Moonlit Promises

 Days passed in Hawthorne with a rhythm of slow, uneasy beat. She spent days with her mother, opened boxes from the attic, and searched for her footing again. The more steps she took, however, the more vivid the feeling that this town watched her, shadows clinging to her thoughts whispering stories just out of reach.

Her conversation with Rebecca and her mother's cryptic warnings chased her in her head. There were so many half-answers and too many insinuations. Scarlett felt like a traveler with a broken story, one not even clear about the beginning or the ending. And the more she pulled on the strings of her return, they unraveled.

 She left that place during the middle-morning, of the afternoon and went up to the attic. Once again, that dim room felt so intimate, so and also as remote as years, far in the past. Walking through the wooden stairs covered under her weight groans under a faint scratching seen by the cold, still, dusty air of upper height. There was an odor of rotting wood, there, and long uselessness which roused faint pain in her.

The attic, to Scarlett, had always held a sort of magic as a child. It was a treasure trove of forgotten toys, old photographs, and secrets. She remembered the stories she'd been told about the attic: a special place where memories go to rest, remnants of the long history of the Whitmore family. It felt like now it may hold answers that she cannot ignore.

She'd thrown one flick on the overhead bulb by this small window, and there, it cast but poor glow over old boxes, old chests. The whole thing is intact a forgotten shrine to the history of her family.

Scarlett began to dig through boxes, dust, and rot making her wary of the things she touched; her hands shaking a bit as she reached out to grab at things from her past. There were boxes stacked haphazardly with some containing photo albums, which, having survived so many years, should have looked sturdy and rigid, but their covers came out soft and crinkly like wet leaves from the boxes.

The photo album was full of pictures of her family: Christmas mornings, birthdays, vacations by the lake, and her father standing beside her mother with an easy smile. Scarlett paused on a photo of her father holding her as a toddler, the lines of his face gentle and warm. His eyes were the same as hers, deep brown with flecks of gold, and it sent a sharp ache through her.

Where was he? What had rent asunder the family fabric?

She placed the photograph on the counter and dug. Amongst the tattered remnants of wrapping paper and clippings of newspaper lay something that made her cease to breathe.

It was a letter.

The yellowed paper was frayed around the edges. The writing was neat and purposeful; there was no doubt whatsoever-it was her father's.

Scarlett's fingers trembled as she reached for the letter, her throat dry. She opened it with tender care, as though words 

Dear Clara, Hawthorne has always b.een home, but sometimes home can become a prison, especially when the weight of promises and secrets becomes too heavy to bear.

I tried to put all this at ease with all my decisions, with hours I lost away from here. Some things must be let to stay buried, Clara. Some truths are simply too much to bear in the head. I want so much to try to explain all of this to Scarlett, but that also goes fast, too. I think I fear that she will find all of those other things, and that is far worse.

Forgive me and know I love you both.

Yours,

James Whitmore

 Scarlett sat there reading the letter, her hand shaking.

James Whitmore. Her father.

The words froze her. Vows, confidences, and darkness. What was he saying? What lay in silence?

It was a key, one that would unlock the answers to everything, but it was incomplete. Scarlett knew this was more than a letter, more than a single memory. The letter hinted at something deeper, something tied to promises broken, to years of estrangement, to the shadows of Hawthorne itself.

Her head spun. Images of Eliot, of Rebecca, of her mama's ominous predictions, and rumors of secrets kept hidden behind the fog rolled over and over in her head. What had Daddy known? What had Daddy done?

Scarlett clenched her fists on the paper.

It was impossible to glue this one together alone. There had to be other puzzle pieces.

And she was going to find them.

She would confront the whispers and find the missing threads of her father's story. She would no longer run from the shadows.

The path had only become clearer.

It was time to dig out the truth.