Ashes Of Her Name

Shadows Beneath The Lake

The millhouse was colder than Clara remembered.

The night pressed in through cracked boards, the air thick with the scent of rotting timber and damp earth. It wrapped around them like a second skin, clinging to their clothes and chilling their bones. Somewhere, an owl hooted—a long, mournful sound that seemed to mourn the death of innocence.

Clara couldn’t sleep. The events of the night played in a ceaseless loop behind her closed eyes. Her father’s face. The gunshot. The message. The men with shadowed faces. Everything she had once believed in, every memory of a safe, steady life, felt like glass shattered at her feet.

Damien was awake too.

He sat by the broken window, his silhouette sharp against the pale glow of the moon. His eyes scanned the woods, his hand resting on the knife at his side — a constant, silent guard.

“I keep thinking this is some kind of nightmare,” Clara whispered.

Damien didn’t turn, but his voice came back steady, low. “It is. The kind you don’t wake up from until you drag it into the light.”

Clara pulled the moth-eaten blanket tighter around herself. “I want to know everything. No more half-truths, no more protecting me. If you know something… Damien, please.”

He let out a long breath and turned, his face half in shadow. “It started years ago before you were even born. Your mother wasn’t the woman your father told you she was. She was fearless, curious — dangerous, to men like him. She found things, uncovered secrets that should’ve stayed buried.”

Clara’s throat tightened. “What kind of secrets?”

“Deals made in the dark. Your father wasn’t just a businessman. He and Luther Creed ran this town like a personal kingdom. Money laundering, land scams, people disappearing. Your mother found out. She threatened to expose them.”

Clara’s breath hitched. “And then she vanished.”

“Not vanished.” Damien’s voice was raw, like an old wound reopening. “Killed. It made it look like she had left. That’s what they do here, Clara. They erase people.”

Tears blurred her vision. It felt like being underwater, struggling for air.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she asked.

“I tried. After she died, I promised her I’d keep you safe. But your father… he controlled everything. The police. The media. I had to wait for the right time.”

A bitter laugh escaped Clara’s lips. “There’s never a right time for something like this.”

Outside, a branch snapped.

Both of them stiffened.

Damien was on his feet in an instant, signaling for silence. He peered through a crack in the wall. Shadows moved between the trees.

“Get down,” he hissed.

Clara flattened herself against the floor, heart hammering. Footsteps crunched closer. At least two people, maybe more.

“Find them,” a voice growled.

Clara’s blood turned to ice. It was one of the men from the chapel.

Damien motioned toward the back door. Quietly, they crept through the dark, Damien leading, Clara right behind, careful not to step on the broken floorboards that might give them away.

The back door was stuck, swollen with age, but Damien forced it open just enough for them to slip out. They ran, crouching low, hearts pounding in unison.

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The night seemed endless, the woods a twisting maze of branches and fog. They ran until they reached Hollow Lake, the water dark and still under the moonlight.

“This way,” Damien urged, leading her toward an old boathouse half-submerged by the rising water.

Inside, it smelled of mildew and forgotten years. Cobwebs clung to the ceiling. A battered rowboat lay upside down in the corner.

They ducked inside, closing the warped door behind them.

Clara’s chest heaved. “How do they keep finding us?”

“Your phone,” Damien said grimly. “They’re tracking it.”

Clara dug it from her pocket, staring at the black screen. It had felt like a lifeline. Now it was a leash.

Without hesitation, Damien took it and hurled it into the lake. It sank with a soft plunk, lost to the dark water.

For a moment, there was only the sound of their breathing.

“I need to know something,” Clara said, her voice hoarse. “Did you… did you love my mother?”

Damien looked away. “I did. More than anything.”

Clara’s heart ached. “Was she… was she going to leave my father for you?”

He nodded once. “We were going to run. She wanted to take you with us. Start over somewhere safe. But… they found out before we could.”

A tear slipped down Clara’s cheek. “And you stayed? You lived in this place all these years, watching them?”

“I couldn’t leave. Not without knowing what happened to her body. Not without seeing the men who did this pay.”

A heavy silence settled between them.

Suddenly, Damien’s eyes lit with something fierce. “There’s one place they won’t look. Your mother’s old safe house. She kept records, photographs, and evidence. I helped her build it before… before everything fell apart.”

Clara wiped her eyes. “Where is it?”

“About two miles north, buried beneath the old Marrow Ridge cemetery.”

A shiver crawled up her spine. “A cemetery?”

“It was the safest place. No one goes there. And it’s where she left what she found.”

Clara steeled herself. “Then that’s where we’re going.”

They waited until the woods fell silent again, then slipped out, heading north. The path was treacherous, overgrown with brambles and gnarled roots. Owls watched them pass, eyes like coins in the dark.

An hour later, they stood before the cemetery gates. Rusted iron, twisted with vines. A weathered sign read: Marrow Ridge, Est. 1862.

Inside, headstones leaned at drunken angles, some so old the names were worn away. The earth smelled of wet leaves and old sorrow.

Damien led her to a cracked marble angel, its face weathered beyond recognition.

“Here,” he said, kneeling. “Help me.”

They dug with their hands, dirt cold and wet until Clara’s fingers scraped wood. Damien cleared the soil away, revealing an old iron lockbox.

Clara’s pulse quickened. Damien pried it open.

Inside were yellowed photographs, brittle documents, and cassette tapes labeled in her mother’s neat, looping script.

Clara lifted one photo — her mother, standing defiantly beside a car, holding Clara as a baby. Tears blurred her vision.

“These… these are enough, right? To prove what they did?”

Damien nodded, his voice thick. “More than enough. This will burn them to the ground.”

Clara closed the box, holding it to her chest. At that moment, she wasn’t just the frightened girl anymore. She was her mother’s daughter.

“Let’s finish this,” she whispered.

Above them, the wind stirred the trees, as if the town itself had heard.

And Hollow Creek would soon tremble under the weight of its buried sins.