The Quiet Ones by Brandon Massey

Author:Brandon Massey [Massey, Brandon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dark Corner Publishing
Published: 2020-08-14T23:00:00+00:00

32

Warding away the darkness with her flashlight, Tabitha led Mallory along a new paved pathway, away from the stable, and wouldn’t tell her where they were going, despite Mallory asking multiple times. Her niece was almost certainly giving her attitude because she’d found her snooping. Mallory could live with that, had made peace years ago with how pressing for secrets tended to make the secret-keepers angry. She wasn’t there to make friends. She was there to get to the truth of what had happened to Liz.

“Here we are.” Tabitha panned the light ahead. “The family burial grounds.”

Mallory swallowed. It was a small plot of land tucked within a grove of elms, the entrance a wrought-iron archway threaded with kudzu. She usually wasn’t given to superstition, but something about visiting a graveyard in the dead of night pushed a button of primeval dread.

Mallory swung around her miniature flashlight. Mist skirted the edges of the cemetery. She didn’t see a crypt, prominent headstones, or vases holding flowers. Had they buried Liz in an unmarked grave, like a pauper?

“Where?” Mallory asked. She hadn’t intended to whisper, but her voice came out in a hushed tone, as if she subconsciously feared she would rouse the dead.

“Over there.” Tabitha directed the beam in a section near the middle of the property. “Go on and look if you want, see for yourself.”

Mallory shuffled forward, grass crunching under her shoes. A small, plain granite headstone filmed with dust marked the site:

Here lies Swan. Mother. Sister. Artist.

Rest in peace eternal.

Numb, Mallory stared at the inscription. “There aren’t any dates.”

“What are you talking about now, Aunt Mallory?” Tabitha came behind her.

“The date of birth, the date of death. It’s standard practice to include that information on grave markers. But there’s nothing here to say when she lived and died.”

“We don’t follow the ways of the world. I would assume you’ve realized that by now. Father doesn’t believe in such artificial limitations. Those who lie here live forever in our hearts.”

“Bullshit.” Mallory pressed the toe of her sneaker against the top of the marker. “This looks fake.”

“I have work to do, Aunt Mallory,” Tabitha said. “I can’t indulge this stubbornness of yours any longer. Find your own way back to your room—no more detours. We’ll speak again in the morning.”

Muttering, Tabitha whirled away. Mallory considered trailing her, axed the idea as pointless. Tabitha would be expecting her to follow and would either cover her tracks, or lead Mallory down a trail to nowhere.

She didn’t have a wristwatch, but it had to be close to one o’clock in the morning. She was tired and might as well go to bed and try to dig in deeper tomorrow. Perhaps she could steal another few minutes with Rachel, somehow, and learn more about the stable.

She found her way back to the courtyard without trouble. As she crossed the grounds, nearing the house, she had the distinct sense that someone watched her. Pausing, she studied the back of the house.

A slender silhouette stood at a second-floor window, the figure framed by curtains and backlit by a golden glow.

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