Chapter 70: Echoes of the Past

The storm finally had blown itself out at dawn, leaving Eldridge Falls in a strange stillness. The streets were choked with debris-snapped branches and ripped signs detritus of the tempest that had torn through the night. Emma stood at the window of the courthouse, staring out at the battered town, heavyhearted. "We weathered the storm, but the battle is yet to be done," Ethan hushed beside her. His eyes had fixed upon the horizon-to where the remains of the mansion still stood like some dark portent. Emma nodded. "There is still the benefactor's power out in the open. We felt its presence last night. "We are missing something, a missing piece to the puzzle," Claire replied across the room. She had been pacing up and down-restless to sit after all they'd been through. "There just has to be some kind of way to stop it once and for all." The great wooden courthouse door creaked open, and in hobbled an old man clutching a tattered leather bound book close to his chest. Rain seeped through his clothes; time and concern had mapped his face with lines. It was Mr. Cartwright, the town historian and one of the last living links to the town's past. "Mr. Cartwright?" Emma started, startled, by his sudden appearance. "What are you doing here?" "I've found something," he hoarsely said, his voice filled with determination, as he lifted the book-shaking a little as holding it out to them. "This. This may hold the key to understanding the benefactor's power and at last how to break its hold." Ethan stepped forward, taking the book from the old man. It looked ancient, its pages yellowed and the cover worn from time. "Where did you find this?" Mr. Cartwright took a deep breath. "It was buried in my family's archives. It's passed down generations, but nobody ever paid much attention to it until now. I started going through it after last night, and I think. I think it holds the key to everything." Emma curiously peered over his shoulder as he flipped the pages. Hand Drawn maps, weird symbols, some sort of writing in a language she couldn't make out. "What's that?" Claire came closer. "It looks like some kind of diary." "It's more than that," Mr. Cartwright replied. "It's a record of the town's earliest days before Eldridge Falls was known by that name. This book details the founding of the town, the first settlers, and the ancient powers that once protected this land. Powers that were later corrupted by the benefactor. Nathaniel scowled, hunching low over the pages. "Corrupted how?" Then Mr. Cartwright leaned forward in his chair, and pointed out a place beneath his finger in the book; his finger traced, shaking, across the page in some weird pattern of symbols. "This magic binding that holds this town, the benefactor did not put it there. He stole it. Twisted it to serve his means. But this book talks of an artefact, a relic holding in this original, pure magic of the place. We can find that and then reverse what the benefactor did." Ethan looked up, his eyes narrowing. "An artefact? What kind of artefact? "A medallion," replied Mr. Cartwright. "An ancient medallion, the legend went, that had been hidden somewhere in Eldridge Falls, passed on by the town's original guardians. But that was lost long ago-vanished after the benefactor took control." Emma felt a shiver run down her spine. "And you think this medallion can stop him? Break his power for good?" Mr. Cartwright nodded. "If we can find it, we may have a chance to save the town." There was a moment of silence while the weight of his words settled over the group. That some sort of long-lost artefact could be holding the secret to beating the benefactor felt like the plot to a story, yet after all they'd been through, it didn't feel quite so impossible. "Where in the world would we even start to look?" Claire exclaimed, voicing all their questions. Mr. Cartwright shifted uncomfortably for a moment, his finger pointing at one of the maps in the book. "It's buried within the old Blackwood family crypt, below the grounds of the cemetery. That is where the medallion last was said to be." The reserved Nathaniel suddenly tensed up at the mention of the crypt of his family. His eyes clouded, and old memories of his family's torrid past cropped up. "That place has been sealed up for years. Nobody has gone down there since. Well, since my grandfather's time." "But if that medallion is there," Ethan said, "we don't have a choice. We got to go." Emma nodded, but her chest swelled with foreboding. She had already faced the benefactor, but they were soon going into a place full of the darkness that empowered him. If the medallion was there, whatever had been hidden within it would have to be faced. "Ready up," she said, though inside, trepidation was fast setting in. "We need to go as fast as possible." When it did, it was blanketed in fog. The tall trees swayed gently in the breeze, and their long shadows stretched out across weathered gravestones. It was quite-early , so it seemed as if the whole town held its collective breath. "Here it is," Nathaniel said as they came before the entrance to the crypt of the Blackwoods. The structure was well, well ancient; its heavy doors were wrapped around with ivy and moss, almost invisible under years of neglect. Stepping forward, he ran his hand across the engraved Blackwood family crest. "No one has been here for generations." Ethan and Claire stepped with him, each of their lights slicing through the fog as they studied the door. "It's sealed," Claire mentioned. "We're going to have to break into it." Nathaniel nodded, taking a great deep breath as he stepped forward. "Stand back. He gave the door a hard and swift kick; the wood creaked and splintered with the force. After a couple of kicks, the door fell, revealing a dim, narrow stair going down into the earth. She shivered, peering below at the darkness therein. "Here it is," she whispered, clutching tight to her flashlight. "There's no going back." They clambered down into the crypt, cold and heavy, and with each succeeding step even colder and heavier. Ancient stone coffins were set into the walls, each one bearing the name of some very dead ancestor Blackwood chiselled into its side. The deeper one went into the crypt, the thicker the air became with secrets centuries old. They came to a great stone slab at the rear of the crypt, bearing yet more of the symbols they had found in the book. It was an altar, yet somehow something that made her neck shiver, her hair rising back. "This is it, where it should be," Mr. Cartwright said, pressing onward. His voice shook slightly as he ran his hands over the symbols. "The medallion should be hidden beneath this slab." Ethan frowned, dropping to a crouch to peer at the base of the slab. "There's no obvious way to move it." Nathaniel stirred beside him; his face was drawn taut. "The Blackwoods always had secrets, secret passages, traps. There has to be some kind of mechanism. Emma spun, looking back into the crypt. Her heart was pounding. "What if the benefactor knew this? What if he—" But no sooner were the words out than there was a sudden click, and of its own accord the slab grated noisily to one side, revealing a small compartment beneath the stone. There in the hollow space, snugly fitted, lay a shining medallion. It was ornately done, the design of the medallion in curving patterns that glimmered in the poor light. From the moment Emma had laid eyes on it, she'd felt a strange pull toward it, as though the medallion itself were calling to her. "That's it," Mr. Cartwright breathed, his eyes wide. "The medallion of Eldridge Falls." Ethan lunged for it, but the moment his hands' fingers touched its surface, the ground beneath them started shaking violently. A deep rumbling surrounded the crypt and dust began falling from the ceiling. "We have to get out of here!" Claire yelled, scuttling backwards, away from the altar. But before they could take a single step in that direction, the entrance to the crypt slammed shut with a deafening crash, entombing them inside. It pulsed with an eerie, otherworldly light as if the thickened air was alive with energy. The action jerked Emma's heart into a wild race inside her chest, knowing full well they had just triggered something ancient or powerful, she could not tell. "We are not alone," Nathaniel whispered. From the darkness, a low guttural growl reached their ears and sent running chills down their spines. Something was awake.