Chapter 5 - What the Floorboards Kept
The basement door was situated at the end of the kitchen, past the rows of family photographs hung along the corridor. Sarah had locked both boys inside the master bedroom, sliding a heavy oak chair beneath the doorknob and leaving every single lamp blazing. She held a heavy brass flashlight in her right hand, her fingers aching around the metal casing.
The basement smelled of damp concrete, cedar chips, and the lingering, sweet musk of Evelyn’s lavender sachet bags. Sarah stepped down the bare wooden stairs, each tread creaking loudly in the nocturnal silence of the house. Every shadow cast by the flashlight beam morphed into stooped figures and grasping hands, but she forced herself to keep moving. She needed answers. Rationality was slipping away, and she refused to let madness claim her family without a fight.
In the far corner sat Evelyn's sewing cabinet—a Victorian cherrywood piece that had belonged to the family for three generations. Sarah approached it cautiously, the beam of light dancing across the dusty spools of thread and brass thimbles. Sitting on top of the cabinet was a woven wicker basket lined with faded floral calico.
Sarah lifted the wicker lid. Inside, resting on top of half-finished knitting, was a thick leather ledger bound with a rotting velvet ribbon. Sarah picked it up. As she opened the yellowed parchment pages, an old photograph slid out, landing face-up on the concrete floor.
Sarah picked up the photograph. It was taken forty years ago, showing Evelyn as a young woman standing on the front porch of this very house, holding a swaddled infant whose tiny face was sunken and pale. On the back, written in Evelyn’s sharp, spidery handwriting, were the words: Little Thomas. Returned to the earth after three months. The soil always takes the first boy.
Sarah frowned. Thomas? She had never had an older brother. Evelyn had always claimed that Sarah was an only child, born late after years of failed attempts.
Sarah flipped open the ledger. The first twenty pages were filled with strange, repetitive entries detailing lunar phases, herbs, and temperatures. But the entry dated November 12th—the day Evelyn suffered her fatal stroke—chilled Sarah to the marrow.
May you like
Sarah refuses to see the pattern. The debt must be paid every second generation. If Brendan goes beneath the surgeon’s cold iron, the bargain is broken and both boys will be claimed. I will carry the weak one through the veil myself before they can butcher his soul. The path is already open under the floorboards of his room.
A sudden, sharp crash echoed from directly above Sarah’s head. It sounded like the wooden slats of a crib being smashed against the floor.
