Chapter 12 - The Voices in the Deep
Clara froze, her hand still gripping the heavy iron key as the golden light spilled out of the dark cellar stairwell. The voices calling from below were unmistakably human—ragged, desperate, and crying out for release.
Julian scrambled to his feet, lunging forward with a desperate snarl. "No! Don't open it! They aren't real! It’s a trick of the house!"
Clara sidestepped him with practiced ease, her eyes fixed on the steep concrete stairs leading down into the subterranean darkness. "If they aren't real, Julian, why are you so terrified of letting them out?"
She took her first step down into the cellar, the air growing instantly colder, smelling of damp earth, old paper, and sweet-smelling wax candles. The walls were lined with towering wooden shelves stacked high with leather-bound ledgers, rusted tools, and dozens of glass jars filled with amber-colored liquid. But it was at the far end of the underground chamber, behind a rusted iron gate, that Clara saw the horrifying truth.
Sitting on a simple cot in a barred holding cell was a woman wrapped in a tattered woolen blanket—alive, pale, and staring up at her with hollow, sunken eyes.
"Beatrice?" Clara gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as she gripped the wooden handrail for support.
The woman in the cell blinked against the sudden light, her lips trembling as she rasped out a broken, disbelieving whisper. "Are you... are you the new one? Did he bring another bride to the slaughterhouse?"
Before Clara could answer, Julian appeared at the top of the stairs, holding a heavy iron fireplace poker in his hand. His face was twisted into a mask of pure, feral rage, his eyes locked not on Clara, but on the woman behind the bars.
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"You stubborn bitch," Julian snarled, raising the heavy iron poker high above his head as he charged down the steps toward Clara. "I told you to leave the past alone!"
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