Victoria's POV
I didn't tell anyone about the chapel. What would I say? That the ghost of our murdered brother showed me where we killed him? That he promised to make us suffer?
They already knew. They just didn't want to admit it.
Breakfast the next morning was a silent affair. Mother didn't eat. She just pushed food around her plate with shaking hands. Father pretended to read the newspaper. Thomas typed on his phone, trying to maintain some illusion of normalcy.
The stranger didn't join us. I didn't know where he was, but I felt him. Like a weight pressing down on the house.
"We need to leave," I said finally.
Father looked up. "Excuse me?"
"We need to get out of this house. Go somewhere he can't follow."
"And look like we're running away? Absolutely not. The Ashbourne family doesn't run."
"The Ashbourne family murders children," I snapped. "I think our reputation can handle a little cowardice."
Thomas slammed his phone down. "Enough, Victoria. You're not helping."
"I'm not trying to help. I'm trying to survive."
Mother stood up suddenly. Her chair fell backward with a crash. "I can't do this anymore."
We all stared at her.
"I can't sit here pretending everything's fine when our son is back from the dead seeking revenge. I can't keep lying. I can't keep hiding."
"Margaret, sit down," Father ordered.
But Mother was already moving. She walked out of the dining room like a woman in a trance. I followed her, ignoring Father's angry calls.
She went to her bedroom. I'd rarely been inside. Mother kept it locked, her private sanctuary. Now she threw open the door and went straight to her closet.
She pulled down boxes from the top shelf. Old boxes, covered in dust. She dumped them on the bed and started going through them frantically.
"Mother, what are you doing?"
"Finding the truth," she muttered. "Finding proof. Finding something."
Papers scattered across the bed. Old letters, photographs, documents. She dug through them like a woman possessed.
Finally, she found what she was looking for. A leather-bound book, small and ancient. The cover was stained with something dark that might have been blood.
"This is it," she whispered. "The book. I lied when I said I burned it. I couldn't. I needed to know if the ritual was real or if I'd just murdered my son for nothing."
She opened it. The pages were yellow with age, covered in handwriting that looked centuries old. Strange symbols filled the margins.
"Here." She pointed to a page near the middle. "The Binding of Souls. That's what I used. It promised wealth and power in exchange for innocent blood. It promised the sacrifice would be quick and painless."
"It wasn't," I said.
Her face crumpled. "I know. I hear him screaming every night. For twenty years, I've heard him. I take pills to sleep but they don't help. Nothing helps. He's always there, burning, calling for me."
She looked at me with wild eyes. "But it worked, Victoria. That's the worst part. The money came. The business thrived. Everything we touched turned to gold. The ritual worked."
"Then why is he back?"
She flipped through more pages. "There must be something here. Some clause, some condition we didn't fulfill."
I heard footsteps in the hallway. Heavy, deliberate footsteps. We both froze.
The stranger appeared in the doorway. He looked at the book in Mother's hands and smiled.
"Ah. The instruction manual for murder. I wondered if you'd kept it."
Mother clutched the book to her chest. "Stay away from me."
"Why? Afraid I'll do to you what you did to me?" He walked into the room. "Don't worry, Mother. Your death won't be quick either. I learned from the best."
"What do you want?" she cried.
"I want you to read the rest of the ritual. The part you skipped because you were in such a hurry to kill your son."
He grabbed the book from her hands. She didn't fight him. Just collapsed on the bed, sobbing.
He flipped to a page near the end. "Here. The consequences. Every ritual has them, but people never read that far. They just see the promises and jump in."
He started reading aloud. His voice was cold, matter-of-fact. "The binding shall hold for twenty turns of the sun. Should the sacrifice be unjust, should the innocent cry out in their death, the entity shall consume all parties to the contract. At the end of twenty years, the debt comes due. All who prospered shall pay."
The room went silent.
"Twenty years," I whispered. "It's been exactly twenty years."
"To the day," the stranger confirmed. "Father's sixtieth birthday. The same date you killed me. The entity waited, let you enjoy your blood money. And now it's come to collect."
Mother looked up at him. "Then you're here to kill us."
"Not me. The entity. I'm just the messenger. The collection agent. The thing you bound to your son is hungry, and it's going to feed."
"There has to be a way to stop it," I said. "Some loophole, some counter-ritual."
He laughed. "You want to ritual your way out of a ritual? That's very Ashbourne of you. Always looking for the easy way, the shortcut, the deal that lets you keep your hands clean."
"Please," Mother begged. "Please, Elias, if any part of my son is in there, please forgive me. I was desperate. I was foolish. I didn't know what else to do."
"Your son forgave you," the stranger said softly. "Even as he burned, he called for you. He thought maybe you'd save him at the last second. That's who Elias was. Gentle. Trusting. Stupid."
He bent down close to her face. "But I'm not Elias anymore. I'm what you made him into. I'm the consequence of your choices. And consequences don't forgive."
He dropped the book on the bed and walked toward the door.
"Wait," I called after him. "If the entity is going to kill us anyway, why the games? Why not just do it?"
He paused in the doorway. "Because Elias wants you to suffer first. His pain is my pain. His rage is my rage. And before you die, you're going to feel every ounce of what he felt. Every betrayal. Every moment of terror. Every second of agony."
"How long do we have?"
He smiled. "Until the entity is satisfied. Could be days. Could be hours. Depends on how much guilt you're carrying. The more you suffer, the stronger it gets. And when it's strong enough, it will take you all at once. Drag you down to whatever hell it crawled out of."
"And you?" I asked. "What happens to you?"
For just a moment, something flickered across his face. Fear? Regret? "I go back down too. Back into the dark. Back into the screaming. But at least I won't be alone this time. I'll have you."
He left us there. Mother curled up on the bed, clutching the book like it might save her. I stood by the window, watching snow fall on the gardens.
Somewhere in the house, Father and Thomas were plotting. Planning some way to fight back, to survive this. But I knew the truth.
We were already dead. We died twenty years ago in that chapel. We just hadn't stopped moving yet.
The only question now was how much we'd suffer before we finally fell down.