Chapter 13
C h a p t e r T h i r t e e n
S y l v i a S w a n
As I approach the vine covered brick home, a chill spreads across my back. I feel eyes on me, ones that suck everything out of a person and leave them bare.
My gaze slides around but with the heavy rain I can’t make out much. A few lamps have flickered on because of the heavy clouds but they do little to nothing. I dismiss the feeling and turn to the wooden door.
I’m starting to make stuff up because I’m so anxious.
I shake my head and lift my shaky hand to the door.
I knock three times, soft but with determination.
After a few seconds I can hear shuffling inside and the door cracks open.
A short thin woman wearing a white long nightgown greets me, her silver streaked hair high in a ponytail.
She blinks twice before her mouth opens to form words.
“Yes? How can I help you?” Her tone is sharp but calm.
“Are you Lilith Hancher?” I ask.
“I am, why?”
“Uh, I’m sorry.” I close my eyes and slightly bow. “She had your name written down. My name is Sylvia Swan. She died three weeks ago and I figured she came to you right before she did. I–I don’t know why.”
She stares at me, releasing a loud sigh—her eyes dart behind me before she steps back.
“Come in.” Her tone softens and I follow her inside.
It smells of old books and heat invades my chilled body. I take off my soaked boots and leave them by the door. Her wood floors are cold and I rush to step on her persian rug by the fire. Sconced candles light the dark parlor, creating eerie shadows across the walls.
Lilith sits down on an old velvet couch and nods to the loveseat across from her. I look down at my soaked clothes and turn to the seat with much obligation.
“It’s ok, dear,” she whispers. “Won’t hurt a fly.”
I settle in the chair, my back straight and legs crossed. I notice the dust collecting on the wood carved arm rest and realize exactly how dark and pristine this place looks, as if Lilith hasn't lived here in years.
A home without a soul.
She awkwardly folds her arms across her lap and a sorrowful look fills her gaze as if my mother and her late husband are just a distant memory.
“Your mother, Sylvesta”—She pauses and her eyebrows scrunch in thought—“came to me shortly before her death. I assume she didn’t tell you why, probably didn’t tell you at all.”
“No, but your name was in her writing on a newspaper clipping.” I whisper.
Straight to the point. I'm not sure If i’m ready to hear about her, but the tears I'd been denying suddenly flow to the surface.
She nods. “Most people come to me. I’ve opened my doors for half of this town and most of them are dead.”
I gulp. “Do you know what happened to them? She was murdered. This town thinks, well says, it was a robbery gone wrong but she was stabbed…raped, and I found her. The look in her eyes…”
The words die on my tongue and I find myself trembling trying to get them out.
Her eyes soften as she reaches out and grabs my hand in hers. The gold ring on her thumb looks wrong as it glints in the low candle light.
“My husband, Mark, was killed under circumstances much like your mother’s.” Sympathy doesn’t pass through her gaze but recognition does. “He came home frightened. Wouldn’t say much but that he disturbed something and that silence is the only thing that will keep me alive.”
The room shifts with an unknown feeling, as if her husband had projected in the room upon her speaking his name. I shift in my seat, dropping her cold hand and settling further in the chair suddenly feeling cold.
“That night, he dragged me beneath our bed when he heard someone enter our home. When I went to ask him why, he covered my mouth and whispered that no matter what I heard or saw, don’t move.
” A tear of pure trauma slides down her cheek.
“I didn’t see the man but I heard the way he talked to my husband, cold as the devil.
He told my husband that once you see behind the curtain of this town you don’t get to leave it and killed him.
Slowly, painfully. I still hear the sound of my husband screaming in my dreams. I regret laying idly under that bed. ”
The last of her words come out slowly as if she was reliving that day. Her ghostly gaze pins me to the spot and a shudder wracks through me. Had I been home on time I would’ve gone through the same experience as her.
One of the candles beside the mantle flickers and dims the room. The only thing I can hear is the rapid thump of my heart and the grandfather clock across the room. I stare at her, afraid of what is to come next.
What should I say?
“And why did my mother come here?” I stutter out.
“She came to my door a few weeks later and asked me how Mark died. She didn’t give me an explanation as to why. She said she just wanted to know that she was close. To what? I don’t know. So I told her, "I believed she would be the truth of this town.”
The grandfather clock ticks again but it seems much louder this time and the sorrow that fills my bones only intensifies.
“I don’t know what your mother uncovered but it triggered that man. The same man that killed my husband and I fear, dear, that you’ll be his next target,” she says softly as she stands.
Her words echo in my head, ‘you’ll be his next target’, I’ll be damned if I let him walk free. Day after day, death soaks this town in blood and the people inside only cower in fear of being next. If Lilith knows then there's no telling who else knows and has kept quiet.
Her nightgown brushes the rug as she slowly steps toward a tall cabinet tucked into the corner of the parlor. It is carved in winding vines and thorned roses, the wood so dark it reflects the candle light.
She pulls a dainty necklace from inside the bust of her nightgown and an old brass key swings from the chain.
She sticks it into the cabinet's keyhole and a soft click echoes as it unlocks, the drawer sliding open with a reluctant groan.
She lifts a small parcel wrapped in oilcloth with a brittle string wrapped around it and her hand trembles as she brings it closer to me.
“I never told the police about this. I feared it would’ve been dismissed or worse, lost.” She murmurs as she places it in my hand.
I stare at the parcel, it's much colder than it should be and much heavier than it looks.
“When I crawled out from underneath the bed, my husband was already gone but I found it beside the front door, something the killer had mistakenly dropped on his way out. Such matters can never be trusted to men who carry badges and no understanding.” She watches as I peel back the oilcloth.
Her eyes filled with something that I can only decipher as trust.
I slide the string loose and the oilcloth opens with a slight crack. Inside is a compact leather bound notebook, its pages wrinkled as if it had once been soaked but dried. It’s no bigger than my palm and no name is present on the front cover, only an embossed symbol.
“What is this?” I whisper, stuck between anger and sorrow.
My fingers skim over the large symbol. A circle is cleanly pressed into the cover with smaller ones overlapping it. Inside the middle circle are three primitive slashes.
“A ledger,” She says as she hovers over me. “Sort of, but it holds more than names.”
I slowly open the book and each page is haunted with jagged, cramped writing that’s hard to understand. Whoever wrote it seemed to be under duress.
English coats most pages but unknown symbols, sketched faces, and frantic drawings of places are shoved between them.
I don’t recognize anyone on the pages and barely understand anything that's written. I look up at Lilith for an explanation but she doesn’t give me one, her haunted eyes bore into these horrible pages.
“She recognized that symbol and some of the ones inside. When she saw them she went silent as if something inside her completely shattered.” She says.
I close the book and my finger hovers over the symbol. A strong sense that I’ve seen the symbol before settles in me, but where?
“Did she tell you how she knew it or where she saw it?” I say, my voice trembling.
She sighs and closes her eyes. “In your father’s study.”
My father? The world around me seems to fade out. The only thing I can hear is the disbelieving thump of my heart.
“No. He wasn’t—.” My words are barely audible as I stumble over them.
The crunch of my tongue piercing settles in the room as I nervously chew on it. I suspected he’s tied to this somehow but I can't believe my ears. This symbol is in his study or was.
She lightly pats my shoulder, but still no softness ever forms in her gaze.
“Sylvia, I know it's hard to hear but she believed whatever was after her, started in her own home.” She steps away from me, leaving the notebook in my hand as she closes the cabinet door.
The book seems to pulse in my hand as I shove it into my bag. Amos looks up at me; concerned, curious, and worst of all full of empathy. His brass eyes are glossed over and it feels as though he's crying for the both of us.
“Can I keep the book?” I whisper.
She nods quietly and I stand. “Thank you for talking with me, Lilith. I’m sorry to have met you under such circumstances.”
I bow and pull my boots back on my feet.
“Don’t be afraid to come back and stop by. I know how it feels to lose a person you love to murder.” My heart lurches at her words but I make no promise to come back.
I hike Amos’ carrier higher up on my shoulder and open the front door. It’s started to snow and I pull my uniform closer to my body as I tread towards the train station.
I don’t notice the shadowed figure behind me.
My father’s studio glints with pale light and the smell of pipe smoke drifts through the air, which is odd considering he doesn’t smoke.
I look around, confused. Everything is exactly as I remember; a tall mahogany desk, a see-through globe situated on it, and beside it a cabinet that always remained locked.