Enoch’s younger brother, who was briefly led astray by Rueben.
We’re getting nowhere with the portrait.
Perhaps we can get somewhere with this, a clue in the cold case. A mystery that captivated my attention from the moment I moved to town.
Jude shifts into drive. “Let’s look at them after school.”
It’s raining outside. It’s been raining most of the day—a dreary drizzle that ran down the window panes at school, and now runs down the window panes on the estate’s third floor.
Last time I came here, I got horrendously sick afterward. I don’t actually believe it had anything to do with the dusty cloak I donned for the majority of my visit. Even so, I give the wardrobe a wide berth.
Jude and I remove the bundle of letters from Enoch’s trunk. Sure enough, the vast majority arefrom Daniel, Enoch’s younger brother. We divvy them up in search for more information about their wretched cousin, Rueben.
Jude settles into a regal, high-backed armchair. He sits in the shadows with his ankle crossed over his knee, skimming one correspondence at a time. Meanwhile, I set up camp near the window. I sit on the floor in a child’s pose, propped up on my elbows as I read the letters I’ve spread across a rug beneath the dim, gray glow of a dreary afternoon.
Raindrops patter the roof.
“What are you doing this Friday?” I ask, shifting my weight as my attention moves to a different letter.
Jude lowers his stack.
“There’s a bonfire at the quarry. It’s an annual tradition. A sort of kickoff to October. You should come.”
“Why?”
“Because it’ll be fun. An opportunity to socialize with the local teens. A chance to make some new friends.”
He quirks his eyebrow.
“And I’ll be there.”
“Well, then. If you’ll be there.”
I can’t see his mouth, but I think he might be smiling.
With a flutter in my chest, I smile back.
Then I return to the letters, and come to a quick halt.
“I found something,” I say, sitting up on myknees, holding the correspondence between my hands. It was written from Daniel to Enoch on March 12, 1960.
“Enoch,” I read. “A man namedFrankhas come to Foggy Hollow, claiming to be Reuben’s son, the ruthless cousin we cut out of our lives decades ago. Now I find myself facing the same helpless grief our father must have felt.
“Frank is doing to my son what his father once did to me—leading him astray, poisoning his mind, with the same charm and the same wicked pull. The similarities are uncanny. So much so, I have begun to fear I’m losing my mind. God help me, Enoch, I can’t help but wonder if Frank is a demon. I have enclosed two photographs. You were always the rational one. Look at them and tell me—what do you see? Please write as soon as you can. Daniel.”
I look at Jude.
He looks back at me.
Then together, we return to Enoch’s trunk in search of the photographs. In the midst of looking, we come upon a piece of parchment that escaped our notice last time.
A sketch of the locket.
Jude turns the paper over, as if he might find the artist’s signature on the back. But there is no signature. It’s just a piece of aged parchment with the exact same locket fromEzra’s Obsessiondrawn in graphite.
We keep digging until the trunk is empty.
There are no photographs to be found.
