The attic groaned as Noa climbed the narrow wooden ladder, the boards sighing beneath her weight. The air was thick with the scent of mothballs and cedar and something else—old paper, long buried.
She hadn't been up here since before her father left. Her mother never mentioned it, never cleaned it. It was as though time had sealed the space, waiting for her return.
She scanned the dark corners by flashlight, trailing the beam across canvas-covered furniture and dust-choked boxes. At the far end, beneath a faded quilt, sat a small trunk with rusted hinges.
The clasp snapped open with a metallic sigh.
Inside: yellowed photographs, bundles of letters tied with velvet ribbon, and a worn leather journal with the name "E. Ashwood" pressed faintly into the cover.
Elowen.
She opened it.
The handwriting inside was elegant, but hurried in places. Some pages were missing. Others were stained, edges burned. She flipped to the middle and read aloud in a whisper:
"The seal requires five. Five bloodlines, five hearts willing to carry the weight. We spoke the oath beneath the Ash, and the Hollow quieted… but it watches still."
A drawing followed—a twisted tree with black veins beneath it. And beside it, the same black stone they had found, marked with a circular rune.
Her fingers trembled. The next page was dated 1923. Below it:
"Should the seal weaken, the curse will seek the blood of the oathkeeper's kin. To awaken the Hollow… to finish what was left undone."
Noa slammed the book shut.
Across town, Riven sat in the back room of the Thornwick Historical Society, recording her conversation with Mr. Ellerby, a retired librarian with a thin voice and sharp eyes.
"Does the name Ashwood mean anything to you?" she asked.
He blinked. "Ah… yes. Elowen Ashwood. Town matriarch. People say she vanished in the old woods. Led a circle of women—some say witches, but I think that's just fear talking."
"Was there ever… a group of girls who disappeared?"
Ellerby leaned back, folding his hands. "That legend… they called them the Five who Walked into the Fog. That's what the children used to say. Disappeared near the tree. Never came back."
"Why five?"
He stared at her. "That's always been the number."
Back at Noa's house, she laid the journal out on the floor and called the others.
"This is what we've been feeling. This is what the stone is connected to. My family—my bloodline—was part of the original ritual."
Riven arrived first. "Are you sure?"
She nodded, holding up the photograph Celeste had found. "It's her. And the journal confirms it. Elowen Ashwood… was my great-grandmother."
The others filtered in slowly, eyes wide, faces pale.
"So that makes you the key?" Mavis asked, half-joking, half-afraid.
Noa didn't answer.
Outside, the fog thickened again—curling against the windows like fingers.
Astra pressed her hands to the glass and whispered, "It's moving."
They all turned to look.
The fog didn't just sit now—it crawled. Across the street. Down the sidewalk. Toward them.
And somewhere inside it… something shifted.