Chapter 5 BENEATH THE S

The Ashthorne Archive had been closed off since the fire. That's what the signs said-weather-worn boards and rusted chains barring the entrance. But as Jerry and she stood in front of the building that morning, she realized how much had been left to rot, and how easily secrets could be buried beneath official neglect.

The brick walls were scorched black, vines creeping up the sides as if nature itself wanted to reclaim it. Broken windows gaped like dead eyes. The air smelled faintly of smoke, as though the fire had never really gone out.

"I used to come here with Rowan," she said, brushing my fingers over the cracked doorframe. "We'd play pretend. I always thought this place was magic."

"In a way, it is," Jerry replied. "Just not the kind we dreamed of."

He reached into his coat and pulled out bolt cutters.

"Breaking and entering?" I asked.

"Research," he corrected. "With attitude."

The lock snapped after a few minutes of effort, and the chain slithered to the ground. We pushed the doors open and stepped inside.

Dust curling in the light beams from our flashlights. The air was dense and cold, carrying the scent of decay and old paper. Bookshelves still lined the walls, their contents blackened or melted. Scattered fragments of journals, scorched index cards, and burnt files littered the floor.

They moved cautiously, the floor groaning beneath their steps.

"This place should've been demolished," she murmured.

"Or preserved," Jerry said. "Depending on what they wanted people to forget."

Rowan's map had led us here. The red star was drawn beneath the archive's back wing-a section half-collapsed in the fire. That's where we were going.

As they passed the front desk, she saw something written on the wall behind it. Barely visible beneath layers of soot:

Only ashes remain.

But someone had scratched into the soot beneath it:

Ashes rememberThe back wing was worse. Collapsed beams overlaid the floor, and the roof had caved in partially. We climbed over Trash and ducked beneath bent metal. Jerry found a stairwell hidden behind a fallen shelf. The door at the bottom was locked, sealed with a rusted padlock.

He looked at me "Ready?"

I nodded. My heart beat like a warning drum.

He broke the lock, and together we pulled open the door. A rush of colder air met us-a deep, earthy smell. Not smoke. Stone and damp.

We descended slowly, flashlight beams revealing narrow steps carved into bedrock. The staircase spiraled downward, far deeper than the building should have gone.

When we reached the bottom, we stepped into a chamber far older than the archive.

Stone walls, torches long dead, and a symbol above the archway-the twin flames again.

"we built the archive over this," Jerry whispered.

"To protect it," I said. "Or to hide it."

We entered a corridor lined with alcoves. Inside each were remnants: tattered robes, scorched books, melted candleholders, jars of strange powders. Some of it ceremonial. Some of it ritualistic. All of it sickening.

Jerry paused at one alcove. "This book" he reached for it. The cover read:

Litany of Flame: Rites of the Ember Circle.

He opened to a marked page and read aloud:

The Watcher sees. The Witness speaks. The Fire consumes. All things must pass through flame to be made pure.

"These were instructions," I said. "A manual."

"For what?"

I pointed to the next line:

Those who betray the Circle will burn. But the one who watches must never speak, or the fire will turn inward.

"We had a system of silence," Jerry said. "A theology of fear."

"And Rowan saw something she wasn't supposed to."

Further down the hall, we found another door-

thicker, reinforced with metal. Carved into the stone above it was a date.

September 21st, 2001.

"The night of the archive fire," I whispered.

Jerry pushed the door open. It led into a circular chamber with a raised platform in the center. The walls were blackened with soot, but symbols still shimmered beneath the grime. And in the center of the room.

A single chair.

Metal. Bolted to the floor.

Around it, ashes.

Human ashes.

I backed away, covering my mouth.

Jerry crouched beside the chair, grimacing. "This was an execution chamber."

"They performed rites down here," I said. "Killed anyone who spoke."

We both stared at the floor, at the charred remains no one had bothered to bury.

"We left them here," I whispered. "They left them as a message."

Then I noticed something lodged beneath the platform. A small, warped medallion.

I picked it up.

The initials L.V. were engraved on the back.

Lenora Vale.

"She was here," I whispered. "They tried to kill her. Maybe they did."

"Then how did she leave a letter?" Jerry asked.

"She must have escaped."

"Or someone helped her."

We returned to the house shaken, clothes streaked with ash. Aunt Helena was waiting in the kitchen, a photograph spread across the table.

It was a group photo. Six women standing outside the archive decades ago. I recognized my grandmother. And beside her.

My mother.

"She was one of them," Aunt Helena said. "But I don't think she believed in it."

"She tried to burn it down," I said. "That's why the archive caught fire."

Aunt Helena nodded. "She turned against them. And they punished her."

Jerry looked at me. "If your mother turned, and your grandmother tried to warn you-what does that make you, Seraphine?"

I stared at the photo.

"The one who finishes what they started."

"This is getting serious" aunt Helena whispered.

I saw the grave sat at the edge of the Vale family's abandoned land, where the forest crept in close and silence held its breath. No marker. No name. Just a crooked stone and earth that never grew grass.

I don't know what made me come here. Maybe the dream. Maybe the pull of a memory I couldn't fully name. All I knew was that something waited beneath this ground-something that knew my name before I even remembered it myself.