CHARPER 8:
Days passed, or perhaps weeks. Time lost meaning.
Elias no longer tried doors or windows. He no longer needed food or sleep. The ink sustained him.
He wrote.
The stories were longer now, richer. He guided the pen, but the ink chose the paths. Readers—though there were none yet—would weep and shudder and be unable to look away.
Sarah—Miriam—stayed. She no longer spoke of escape. She sat in the corner of the study, reading old books, sometimes humming lullabies from 1897.
One evening, as sleet rattled the windows, the inkwell trembled.
A new story began without Elias touching the pen.
This is the story of Amelia Thorne, who will inherit this house in 2041.
Amelia is twenty-eight, a failed novelist living in London. Her mother died last year, leaving her a small bequest and a single instruction: go to Blackthorn Moor and claim what is yours.
She will arrive on a cold March morning. She will find the house restored—brick clean, windows shining, fire lit though no one has lived here since the blaze.
She will find a man and a woman waiting for her.
The man will be polite, softly spoken. He will offer tea.
The woman will smile sadly and say, "We've been expecting you."
Elias watched the words appear and felt something like sorrow. The cycle would continue. The ink had learned patience.
He tried once to warn Amelia through the page—to write Do not come. Flee.
The ink erased the words instantly and replaced them with:
She will not believe warnings.
She is lonely.
She wants to write again.
Miriam looked up from her book. "You're fighting it less," she observed.
"I'm tired too," Elias admitted.
The pen moved again, finishing Amelia's introduction.
And in the desk drawer, wrapped in fresh black silk, waits a second inkwell.
The first has nearly served its purpose.
A new one must be ready.
Elias stared at the drawer. He had not placed anything there.
He opened it.
Inside lay an identical octagonal glass inkwell, freshly filled, contents swirling eagerly.
The original on the desk was almost empty.