Chapter 2 - The Phantom in the Woods
The sentence hung in the air, thick with unspoken violence. Julian reached out, his thick fingers wrapping around the metal frame. Clara refused to let go, her nails digging into the silver backing until the metal bit into her skin.
"Let go of it," Julian hissed, his breath warm and smelling of dark coffee and stale tobacco. "You have no right to touch her image. Who sent you here? Was it the creditors? The board?"
"No one sent me!" Clara cried out, hot tears finally spilling over her lashes and running down her dust-smudged cheeks. She pulled with all her weight, snatching the photograph back toward her heart. "Look at her face! Look at the chain around her neck! She wears that same medallion every single day. She speaks in whispers because she’s terrified of being found. She’s terrified of you!"
Julian froze. His eyes drifted down from Clara’s tear-streaked face to the collar of her black maid dress. Without asking, he reached out and tore open the top two buttons.
Clara gasped, pulling back, but not before the silver double-headed snake swung out into the open air, catching the light from the fireplace.
Julian’s face drained of color. The rage that had inflated his chest moments ago collapsed, leaving behind a hollow, haunted shadow. He reached out with a trembling hand, his fingers barely hovering an inch away from the metal ornament, as if touching it would burn him.
"Elena..." he whispered, his voice stripped of its commanding authority. "She... she kept it?"
"Her name is Margaret," Clara snapped, tucking the medallion back inside her dress and buttoning her collar with frantic, shaking fingers. "She has lived in the timber cottage by Blackwood Creek for twenty-two years. She raised me alone. She told me my father was dead."
Julian turned away from her, walking slowly toward the rain-slicked window. He pressed his forehead against the cold glass, his heavy shoulders rising and falling in shallow, jagged breaths.
"She lied to you," Julian muttered to the glass. "Or rather... she erased me to protect you."
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"Protect me from what?" Clara demanded, stepping forward, the silver frame still clutched in her hands. "From a wealthy man who keeps his missing wife’s photo hidden behind a clock?"
Julian turned his head slightly, looking at her through the side of his vision. "You think I drove her away? Look at the dates, girl. Check the parish records. The night Elena disappeared was the night my older brother died in this very room."
