---
The air in Greenhollow had grown colder.
Emma stood on her mother's front porch with the audio tapes clutched tight in one hand and Elena's folder pressed to her chest. Morning sun had just begun to filter through the fog that clung low to the ground like a silent threat. Across the street, curtains twitched closed as if the town itself still preferred to look away from truth.
Inside, the house smelled faintly of cinnamon and dust. Her mother sat in the kitchen, thumbing through a battered recipe book, trying to pretend everything was normal.
"I found something," Emma said, stepping inside.
Her mother looked up, startled. "What do you mean?"
"Elena was in the orphanage. Officially. There are records. Interviews. Audio tapes."
Silence stretched between them like thread on the verge of snapping.
"Emma…" Her mother's voice was quiet. "I didn't know."
"Didn't you?" Emma dropped the folder onto the table. "She was registered there. Someone signed off as her guardian. Not you."
Her mother's eyes welled with tears. "They told me she was being evaluated… just for the weekend. Someone from the town council came. I trusted them."
Emma's fingers curled into fists. "Who? Who came?"
"I don't remember his name. But he worked for the town. Said it was routine for gifted children—part of some old initiative."
"Gifted?" Emma echoed.
Her mother nodded slowly. "She had dreams. She used to talk in her sleep. Sometimes she… she knew things before they happened. I thought it was a phase. But they said it was part of a 'sensitivity.' A connection to something… ancient."
Emma's heartbeat quickened. The Guardian. The Rite of Echoes. It wasn't just superstition.
"They lied to you," she said. "And they used Elena."
Her mother's hands trembled. "I'm sorry, Emma. I thought I was protecting her."
Emma didn't reply. She took the tapes, the folder, and left the house without another word.
---
#### The Keeper of Records
Emma found herself in the town library, back where everything once felt safe. But now, even the smell of old books and varnished wood seemed laced with suspicion. She approached the front desk where an elderly librarian, Mr. Darnell, sat meticulously cataloging returns.
"I need access to the archives," she said.
He looked up. "Archives are closed to the public."
"I'm researching my sister. Elena Carter. She went missing ten years ago."
The librarian's eyes shifted. "I remember."
"I think she was involved in something… something the town covered up."
A pause. Then he stood and motioned her to follow.
"Not here," he whispered. "We'll talk in the back."
She followed him through a restricted door into the basement where dusty shelves groaned under forgotten volumes and microfilm.
"I've worked here forty years," he said, unlocking a filing cabinet. "The truth's not in the newspapers—it's in what never got printed."
He pulled out a folder labeled: **"Council Hearings – 2005."**
Inside were minutes from meetings held behind closed doors—names, budgets, coded language. Phrases like "candidate selection," "empathic resonance," and "containment protocols."
"What is this?" Emma asked.
Mr. Darnell tapped the file. "It wasn't just Elena. There were others—children marked as 'sensitive.' Chosen for something old. Something the town calls The Rite."
Emma leafed through the pages. Ten children were listed over twenty years. Elena was the last.
"What happened to the others?"
Mr. Darnell looked at her, his eyes grave. "None of them stayed in Greenhollow. Some disappeared. Others were… erased."
Emma's stomach turned. "And the council?"
"They disbanded after 2005. But not all of them left. One still lives on the edge of town—Miriam Kell. She was in charge of placements."
Emma took a deep breath. "I need to speak to her."
"Be careful," he said. "Some truths are protected by more than silence."
---
#### The Council's Remnant
Miriam Kell lived in an old farmhouse surrounded by dying trees and the scent of stagnant water. Emma walked the gravel path leading to her porch with a mix of fear and fury in her chest.
The door creaked open before she knocked.
"I wondered when you'd come," Miriam said. She was in her eighties, thin and sharp-eyed, with a voice like rusted hinges.
"You knew Elena," Emma said.
Miriam nodded. "She was the last. The one who heard it clearest."
Emma stepped inside. The house smelled of herbs and old paper. A fire burned low in the hearth. Miriam motioned her to sit.
"The Rite wasn't a myth," Miriam said. "It was a binding. A pact made generations ago to protect Greenhollow."
"From what?"
"From memory." Miriam's eyes were distant. "This place—it absorbs tragedy. Grief. Pain. Without the Rite, the town unravels."
Emma's heart pounded. "You sacrificed children."
"No," Miriam said sharply. "We preserved them. Their memories held the darkness. Their minds… were vessels."
Emma stood, disgusted. "And when they broke? When they vanished?"
"We honored their service. Elena was special. She resisted. She remembered more than she should have."
"She died because of you," Emma spat.
"No," Miriam whispered. "She died trying to warn you."
Emma froze.
"What?"
"She left you something. A map. A way to finish what she started. It's buried—beneath the chapel ruins. But be warned. If you follow it… the Guardian will awaken."
Emma's hands shook. "I don't care. I'm not stopping."
Miriam's face was unreadable. "Then may God have mercy on your memory."
---
#### A New Alliance
That evening, Emma met Logan at the diner, her face pale and her eyes blazing.
"I found someone—Miriam Kell. She was part of the council."
"What did she say?" Logan asked.
Emma placed a hand on his. "There's a map. Buried under the old chapel."
Logan stiffened. "Emma, we barely made it out of the orphanage. We're not ready for another—"
"She left it for me, Logan. Elena. She tried to save me. I'm not going to walk away now."
Logan sighed, then nodded. "Then we go together."
Emma smiled faintly. "Thank you."
They left the diner and stepped into the cold, fog-drenched night. Somewhere deep beneath the town, something stirred. The wind carried faint whispers through the alleyways, brushing against Emma's neck like breath.
As they walked, a shadow moved in the distance—tall, thin, watching.
The Guardian was waking.
And the path to truth had only just begun.
---