Ashes of the Soul Keeper

Chapter 4

The Firestarter’s Legacy.

“Some killers don’t stop when they’re dead.”

Ethan’s boots slammed against the warped wooden steps of the Hale Estate, each heavy footfall like a warning shot. Evelyn barely had time to turn before the front door burst open. Rainwater slicked Ethan’s jacket, darkening it, his jaw set like granite, but it was his eyes, storm-gray and burning, that made her freeze.

"You brought me here to tell me this?" His voice was as harsh as glass when he snapped. 

Evelyn didn’t flinch. She gripped Vivienne’s worn journal in her hands, the pages still open to the scrawled name: Caleb Vance.

“You needed to know,” she said firmly.

“You shouldn’t have been digging into this alone.” His fist slammed against the nearest wall, dust falling from the beams above.

Evelyn pushed the journal toward him. “You didn’t tell me there were missing kids whose bodies were never found.”

Ethan’s shoulders tensed, his jaw tightening as if the weight of the town’s secrets pressed against him. He didn’t look at the journal, his eyes were elsewhere, far away.

“Caleb Vance,” she repeated.

That got him.

Ethan froze, his face draining of color.

“He was... he was one of the kids who went missing in the fire,” Ethan admitted, voice quieter now, strained. “But everyone assumed, his body…..”

“Was never found,” Evelyn finished. “So maybe he didn’t die that night.”

Ethan’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard.

“Someone wanted people to believe he was dead,” Evelyn pressed. “And if Caleb’s still alive…”

“He’s dangerous,” Ethan cut in, his voice low. “And he’s been hiding for a long time.”

A silence stretched between them, thick and heavy.

Ethan’s fingers curled into fists, the scar on his knuckles a pale slash against tanned skin.

“If Caleb Vance is back,” he muttered, “then this town’s in more trouble than it knows.”

Thunder rolled outside, shaking the estate’s fragile walls.

The air in Black Hollow felt heavier than usual as Evelyn walked through its narrow streets, her boots splashing through shallow puddles from the night’s rain. The town had that look, worn brick buildings hunched together like old secrets, every window a pair of eyes watching her.

And they were watching.

She felt their stares from behind half-drawn curtains, faces barely visible in the cracks. Whispers stirred behind closed doors. In Black Hollow, silence was never truly silent, it buzzed with things people didn’t say out loud.

Evelyn ducked into the general store, the bell above the door jingling weakly. The place smelled like dust and something older, time itself, maybe. Shelves sagged under the weight of forgotten brands, canned goods with faded labels.

“City girl’s still here,” a voice murmured from behind the counter.

Evelyn didn’t have to look up to know it was the shop’s owner, Mrs. Davenport, thin as a stick of kindling, eyes sharp as knives.

“Yeah, still here,” Evelyn replied flatly.

Mrs. Davenport used an old apron to clean her hands. "What should have remained buried was stirred up by your grandmother." Her voice broke with a mixture of caution and sympathy. 

“I think someone else stirred them first.”

Mrs. Davenport’s thin lips pressed together. “The dead don’t always stay where they’re put.”

Evelyn didn’t respond. She left the store, the bell chiming behind her, and made her way toward Harper Kensington’s place.

Harper’s house sat at the edge of town, its porch weighed down by stacks of books and old newspapers. The town historian was exactly where Evelyn expected, surrounded by dusty ledgers, tea steaming in front of her.

“You’ve been reading Vivienne’s journals,” Harper noted as Evelyn sat.

“Black Hollow was cursed long before the fire, wasn’t it?”

Harper’s gaze darkened. “Vivienne believed so. And she wasn’t wrong.”

Outside, the wind picked up, carrying the sound of a church bell, one that hadn’t rung in years.

The dream unraveled like smoke, thick and choking. Evelyn stood in the middle of a fire, walls crumbling around her, the heat so intense it blistered her skin. The estate was burning, just like in the old photos. But this time, she wasn’t watching from the outside. She was in it.

The air was alive with screams, high-pitched, desperate, and close. Evelyn spun toward the sound.

A boy.

Small, maybe eight or nine, his face streaked with soot, eyes wide with terror. It was Caleb Vance, his features clearer than they’d ever been in her dreams. His thin arms pumped as he ran, dodging falling beams, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

But he wasn’t running from the fire.

He was running from something else.

In the smoke-drenched distance, a shadowy figure loomed, tall, still, watching. The edges of its form flickered with the heat, but it didn’t move, didn’t speak. Its presence alone made Evelyn’s chest tighten, fear clawing at her throat.

"Caleb!" She attempted to yell, but it was inaudible. 

The boy tripped, landing hard on the charred ground. Evelyn surged forward, but the fire twisted between them, flames clawing upward, cutting her off.

Caleb twisted onto his side, his face streaked with blood and ash. He locked eyes with her, deep, hollow, and full of something that looked too much like guilt.

Then the shadow moved.

It stepped out from the smoke, a dark silhouette, and Evelyn caught a glint of something, metal? A blade?

Caleb scrambled to his feet and ran.

Evelyn woke with a strangled gasp, heart hammering against her ribs.

The scent of smoke still clung to the air.

Her bedroom was freezing. Frost spiderwebbed the corners of the windows, though the heater buzzed weakly in the corner.

She sat up fast.

There, etched into the mirror across the room, four words in thick condensation: “He’s not finished yet.”

The air tasted like ash.

The town archives smelled like mildew and dust, stale secrets sealed behind metal drawers and crumbling ledgers. Evelyn sat across from Ethan at a rusted table, old case files spread between them. Overhead, a single bulb flickered, its light too harsh.

Ethan flipped through a thick folder labeled Black Hollow Fire – 1998. His jaw tightened with every brittle page.

“Most of this is useless,” he muttered. “They redacted half the damn reports.”

Evelyn pulled another file closer, the cover stamped CONFIDENTIAL in fading ink. “But someone didn’t want people digging deeper. That means something.”

Ethan’s fingers hovered over a page before sliding it out. It was thin, fragile, edges burnt as if someone had tried to destroy it.

“Vivienne filed a report a month before the fire,” Ethan murmured. “She claimed the town was sitting on a ‘rot beneath the surface.’ The council called her paranoid.”

“She was right,” Evelyn said, her throat dry.

Ethan rubbed a hand over his face. “No one took her seriously. She was dismissed, just the town’s crazy old mystic.”

Evelyn’s fingers tapped the table in frustration. “This wasn’t an accident. Someone wanted her silenced.”

He hesitated, then admitted, “Vivienne was convinced the fire was coming. She tried to warn people. No one listened.”

“Except maybe Caleb,” Evelyn whispered.

Ethan’s head snapped up.

"Consider it," she went on. "Who was Caleb fleeing from that night if he survived the fire but remained hidden all this time?"

Ethan's muscles tensed as his jaw worked. "He has been waiting for something, if he is still alive." 

“Or someone,” Evelyn added.

The room grew cold.

A soft scratching echoed through the archive, a slow, deliberate scrape against metal.

They froze.

The filing cabinet in the corner rattled, its drawers pulling open one by one.

And in the last drawer, a single photograph lay exposed, Caleb Vance, staring straight into the camera.

Someone had written across it in red ink: “Not all fires burn out.”

The estate was silent, too silent. Evelyn’s footsteps echoed in the vast, hollow halls as she made her way back to the hidden room. Dust swirled in the cold air, catching the pale moonlight that slipped through the cracked windows. Her fingers curled around the flashlight, but the darkness felt heavier tonight, pressing in on her like a second skin.

She found herself once more in front of the tall, fractured mirror. The same one that had whispered to her. That had smiled when she didn’t.

Its jagged cracks now seemed deeper, darker, like veins running through glass. Evelyn hesitated, her reflection broken into shards, her face fractured, distorted. Her own eyes didn’t seem to belong to her anymore. They stared back, hollow and knowing.

The air grew colder. The silence deepened.

And then, her reflection moved.

Not her. Her reflection.

It raised its hand, fingers splayed against the glass. Evelyn’s hands remained at her sides.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The reflection mouthed a single word: RUN.

Before Evelyn could move, the mirror convulsed, spiderweb fractures raced outward from the reflection’s hand. Glass splintered with a deafening crack, shards exploding outwards like sharp, glistening teeth. She shielded her face, feeling the sting as pieces sliced her forearm.

When the dust settled, the mirror was gone.

Shattered.

But what chilled Evelyn wasn’t the broken glass scattered across the floor.

It was what lay behind it.

A hidden door.

Its wooden frame was warped with age, the edges nearly consumed by the surrounding wall, as though the house itself had tried to swallow it whole. Faint symbols were carved into its surface, ones she’d seen in Vivienne’s journal. The same sigils tied to the trapped spirits.

A cold draft seeped from the cracks in the door, carrying with it the faintest scent of smoke… and something sweeter, decay.

Her pulse thundered in her ears as she reached for the handle.

But before she could touch it, a soft knock echoed from the other side.

Once.

Twice.

Then silence.