From the Journal of Atticus Holden
"The dead are often inconvenient witnesses. They cannot clarify their statements. They cannot correct the record. And they are remarkably difficult to interview. This has never stopped a determined detective. It certainly did not stop me."
The archive lamps went out.
Atticus raised his wand.
"Veyra."
Nothing happened.
He frowned.
Tulbe's voice emerged from the darkness.
"Was something supposed to happen?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Atticus turned toward the sound.
"Why is that good?"
"I was concerned I had suddenly become blind."
Lyra sighed somewhere to his left.
"Everyone remain still."
A small flame appeared.
Blue-white light crawled along the edge of her sword.
The archive emerged from the darkness.
Empty shelves.
Dust.
Four investigators.
No child.
Tulbe looked toward Atticus.
"Your wand is broken."
"Damaged."
"You pointed it at murderous ash twice."
"Three times."
Tulbe stared.
"That was not a correction you should be proud of."
Atticus examined the wand.
The silver binding had split nearly halfway along the handle.
The rowan wood beneath remained intact.
He returned it beneath his coat.
Tulbe's eyes followed.
"I can repair it."
"No."
"I haven't explained how."
"That contributed to my answer."
Lyra extinguished her blade.
"The child is gone."
Atticus looked toward the far shelves.
"No."
Dewey frowned.
"You saw it leave?"
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
Atticus crouched.
Dust covered the archive floor.
Their footprints disturbed it.
Four sets.
His.
Lyra's.
Tulbe's.
Dewey's.
Nothing else.
"The child was never here."
Tulbe blinked.
"I saw it."
"So did I."
Lyra understood first.
"A memory."
Atticus nodded.
"The Threshold showed us something."
Dewey looked troubled.
"Why?"
Atticus returned to the thirteen files.
"Because we've been asking the wrong question."
He placed them across a reading table.
"The Third isn't here."
Tulbe joined him.
"The child said we haven't met them."
"Yes."
"Children are notoriously unreliable."
Lyra looked at him.
"Do you know many children?"
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
"I was one."
Atticus ignored them.
He arranged the files chronologically.
Thirteen witnesses.
Thirteen reports of the same impossible lullaby.
"Elias investigated every one of them."
Dewey nodded.
"For nearly two years."
"What happened to the witnesses?"
"Most continued their lives."
"Most?"
Dewey's expression answered before he spoke.
"Three died."
Atticus pulled the relevant files.
Orin Bell.
Dwarf.
Fifty-eight.
Died eleven years ago.
Mining accident.
Jessa Mire.
Human.
Forty-one.
Died nine years ago.
Winter fever.
The third file—
Atticus stopped.
Elara Wren.
Human.
Twenty-seven at the time of the incident.
Atticus read the final note.
DECEASED.
SIXTEEN YEARS AGO.
He frowned.
"That's impossible."
Tulbe leaned over the table.
"I say that frequently, but context would help."
"The incidents began thirteen years before my father disappeared."
"Yes."
"Elara Wren reported hearing the lullaby during those incidents."
"Yes."
Atticus turned the file toward him.
"She died three years before they began."
Silence.
Tulbe read the date again.
"Oh."
Lyra stepped closer.
"Clerical error?"
Atticus shook his head.
"Elias checked it."
His father's handwriting filled the margin.
DEATH CERTIFICATE VERIFIED.
BURIAL VERIFIED.
THREE WITNESSES TO FUNERAL.
Then one final note.
Underlined twice.
INTERVIEWED HER MYSELF.
Dewey sat down.
Atticus looked at him.
"You knew."
"No."
For once, Dewey's surprise was unmistakable.
"Elias never showed me this."
Atticus felt a strange satisfaction.
Not because Dewey had been excluded.
Because there was finally a secret he could not explain.
Tulbe studied Elara's report.
"If she died sixteen years ago—"
"She'd be approximately fifty-six now," Atticus said.
Lyra picked up the file.
"Assuming she aged after death."
Tulbe frowned.
"That's a sentence I dislike scientifically."
Atticus closed the remaining files.
"We find Elara Wren."
Dewey looked at him.
"She is dead."
Atticus took the file from Lyra.
"So was my father."
No one argued.
Mrs. Bellweather knew the name.
Of course she did.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Elara Wren," she repeated.
She sat behind the reception desk with a fresh cup of tea.
"Seamstress."
Atticus stopped.
"You remember her?"
"My dear boy, I remember everyone who argued with your father in the Grand Hall."
Tulbe smiled.
"I like her."
Mrs. Bellweather looked at him.
"You set my curtains on fire last month."
"Unrelated."
"Entirely related."
Atticus placed Elara's old sketch on the desk.
"Did she come here?"
"Once."
"When?"
Mrs. Bellweather thought.
"Twenty-six years ago."
Atticus calculated.
During Elias's investigation.
"What did they argue about?"
"I wouldn't call it an argument."
"What would you call it?"
"Your father asked questions."
She sipped her tea.
"Elara threw a shoe."
Lyra looked at Atticus.
"Effective witness technique?"
"Apparently not."
Mrs. Bellweather studied the sketch.
"She was frightened."
Atticus's humor faded.
"Of Elias?"
"No."
"Then what?"
Mrs. Bellweather lowered her cup.
"She kept looking at the clocks."
Atticus went still.
"What did she say?"
"I don't remember everything."
"Anything."
The old woman closed her eyes.
For several seconds, Atticus waited.
Then—
"She asked whether we could hear them."
"The clocks?"
"No."
Mrs. Bellweather opened her eyes.
"The people inside them."
Tulbe stopped smiling.
Atticus felt the old files become heavier beneath his arm.
"Where did Elara live?"
"Bell Street."
"Number?"
"Seventeen."
Dewey frowned.
"That building was demolished years ago."
Mrs. Bellweather nodded.
"Yes."
"Then why do you remember the address?"
She looked toward Atticus.
"Because someone asked me about it yesterday."
Silence.
"Who?" Atticus asked.
"A woman."
"What did she look like?"
Mrs. Bellweather looked again at the sketch.
Her face slowly lost its color.
"No."
Atticus placed both hands on the desk.
"Mrs. Bellweather."
She looked at him.
"The woman who asked about Bell Street..."
Her finger touched Elara Wren's portrait.
"...looked exactly like her."
Bell Street had changed.
The narrow homes from Elias's notes were gone.
In their place stood bakeries, boarding houses, and a row of small shops beneath newly built apartments.
Number Seventeen no longer existed.
Atticus stood in the rain.
Lyra beside him.
Tulbe sheltered beneath a hat far too large for his head.
"Now what?" Tulbe asked.
Atticus looked across the street.
A bellmaker's shop.
Old.
Older than the surrounding buildings.
Its sign creaked in the wind.
WREN & DAUGHTER
Atticus crossed the street.
The door opened before he reached it.
A woman stood inside.
Dark hair streaked with silver.
Gray eyes.
Approximately fifty-six years old.
Atticus stopped.
The woman looked at him.
Then at his father's satchel.
Her expression broke.
"Elias?"
Atticus could not answer immediately.
"No."
The woman stepped closer.
Her eyes searched his face.
Understanding arrived.
"Oh."
She covered her mouth.
"You're his boy."
Atticus removed the old sketch.
"Elara Wren?"
The woman stared at it.
Then smiled sadly.
"I haven't seen that face in years."
Tulbe looked confused.
Lyra's hand moved toward her sword.
Atticus asked the only question that mattered.
"Are you Elara Wren?"
The woman looked at him.
"No."
Atticus waited.
Rain tapped softly against the shop windows.
"My name is Cora Wren."
She opened the door wider.
"Elara was my mother."
Atticus frowned.
"Your mother died sixteen years before the song incidents."
"Yes."
"Then how did my father interview her?"
Cora's face became pale.
"He didn't."
Atticus showed her Elias's note.
INTERVIEWED HER MYSELF.
Cora read it.
Her hands began to shake.
"No."
"What?"
She looked toward the back of the shop.
Dozens of bells hung in darkness.
"My mother never met Elias Holden."
One bell moved.
No wind.
No hand.
It rang once.
Cora whispered:
"But I did."
Atticus stared at her.
"How old were you?"
"Thirteen."
The number returned.
Again.
Cora looked at the old sketch.
Then at Atticus.
"Your father called me Elara."
The bells began ringing.
One after another.
Cora stepped backward.
And from somewhere inside the darkened shop—
a child began to sing.
Journal Addendum
"Names are useful things. They allow detectives to organize witnesses, victims, and suspects. But a name is not a person. I learned this from a dead woman I never met. And from her daughter... who my father had mistaken for the dead."