He didn't want to do it.
The boy stood barefoot in the church basement, eyes wide behind his white mask. Thirteen, maybe fourteen. His robe sagged on his thin shoulders, the sleeves too long. His breathing was shallow, uneven.
Across the room, a woman knelt. Bound. Gagged. Crying.
Claire stood behind him, hands on his shoulders, gentle. Her voice was a mother's lullaby.
"She's not a person anymore," she whispered. "She's weight. Guilt. You carry her every day, don't you?"
The boy nodded, trembling.
"Let her go, sweetheart."
He raised the knife. It quivered in his hand like it weighed a hundred pounds.
Claire leaned closer, her breath warm in his ear. "Do it, and you'll never dream about her again. Do it, and you become clean."
The knife fell.
The crying stopped.
The boy dropped to his knees, shaking violently. Claire cradled him, humming softly.
Around them, the masked figures chanted in low harmony:
"One weight lifted.
One soul free.
The red is poured,
The root will feed."
But one of them did not join the chant.
Behind the mask, in the circle of loyal believers, someone watched Claire with doubt in their eyes.
Mara wasn't sure what she expected when she followed Rowan that night. Maybe a coffee stop. Maybe an old friend to leak him something off the books. Instead, he drove twenty minutes outside of Durnville to a condemned property marked NO TRESPASSING and parked like he owned the place.
She cut her lights and followed on foot. Rain made her shoes slick. Her coat soaked through.
He ducked under rusted wire and through a gap in a collapsed barn wall.
She waited two minutes. Then slipped inside.
Inside, the barn smelled of rotted hay and ash. Rowan stood in the center, staring down at something. A scorched patch of earth, long dead. Half-buried beneath the soot: a circle of broken teeth.
Mara gasped.
Rowan spun, startled. "You following me now?"
She stepped out from the shadows. "What is this?"
He hesitated.
"It's the old Holloway property," he said finally. "The one Claire grew up on. Burned down in the late '90s. No one talks about it."
"And what are those?" Mara pointed to the teeth.
"Remains. From a fire in '98. Multiple kids reported missing. One body ever found. Burned so badly it was ID'd through dental fragments."
Mara knelt, reaching for one.
"Don't touch anything," Rowan snapped. "This place… isn't clean."
She looked up at him.
"You think this is where it all started."
He said nothing.
Mara whispered, "What was Claire doing out here?"
Rowan's eyes met hers. His voice was low.
"She's the only child of a woman who disappeared during a ritualistic murder investigation. Her mother was the prime suspect. Case buried. Father vanished. Claire ended up in foster care. Case files shredded ten years later under a corruption sweep."
Mara's breath hitched. "Jesus."
Rowan nodded grimly.
"I don't know what Claire is, but she isn't just a grieving mother. Something happened to her out here. And whatever it was…" He looked down at the blackened ground. "It never left."
That night, back at the Holloway house, Claire stood in her kitchen preparing tea for two.
The knock came at exactly midnight.
She opened the door. A masked woman stood on the porch, her robe drenched in rain.
Claire smiled. "You're early."
The woman stepped inside, dripping on the rug.
She lowered her hood, removed her mask. Early thirties. Pale. Eyes full of doubt.
"I want out," the woman whispered. "The boy… he was too young."
Claire sighed, took her by the hands.
"I understand," she said warmly.
Then she tilted her head.
And the warmth drained from her face.
"Unfortunately, the weight stays with you… until someone else carries it."