The Executioner’s Smile
Rosemary - POV
Ember & Sage Bookshop stands before me like something from a Victorian fever dream, three stories of weathered mahogany and leaded glass windows that catch the afternoon light like jewels. The keys in my palm feel ice-cold despite the warm mountain air, their metal edges sharp enough to cut. Holden disappeared after unloading my suitcase, claiming he had "business to attend to" with that enigmatic smile that makes my pulse race and my instincts scream in equal measure.
I slide the brass key into the lock, and the door swings open with a sigh that sounds almost relieved, like the building has been holding its breath. The scent hits me immediately—old paper and vanilla candles and something underneath that might be lavender or sage, creating an atmosphere so perfect it makes my chest tight with unexpected emotion.
This exceeds every fantasy I've harbored about owning an independent bookstore. Mahogany shelving stretches from floor to cathedral ceiling, filled with rare first editions and leather-bound volumes that seem to glow in the filtered sunlight. Comfortable reading nooks with overstuffed chairs invite hours of literary escape, while Persian rugs in deep burgundy and gold create islands of warmth across polished hardwood floors.
I run my fingers along book spines, recognizing classics mixed with contemporary fiction, occult histories nestled beside botanical guides. The arrangement seems random but somehow perfect, like each volume found its natural place through literary magnetism rather than alphabetical logic.
"Hello, beautiful," I whisper to a first edition of Jane Eyre, and immediately feel foolish for talking to books like they're old friends.
But as I explore deeper, strange details emerge that prickle at my awareness. Protective symbols are carved discreetly into door frames—not decorative flourishes but deliberate marks that make my skin crawl when I trace them with my fingertips. Mirrors hang positioned to reflect every entrance, their surfaces too clean for antiques that should have gathered dust during Millicent's final illness. And despite adjusting the thermostat twice, certain rooms remain stubbornly cold, as if winter has taken permanent residence in their corners.
The basement draws me down narrow wooden stairs that creak warnings with each step. Here, away from the bookshop's welcoming warmth, my great-aunt kept her private collection. Folklore volumes from cultures I can't identify line the walls beside supernatural histories and books on ritualistic practices that date back centuries. When I'm not looking directly at them, I swear I hear whispers threading through the air like silk.
I pull a volume on Celtic moon ceremonies from the shelf, and the leather binding feels warm under my fingers, almost alive. The pages flutter open to illustrations of women dancing around stone altars under blood-red skies, their faces ecstatic and terrible. I slam it shut, heart hammering against my ribs.
"Just old books," I tell myself, but my voice sounds hollow in the basement's thick silence.
That's when I notice the wall of books that doesn't quite match the others. The binding colors are too uniform, the spacing too precise. When I press against the center volume—something called "Mysteries of the Mountain Folk"—the entire section swings inward like a door, revealing a hidden room that smells of dust and secrets and something metallic that makes my stomach turn.
The space beyond is small but meticulously organized. Genealogy charts cover three walls, mapping family trees that stretch back generations. My name sits at the bottom of one chart in Millicent's careful handwriting, connected by red lines to women whose names I've never heard but whose faces...
The photographs hit me like physical blows. Dozens of them, spanning what looks like a century and a half. Sepia prints, faded color photos, Polaroids that still smell faintly of chemicals. Different decades, different fashions, different hairstyles. But the same face stares back from every image—my face, or close enough to make my hands shake as I sort through them.
Each woman bears my dark hair, my green eyes, my delicate bone structure. But there's something else in every photograph, something that makes my skin crawl. They all look afraid. Not posed fear for dramatic effect, but genuine terror barely contained behind fixed smiles and carefully arranged poses.
I flip each photo looking for names, dates, anything that might explain this impossible similarity. The backs are marked with years: 1847, 1874, 1901, 1928, 1955, 1982. Every twenty-seven years, like clockwork. And beside each date, a single word that makes my blood turn to ice: "Eclipse."
Newspaper clippings fill a manila folder marked "Family History" in Millicent's spidery handwriting. Young woman dies in tragic accident during rare celestial event. Mysterious death coincides with lunar eclipse. Local woman found dead following astronomical phenomenon. The headlines blur together, but the pattern emerges clear as broken glass—every twenty-seven years, a woman from my bloodline dies during an eclipse under mysterious circumstances.
My hands are shaking so violently I can barely hold the final folder. More photographs, these ones showing the women with men who all look disturbingly similar—tall, dark-haired, handsome in that otherworldly way that reminds me of...
"Holden," I breathe, and the name tastes like copper in my mouth.
The men in the photographs aren't identical, but they share too many features to be coincidence. The same angular jaw, the same predatory grace, the same eyes that seem to hold depths no human gaze should contain. And in every photo, they're touching the women—hands on shoulders, arms around waists, fingers intertwined—with possessive intimacy that looks more like claiming than affection.
At the bottom of the stack, wrapped in oiled leather that feels slick under my trembling fingers, I find Millicent's final journal. The early entries discuss normal bookshop business—inventory orders, customer interactions, the changing seasons in Thornwick Hollow. But as the dates progress toward her death two weeks ago, the handwriting becomes increasingly frantic, words scored deep enough to tear through paper:
March 15th: He's been asking about Rosemary again. Questions about her childhood, her career, whether she's ever been married. I tell him nothing, but he already knows too much. The eclipse cycle is almost complete. Twenty-eight days until the crimson moon rises, and I'm too old to fulfill the covenant. She'll come for the inheritance—I've made sure of that. God forgive me, but someone has to break this chain, and she's the strongest of our bloodline. The most powerful. Maybe powerful enough to survive what the others couldn't.
March 20th: The dreams are getting worse. I see her in the ceremony circle, wearing the white dress like all the others before her. But sometimes the dream changes, and she's the one holding the knife instead of receiving it. I pray those visions are prophecy rather than wishful thinking.
March 28th: Holden came to the bookshop today. Polite as always, asking about inventory and whether I need help with repairs. But his eyes... God help me, his eyes when he asked about Rosemary. Like a starving man looking at a feast. The eclipse is coming whether she's ready or not, and I've done everything I can to prepare her. The rest is up to her and whatever strength flows in Decker blood.
The final entry, dated just three days before her death, is barely legible:
He's coming for her now. The eclipse cycle demands it, and she doesn't understand what she's inherited along with the bookshop. Some debts pass through bloodlines like genetic traits. Twenty-seven days until the crimson eclipse, and I won't be here to protect her. She'll have to learn the truth the hard way—that love and death are often the same thing in Thornwick Hollow, and some inheritances are traps disguised as gifts. Trust Sarah. Trust no one else. Especially not the beautiful stranger who speaks her name like a prayer.
My vision blurs as the journal falls from numb fingers. Twenty-seven days. The crimson eclipse Millicent wrote about in Seattle, the one that sounded like mystical nonsense from a woman facing death. It's real. It's coming. And somehow, impossibly, it's connected to me and six generations of women who died with my face during celestial events.
The photographs scattered around my feet show the truth in black and white and faded color: I'm not the first Rosemary Decker to inherit this bookshop. I'm just the latest in a line of women who came to Thornwick Hollow thinking they'd found sanctuary, only to discover they'd walked into a trap that's been closing for over a century.
And Holden—beautiful, charming Holden who knew about my childhood scar and my secret dreams—he's not my salvation.
He's my executioner.