climbs the regimented doorframes lining the right hand wall. Windows, either cracked, smashed, or empty-framed, flank the left hand side, offering a little moonlight—enough to see rubble upon the ground, the shapes of shadows.

MEDIUM SHOT - BIRD’S EYE VIEW

The angle shows from the knee down as Josh stalks the corridor. Debris crunches beneath his leather boots. The feet come to a stop, pausing momentarily before turning to the right.

MEDIUM SHOT - EYE LEVEL

PANNING

The view pans up from the feet and through a doorway where a darkened room awaits. Moving inside, the camera pans across giant letters sprawled upon the wall: GET OUT AND SAVE YOUR SOUL

JOSH (O.C.)

This is it, where alleged paranormal sightings have occurred from dozens of credible eyewitnesses.

CLOSE UP

The camera flips: Josh Harringbow’s face all but fills the screen. His face lit up white in the phone’s wan flash. Squinting into it, his eyes appear bloodshot, the lines around them more defined than usual.

JOSH

It is said that Westfield Sanatorium was home to the most extreme mentally afflicted patients spanning centuries. Severe schizophrenics, sufferers of dissociative personality disorder, psychosis, acute PSD, and more.

Josh flinches at the sound of moving rubble behind him.

He turns away from the camera, squinting into the darkness. Then back again.

JOSH (whispering)

Honestly, if I had been born a couple of centuries before, I might have been sanctioned here myself as a kid.

A definite kick of rubble skitters towards him. The camera lens flips to show the cavernous room, but the phone’s flash is too weak to penetrate the darkness. Visibility restricted to only a few feet ahead, highlighted in the phone’s pale white halo as Josh creeps forward.

More disturbed rubble clatters behind him again. He spins back, then flips the camera to face him again.

Josh grimaces, massaging his temples with his free hand.

JOSH (whispering to self)

Calm down, kiddo. There’s nothing here but the ghosts of bad memories. You’ve got this.

Josh rights himself, morphing his fear into a mask of Hollywood style bravado.

JOSH

Legend has it, the patient who wrote these words on the wall did so before setting fire to the west wing—and still she retired to her bedroom in said wing to wait for the flames to engulf her. Some people say she was crazy, others believe her psychosis was caused by the very drugs intended to treat her depression.

A sound rises. A hiss of sorts. Josh spins again.

JOSH

Hello? Is there anybody there?

Josh’s breathing is heavier now, short and sharp. His eyes are wide, darting back and fore.

JOSH (whispering)

Many eyewitnesses have testified to hearing footsteps in this room, sometimes wails of crazed agony or pain. Others hear laughter, manic and wild.

Josh pauses and frowns. He checks over both shoulders as if he feels observed.

JOSH

Question is… is what they sense paranormal activity or simply fear and adrenaline making them see monsters in the dark?

He offers something that might be a staged pause or, perhaps, he is considering this question for himself. He beams an excited smile, back to showbiz, then.

JOSH

I’m here to find out.

His showbiz smile drops.

JOSH

Cut.

He blows out hard. His demeanour morphs from the glitzy Josh his fans know and love, to himself, the real him, mask unveiled.

JOSH

That bloody scotch.

He rubs his temples again, and this time offers a lopsided smile with an honest-to-goodness hiccup.

JOSH

Don’t drink, kids. It’ll give you nothing but heartache and headaches.

He gives a loud, audible sigh, and the phone lowers to his side. The camera is still recording but half of his palm obscures a lens.

JOSH (O.C.)

What the fuck am I doing here? This is ridiculous—

A loud breath exhales. A breath that isn’t his. And something else, a voice that isn’t a voice. Here and not here. Far away and yet terrifyingly close:

A WHISPER

—Go home.

JOSH (O.C.)

What the fuck?

The screen is black - hand fully pressed against the lens. There is the scuffle of feet on rubble.

JOSH (O.C.)

Who’s there?

The phone rises, its torch panning the room in erratic movements. Left - right - left again. Chilling laughter floats across the nighttime brume creeping in through the broken windows.

JOSH (O.C.)

Jesus Christ!

Another sound rises beneath Josh’s erratic breathing: A thump and drag, thump and drag, getting closer and closer and closer.

The camera flips, Josh’s face is white, beads of sweat rise at his brow. He wipes them away, rubs the centre of his forehead while staring wide-eyed at the screen.

JOSH

This is it. The room has suddenly got colder by, I don’t know, five degrees or more.

Josh the Paranormal Investigator is back. The YouTube sensation before Netflix snapped him up and diluted him down to sate the appetite of the masses. He demonstrates the drop of temperature by blowing a plume of breath that immediately condenses into a cloud around his face.

Thump, drag. Thump, drag.

JOSH

And there’s a very heavy presence - angry, malevolent. In the company of a presence like this, it is not uncommon to feel the energy around you change. It gets denser, the way low pressure before a storm can create headaches and fatigue.

A WHISPER

Go home…

The camera spins.

JOSH (O.C.)

Who’s there? Show yourself!

He flips the camera again, and it darts chaotically across the room.

The thump and drag getting louder, closer.

A laugh erupts from a darkened corner: wild; mean.

Josh’s breath is shorter, almost hyperventilating.

Suddenly, all sounds stop.

Silence.

…

Josh holds his breath.

A WHISPER

Can you hear it calling, Josh?

The voice is close enough to hear the clicking of saliva on the tongue.

The camera spins in tandem with Josh’s gasp.

There is a hole, a void—a darkness so complete it gives the sensation of forever falling. It is not black, it is not a colour, it is absolute nothingness that lingers in the air spanning back into eternity.

JOSH (whispering)

It’s back!

Suddenly the darkened room flashes back and fore, back and fore. The world spins. Breath heavy, sprinting footsteps pound, the lens moving in time as Josh sprints away.

The sound of the footsteps change, no longer echoing through a chamber, but with the ambient sound of fresh air hitting the microphone. But footsteps still sprint away. The screen still flies in a whirl of shapes and dark colours until:

Thud.

Off scene, Josh groans.

The camera skitters across the ground coming to a stop, face down on the ground. We see nothing but blackness, hear nothing but the soft sobs of a man broken on the ground of a derelict carpark.

JOSH (O.C) (Whimpering)

I can hear it calling.

FADE OUT

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There is a heaviness to the dark fog surrounding Sophie, a claustrophobic embrace that chills her veins and muffles her voice as she calls out to the fleeing girl.

“Wait,” Sophie yells again as she crosses the street. In her haste, she loses her footing, missing the pavement shrouded in brume beneath her feet. She curses, limping forward after the goth girl disappearing into shadow. She reaches out, fingers gripping the girl by the crook of her arm, and Sophie pulls the waif of a thing back toward her.

The girl whips around, wrenching her arm from Sophie’s clutch.

“Get off!” the girl’s face crumbles into a wince.

“You were watching me, earlier, in the park,” Sophie accuses.

The girl clutches her arm close to her body as a mother might to protect a child. Sophie wonders what wounds are hiding beneath her sleeve, what secrets lie concealed beneath her skin.

“Were you expecting me? Have you been following me? Did you… see what happened? To the girl? To Rhian?” Sophie is shouting, frightening the girl, but she can’t stop the questions firing from her mouth. If she has answers to Rhian’s death, she may find answers to Jessica’s.

But the girl says nothing in reply. Instead, her fingers crawl toward an elastic band at her wrist, which she snaps. Sophie notices the girl’s fingertips stained red and she flicks a glance at the pub wall, where fresh paint attempts to cover up the graffiti: there is great power in silence.

“Your handy work?” Sophie asks.

The strange girl places a finger to her lips and whispers; Shhhh.

“So that’s what you’re going to do? Stay silent?” Sophie says.

“Have to,” the girl almost whimpers.

“You just questioned if Rhian’s death was suicide. What does that mean? Are you saying you think…” Sophie’s mind darts to the next obvious answer. “Do you think somebody murdered her?”

At this, the girl laughs. It’s a terrible sound, full of fear, anger and scorn. It repulses Sophie. And she can’t help but wonder, just as she did when she saw the girl watching her in the park, if this strange individual might be complicit in the death.

When the girl stops laughing, she lowers her face to the ground. Then, slowly, she stares up through her eyelashes. There is a long pause, a beat, a slow creeping dread that sees Sophie take a small, weary step back.

“You look like her,” the girl states, peeking from behind her long hair.

The words are unexpected. It takes a moment for the meaning to form. “Who?” Sophie asks.

“The girl.”

The elastic band snaps like a gunshot in the night.

“What girl?” Sophie spits.

SNAP!

The teen continues to stare, face contorting into repulsion, as if she sees something hideous in the place where Sophie stands.

“What girl, God damn it?” Sophie yells this time.

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

The girl pulls at her band compulsively, lips tight together as if forcing back the answers escaping from her mouth. It’s disconcerting to see her inflict this pain without even a flinch. And finally, the words slip from her trembling lips; like an exhale after a long-held breath.

“The storyteller.”

Sophie has to ask the question. “Do you mean my twin?” She grabs the girl’s arms. “Do you mean Jessica?” Sophie’s shouting. She’s shaking the girl. “She was here? In Llangellen? What happened to her?”

The girl stiffens in Sophie’s clutches, and they stare at one another for several heart-aching seconds.

The sound of the pub door squealing behind Sophie’s back carries across the nighttime gloom. A voice yells, “Sophie?”

She lets go, turning to the sound of her name. Kai stands under the pallid glow of a solo streetlamp. The mist ghostly white amid the darkness. He’s wearing his ridiculous yellow anorak and holds her jacket and backpack aloft. In his other hand is the cat carrier. “I’ve called The Coach House. They’re expecting us.”

When Sophie turns back, the girl is gone. There is nothing left in her place but utter darkness, nighttime shadows, and a lingering feeling of secrets, lies, and intrigue.

Sophie stares into that nothingness for several long seconds, then curses beneath her breath.

“Everything okay?” Kai asks as Sophie storms toward the light.

“Why do you always make me lose things? My job, answers to my questions?” Sophie snatches her rucksack, donning her puffer jacket before sliding it over her shoulders. She had not realised she was shivering.

“I found you accommodation,” he offers.

A truce.

Sophie nods. Under the stark streetlight, the darkness beneath her amber eyes is more pronounced. The paleness of her cheeks amplified. And though her backpack is not heavy, her shoulders slump with the weight of the day pressed down upon her. The roar of the last bus out of the godforsaken village chugs toward them, void of passengers. Sophie wonders if she should go, after all. Leave this place, forget her questions, forget her sister’s rambling notes, forget her pain and just get on with what’s left of her colourless life. But from deep within, she hears her sister’s voice; calling from the heart of a maze, encompassed by the mysteries surrounding her.

Sophie, follow my voice. This way… Find me…

This place, Rhian’s plea for help, the goth girl’s mystery, and the locals’ hostility; it’s like branches of a maze or a twisted labyrinth. And maybe, Sophie considers, if she digs a little deeper, pushes a little farther, she might get to the centre and find some answers.

She watches the last bus out of town crawl towards her—she doesn’t raise her hand to stop it. The wheels slosh through a puddle as it passes, splattering dirty water near Sophie’s feet. She knows she can’t go back. Not now. Not when there are lies, and secrets, and mysteries awaiting discovery. Answers maybe, for why Jessica did what she did; for Rhian, whose secrets remain within her cold body to be taken with her to her grave.

Sophie jerks, suddenly remembering.

Not all of Rhian’s secrets.

Sophie gropes for the snap bag in her pocket, can almost feel the handwriting spelling out her name.

“Are you coming?” Kai asks, scrutinising her.

“Yes. Yes. Come on,” Sophie says, the unread contents of her pockets giving her the renewed energy she needs. Her hand closes around the envelope as she chases alongside Kai’s long strides into the clutches of the misty darkness.

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This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

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“You have got to be kidding me?” Sophie mumbles beneath her breath. If she needed a drink before, now her life depends on it. She is still staring at the doorway.

The pub hushes, but not to the same intensity as when Sophie walked through, and the man in the doorway seems blissfully ignorant that all eyes are on him. He gawks at the surroundings with a smile, stamps his feet, shakes off the raindrops from his bright yellow anorak. In his hand is a cat carrier. Thoroughly miserable and judgmental feline eyes stare out from behind its bars. Sophie looks back up at the man’s face in disbelief, and their eyes clash.

He cocks his head to the side, and slow recognition creeps over his features.

Sophie groans as he joins her.

“I know you!” he says, a sheepish grin spreading across his face.

Sophie throws back a gulp of wine, screwing up her face as he continues.

“Of all the gin joints in all the—”

“—Don’t,” Sophie warns.

He smirks, places his cat carrier down on the sticky, threadbare carpet (the cat lets out a disgruntled mewl) and shakes his head, incredulous.

“Kai, right?” Sophie mumbles. “The EMF guy?”

“The one and only.” Kai takes off his soaking coat and places it over her own, uninvited. “I owe you an apology, or a drink at the very least. What can I get you?”

She stares. “Oh, I don’t know. How about some space?”

Kai points a finger at her. “Ha, good one. How about an out-of-this-world-conversation instead?”

Sophie can do nothing but sigh. Getting rid of him doesn’t seem to be an option, so: “Tequila shot. Doubler.”

“Nice,” Kai appraises her choice with admiration and wanders to the bar with an affability disjointed in the joyless habitat.

His precise Oxford accent as he orders causes the patrons sitting at the bar to slip into their mother tongue again. Sophie doesn’t need to understand Welsh to hear their disgust at not one, but two English invaders.

Brenda slams his beer on the bar with a thump, slides the two double tequila shots glasses towards him, then holds out her palm for gold.

“Many thanks,” Kai says. If he notices Brenda’s coldness projected towards him, he does not show it. He wanders back over to Sophie. Without a nod of thanks, she grabs the first shot glass and throws it back, then grabs the other.

“Oh, that one’s for…” he begins.

Her lips smack as she slams the second emptied shot glass on the table.

“…Never mind.” Kai concludes. His face alters from slightly amused to almost pained. “Look, about earlier. I can’t apologise enough for what happened—”

“—Don’t worry about it,” Sophie says. Her tequila-drenched blood tingles, an intoxicating warmth. “Carmen was a cunt of a boss.”

“Woah!” Kai barks, looking over his shoulders with an awkward cringe.

It’s probably the alcohol hit, but Sophie finds herself smiling. A half-arsed meow rises from the carrier between their feet. “Do you always bring your cat to the pub with you?”

“Oh, Mabel?” Kai pats the top of the carrier, and the cat moans beneath her breath. “She’s not my cat.”

Sophie waits for an explanation that doesn’t come as wine and tequila colours her cheeks. Instead, Kai looks around himself, taking in the ugly nicknacks. Then: “What are you doing here?”

“Drinking piss poor wine and mind-numbing tequila. You?”

Kai gives her retort a polite laugh. “What do you think?”

“Getting more girls sacked?”

“I wish!” Kai’s eyebrows shoot up several times in quick succession, then observes the miserable and morose faces around the bar. He tips his head in Brenda’s direction and winks. “Don’t fancy my chances much, though.”

In a breath, his whole body hunches over his beer, leaning closer towards Sophie. He lowers his voice, checking over both shoulders as if he’s about to share a secret. “I’m here for EMF testing. This place is going off. Mind you, it’s not too much of a surprise.”

“EMF?” Sophie scrunches her nose. “Wouldn’t have thought people in a town like this would be interested in the latest fads—”

“—Fad? My arse.” Kai fires. “It’s called science. Look it up.”

He stares at her a little while and Sophie notices, not for the first time, an acute intensity behind the veneer of his playfulness. He lowers his voice to a whisper, pulling closer towards her. “Have you heard about the recent suicides?”

Despite herself, despite Jessica, Sophie leans in closer towards him, mouth opened in surprise.

Kai’s eyes are wide. “I think it has something to do with—”

“—Thought I made myself crystal clear.” Sergeant Peters looms over them, staring pointedly at Kai. “No press.”

Kai fake laughs, amused and offended both. “I’m not press.”

Peters pins his attention on Sophie. “Either way, it’s time to get out of here. Come on, Hamilton, let’s get you to the train station.”

“You’re leaving?” Kai asks.

“Yes,” says Peters, “she is.”

“Apparently,” Sophie begins, “there’s no room at the inn.”

Kai looks first at Sophie, then Peters, then quickly back to Sophie once more. “I’m staying at a bed-and-breakfast—it’s a bit of a walk out of town, it’s a big old building. I’m sure they’ll have rooms.”

An old man playing chess coughs and splutters. He smashes over his opponent’s queen, and it tumbles to the beer-stained carpet, rolling to Kai’s feet. Kai stops it with the tip of his toe and bends to retrieve it, but neither man takes it from him. He places the queen back on the table, positioning her in safety.

“The Coach House?” The old man says with his gravelled voice.

“That’s the one,” Kai confirms.

“Nobody stays at The Coach House.” The old man glares.

Kai shrugs, “And you, kind sir, would be correct. Nobody but me.” He turns back to Sophie. “I can take you there?”

A phone shrilling behind the bar interrupts Sophie’s answer. Seconds later, Brenda shouts, “David, it’s for you.”

Sergeant Peters stares at Sophie for too long, then skulks away to take the call.

“Friendly bunch, aren’t they?” Kai says.

Sophie watches Peters. He whispers into the phone, covering his mouth so not to be overheard. He nods, though it is clear by his deep frown that he doesn’t like whatever it is he hears on the other end of the phone call.

When he hangs up, he pinches the bridge of his nose, sighs, and strides over to Sophie once more.

“Change of plan,” Peters begins. “I’m going to need an official statement from you, after all. Come to the station in the morning.”

Peters hands her his card, and Sophie pockets it without reading.

“Statement? Blimmin’ heck, what’s going on?” Kai asks.

“None of your concern,” Brenda chastises as she collects the empty glasses.

“Another suicide,” Sophie says.

The bar hushes to silence.

“You don’t know if it was suicide.” The girlish voice comes from behind. Sophie turns and cranes her neck to see the girl as she continues. “If any of them was.”

She recognises the lanky teen in the shadowy corner immediately, and the girl glares back at Sophie with her one dark eye, the other hidden behind the mop of lank, long, black hair.

Sophie’s stomach turns inside out; guilt, fear, and curiosity combined.

If the atmosphere in the pub had been tense before, now it feels taut. Tight and fraying, waiting for an explosive snap. The girl downs her can of Coke, hand trembling. She tucks away her notebook in her jacket and slinks away like a cat.

“Wait! Wait!” Sophie calls out. She catapults to her feet, chair clattering to the ground behind her, and sprints out of the door into the mist and darkness.

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Buy me a Coffee x