The Weight of Silence
The silence after the voice was heavier than the knock itself. Evelyn’s breath caught, and instinctively she pressed the notebook tighter against her chest, as though Sheriff Doyle’s voice could pierce through the walls and snatch it from her hands. Thomas Vale’s face tightened, all trace of the scholarly detachment he carried earlier stripped away. His eyes flicked toward the door, then back to Evelyn.
“Not a word,” he whispered, so faint she barely heard it.
Her heart pounded. The way he said it—it wasn’t mere caution. It was survival.
The Sheriff knocked again, not a polite rapping this time but three solid, deliberate thuds that made the doorframe tremble.
Thomas moved quickly, his gait sharp, shoulders squared as he crossed the small sitting room. He glanced once more at Evelyn before reaching the door, his hand hesitating at the handle. Evelyn could see the tension in the line of his back.
When he finally opened it, Conrad Doyle filled the doorway. The man was broader than Evelyn remembered from their first meeting—his presence seemed to darken the room. He stepped inside without waiting for permission, boots heavy on the floorboards. His uniform was neat, his badge catching a glint of the lamplight, but it was his eyes that unsettled her most: sharp, assessing, carrying the quiet authority of someone used to obedience.
“Evening, Vale,” Doyle said, his voice measured, casual on the surface but underlined with steel. “I thought I’d find you here.”
Thomas inclined his head, all politeness. “Sheriff Doyle. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Doyle’s gaze swept the room with precision, taking in every shadow, every corner, before landing squarely on Evelyn. He didn’t blink. “Miss Hale.”
Her throat went dry. “Sheriff.”
The single word left her lips too quickly, as though spoken by reflex. She forced herself to hold his gaze, though the weight of it made her want to shrink back into the chair.
He studied her for a moment longer, then turned back to Thomas. “It’s late for visitors.”
Thomas folded his arms loosely. “Is it? Miss Hale came for some local history. I assumed that wasn’t a crime in Ashwick Falls.”
Doyle’s jaw flexed, just enough for Evelyn to notice. “No crime,” he said slowly. “But history is… complicated here. You know that better than anyone.”
Thomas didn’t answer. The silence stretched, taut as a drawn bowstring.
Evelyn glanced between them, sensing currents she couldn’t map. The Sheriff wasn’t here for pleasantries. He was here with intent.
Finally, Doyle stepped deeper into the room, close enough that Evelyn could smell the faint scent of tobacco on his coat. He addressed her directly. “You’ve been in town only a short while, Miss Hale. I’d hate for you to get the wrong impression about our ways.”
Evelyn tightened her grip on the notebook resting on her lap, careful to keep it angled away from him. “I’m just trying to learn,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. “About the town. About its people.”
“Learn,” Doyle repeated, as if testing the word on his tongue. “Sometimes learning can be dangerous. Especially when what you uncover is… better left buried.”
The air in the room seemed to thin.
Thomas cleared his throat, deliberately breaking the moment. “She’s a teacher, Sheriff. Not a threat.”
Doyle looked at him, and for a flicker of a second, Evelyn thought she saw something else in the Sheriff’s eyes. Not suspicion. Not hostility. Something closer to grief. It vanished before she could place it.
“See that it stays that way,” Doyle said finally. His attention returned to Evelyn. “And Miss Hale—Ashwick Falls is an old town. We’ve endured because we know when to hold our tongues. I trust you’ll do the same.”
Her pulse thudded in her ears. “Of course.”
Doyle’s expression didn’t change, but some tension seemed to leave the room. He tipped his hat, almost perfunctory, and turned toward the door. “Goodnight, Vale. Miss Hale.”
Then he was gone, the sound of his boots fading into the night.
The door clicked shut. For a long moment, no one spoke.
Evelyn finally released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “What—” Her voice cracked. She tried again. “What was that?”
Thomas didn’t answer right away. He walked to the window, pulling the curtain aside just enough to peer out into the street. Only after he was certain Doyle had left did he turn back.
“That,” he said grimly, “was a warning.”
Evelyn clutched the notebook tighter. “Why does he care if I ask about the town’s past? Why—why would it matter?”
Thomas’s gaze dropped to the notebook in her hands. His expression softened, though it carried no comfort. “Because you’re already holding proof of something the town works very hard to deny.”
The notebook. Clara’s drawing. Evelyn’s stomach twisted.
“You think he knows,” she whispered.
Thomas’s reply was almost immediate. “He always knows.”
---
The hours blurred after that. Thomas urged her to leave quickly, but not without caution. Evelyn walked back through the town’s streets under a moon veiled by clouds, every shadow lengthened, every creak of the old houses echoing too loud. She felt watched, though the streets were empty.
By the time she reached her small rental cottage, her nerves were frayed. She bolted the door, lit a lamp, and sat at the table with the notebook spread before her.
The drawing stared up at her: her own likeness, drowning in rough pencil lines. Her hair tangled in the current, her eyes wide, her hands reaching toward a surface she couldn’t break.
She closed the book quickly, her heart hammering.
Sleep came fitfully. Dreams tangled her in corridors of water, in voices calling her name from beneath black rivers. She woke more than once gasping, unsure if she had been asleep at all.
---
Morning brought no relief.
At the schoolhouse, the children’s chatter felt sharper, filled with hidden barbs. Clara sat at her desk as though nothing had happened, her hands folded, her gaze distant. Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to confront the girl—not yet. Not while the Sheriff’s warning still rang in her ears.
Instead, she taught her lessons with brittle cheer, her eyes flicking again and again to the girl who drew futures she shouldn’t know.
At lunch, Margaret Kettle stopped by, bringing her a parcel of bread and jam. The older woman’s smile was bright, but Evelyn noticed the faint tension at the corners of her mouth.
“Sleep well?” Mags asked, her tone too casual.
Evelyn hesitated. “Not really.”
Mags patted her arm, her grip warm and firm. “The town takes some getting used to. You’ll learn when to close your ears, when to close your eyes.”
The words chilled Evelyn, though Mags’s smile never faltered.
When the older woman left, Evelyn found her hand trembling as she unwrapped the bread.
---
That evening, she couldn’t stay away.
She returned to Thomas Vale’s home after dusk, the notebook heavy in her satchel.
He let her in without question, though his eyes betrayed his concern. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I need answers,” she said. “That drawing—Sheriff Doyle’s warning—I can’t just pretend it’s nothing.”
Thomas regarded her for a long moment, then sighed. “You sound like Mags.”
“Mags?”
He nodded, pulling a stack of worn journals from a cabinet. Their covers were faded, their pages yellowed. “She remembers. Records. Every cycle, she keeps something behind when the rest of the town forgets. Just like my family.”
Evelyn’s skin prickled. “Cycles?”
Thomas opened one of the journals, revealing a page filled with sketches eerily similar to Clara’s—figures drowning, houses burning, people vanishing into mist. “Ashwick Falls doesn’t just have a past. It has pasts. Plural. Repeating. Erased. And every time, someone… remembers.”
Her knees weakened. She sank into a chair. “And this time… me?”
His gaze met hers, steady, almost pitying. “Maybe.”
The weight of it settled over her. Clara’s knowing eyes. Doyle’s warning. Mags’s journals. The notebook in her bag.
It wasn’t just history. It was a trap. A pattern. A tide rising again.
Evelyn’s voice shook. “Then what happens to me?”
Thomas closed the journal softly, as though sealing something alive inside. “That,” he said, “is the question we’re all afraid to answer.”
---
The lamp flickered as though in agreement. The house creaked, wind pressing against its old bones. Evelyn shivered, the sense of being watched pressing on her once more.
But this time, she knew it wasn’t just in her head.
Somewhere out there, the town was listening.
And it never forgot.