Spirited Away
Vera turned the slip in her fingers, the paper brittle, the script a secret waiting to breathe. “If this ties your blood to the curse—”
A sudden scream—Eleanor’s—ripped through the stacks, high and terrified, followed by the unmistakable crash of shattering glass. The sound echoed, sharp and violent, somewhere deeper in the library. Vera’s pistol was out in an instant, the weight familiar in her hand.
“Stay behind me,” she ordered, already moving toward the sound, Kane’s axe rising beside her.
As Vera moved purposefully through the towering stacks with her flashlight, its beam cut sharp angles across the dusty spines. She held her pistol steady in her hand. Kane was close behind, his axe shining in the dim light. The blade caught slivers of moonlight coming through high windows, and his boots were quiet but purposeful on the checkered tile. The scream-Eleanor Hawthorne's, high and terrified-still rang in their ears, a jagged echo that seemed to hang in the rafters of the library, joined by the crash of shattering glass that had followed. The air smelled like old paper and mold, but now it smelled like something else: a faint, salty chill, like the river's breath sneaking through a crack. Vera's heart raced as she held the tiny script in her hand. The tiny letters were a fragile link to the truth.
“Back room—now,” she whispered, low but urgent, heading past the vision’s shelf, its veterinary texts a cruel tease now.
The aisle opened to a narrow door, ajar, a faint glow spilling from within. Vera pushed it open with her shoulder, pistol first, Kane at her flank, and they stepped into a small office that seemed like a sanctuary frozen in time. The room was immaculate: filing cabinets lined one wall, their metal surface polished, labels typed in neat rows; a single, wooden desk sat in the center, its surface bare save for a stack of papers aligned with precision, a pen resting parallel to the edge. A small lamp cast a warm, yellow circle of light, its shade tilted just so. But the window above the desk was cracked open, its pane shattered, shards of glass glittering on the floor like scattered diamonds, the remnants of a magnifying glass—its brass frame bent, its lens fractured into a spiderweb of cracks.
Eleanor Hawthorne was gone.
Vera played her light across the room, the beam jinking across each corner, each shadow. No blood, no scuff marks, no indication of any kind of fight—just the open window and its curtains, blowing in a draft carrying the faint briny taste of the river, and the broken magnifying glass, its shards glinting in the beam like a warning.
“Moriah,” Vera hissed, her voice tight with conviction. Suddenly the tiny script in her hand was heavy, weighted with Eleanor's absence. “This has to be her. She took her. Spirited her away.”
Kane's jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing as he moved to the window, his axe resting lightly in one hand. He leaned out, scanning the gravel path below, the skeletal silhouette of the mill looming in the distance.
"No footprints," he said, the voice low, rough with unease. "No ladder, no disturbance in the dirt. Like she vanished into smoke-or was pulled into it."
Turning back, he pulled open filing cabinets with that metallic scrape, and found them either empty or filled with mundane records, nothing to show evidence of a fight. The desk proved just as fruitless: a ledger of library loans, a few pencils, no sign of Eleanor except her cardigan draped neatly over the chair, as if she had merely stepped out for a moment.
Vera's mind was racing: the vision's shelf, the hidden note, Eleanor's stories of her grandfather Elias-all coalescing into a pattern she couldn't yet see. "Moriah's cleaning up," she said, holstering her pistol but keeping her hand near it, the silence of the library now oppressive, the shadows deeper, alive with threat. "Eleanor knew too much about the curse, the Careys, maybe even you. She's a loose end."
Kane nodded, his gaze flicking to the shattered glass, the open window. “No time to search more. We’ve got the paper. Whatever’s on it, it’s why she’s scared. We’re not safe here.”
Vera consented, the weight of Eleanor's disappearance settling like a stone in her gut. The library that had once seemed a beacon of truth now felt like a trap: its shelves closing in, the air thick with Moriah's laughter. She tucked the tiny script into her pocket, the paper brittle against her fingers, and gestured toward the door.
“Let’s go—before she comes for us.”
They retreated through the stacks, Vera's flashlight sweeping the aisles, Kane's axe raised, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous room. The vision's shelf mocked them as they passed, its veterinary texts a cruel dead end, the real truth now a fragile slip of paper. The front door loomed ahead, the glass pane reflecting their tense faces, the "CLOSED" sign swaying like a pendulum. Vera pushed it open, the cool night air rushing in, sharp with pine and river, and they stepped onto the gravel path, the library's door slamming shut behind them with a heavy thud that sealed Eleanor's fate inside.
Kane's truck waited under the streetlight, its battered frame a lifeline. They climbed in; the engine roared to life with a cough, the headlights cut through the dark as Vera gripped the script, her mind racing with possibilities: Elias's warnings, Moriah's reach, the axe-woman's pale face. Eleanor's absence was a chilling warning of Moriah's power, the tiny script their only lead in a town teetering on the edge of damnation.