Chapter 14 - Beneath the ChapelThe chapel was empty.
Yet the bells continued ringing.
One.
Two.
Three.
My mother found a loose stone beneath the altar.
Under it was a staircase.
We descended.
At the bottom stood a stone chamber.
In the center was a coffin.
My name was carved into the lid.
I couldn't move.
My husband stepped forward.
“No.”
His father followed us.
“This is where the debt ends.”
Lena lifted the knife.
“You won't touch her.”
His father laughed.
“You still don't understand.”
He opened the coffin.
Inside was a mirror.
Nothing else.
I stared into it.
My reflection wasn't alone.
A little girl stood behind me.
Lena.
Six years old.
She reached toward the glass.
I touched it.
The room disappeared.
Suddenly I was standing in my childhood bedroom.
My mother was crying.
My father was arguing with someone.
And little Lena was holding my hand.
“Don't let them take me,” she whispered.
Then the memory changed.
I saw my father carry Lena into the hidden room.
But he wasn't alone.
My husband's mother stood beside him.
She handed him the red book.
I screamed.
The scene changed again.
My mother signed something.
Then my father did.
But there was one person who refused.
My father-in-law.
He stood in the doorway.
“I won't allow another child to die.”
His wife slapped him.
“You will obey.”
The memory vanished.
I returned to the chamber.
My father-in-law was staring at me.
“You saw it.”
I nodded.
“You tried to stop them.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you sleep between us?”
His face crumbled.
“Because I was trying to keep the thing beneath this chapel from reaching you.”
My husband stepped forward.
“What thing?”
The floor cracked.
A black hand emerged from beneath the stone.
Everyone screamed.
My father-in-law whispered:
“The thing that your family promised.”
The hand reached toward me.
May you like
And someone behind us shouted:
“RUN!”
