Chapter 3 - The Blood-Stained Pages
The cold wind swept over the open box, lifting the corner of the top photograph. Elena’s breath hitched in her throat. The picture showed a young woman with long dark brown hair—the exact same shade as Elena’s—standing right here in this very forest, smiling brightly. She was wearing a white fur wrap identical to the one Elena had draped over her own shoulders just an hour ago.
"No," Elena whispered, her hands hovering inches above the contents of the box. She looked up at Julian, whose face had gone completely gray. "Who is she, Julian? Why does she look like me?"
Julian didn't answer. He dropped his head into his hands, his shoulders shaking as the fragile facade he had maintained for years finally shattered into pieces.
Margaret stepped closer, peering down into the box with tear-filled eyes. "Her name was Claire Miller," the older woman said softly, her voice heavy with decades of unpunished guilt. "She was Julian’s fiancée. Five years ago, she stood right where you are standing now, wearing that exact same ring."
Elena felt the ground drop out from beneath her. She looked from Margaret back to Julian. "Fiancée? But you told me I was your first love. You told me you had never been engaged before."
"I had to," Julian muttered through his hands, his voice muffled and desperate. "If I told you the truth, you never would have looked at me. You never would have loved me."
"Loved you?" Elena stood up slowly, the wedding ring still clutched tightly in her fist like a weapon. "You lied to me from the very beginning! And why is this diary stained? Whose blood is that?"
Margaret reached out with a trembling hand and picked up the thick, leather-bound journal. The lower corner of the cover was darkened and stiffened with dried, aged blood. "It’s Claire’s," Margaret whispered, her voice cracking. "And the blood belongs to the person who put her in the ground."
The guests gathered near the edge of the clearing began to murmur anxiously. Whispers spread through the wedding party like wildfire. Bridesmaids exchanged horrified glances, and the best man slowly backed away from Julian, sensing the sudden, violent shift in the atmosphere.
"Give me that diary," Julian ordered, his tone suddenly turning dark and menacing as he stepped toward his aunt. The charming, polite man Elena thought she knew was entirely gone, replaced by a stranger driven by desperation.
"Stay back, Julian!" Elena shouted, stepping in front of Margaret and raising the heavy metal box as a barrier. "You aren't touching anything else!"
"You don't understand what you're holding," Julian snarled, his eyes darting wildly toward the edge of the woods where the only road out of the property wound down the mountain. "That book... it contains lies. She was unstable. She ran away."
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"She didn't run away," Margaret interrupted, her voice suddenly ringing with absolute, chilling certainty. She flipped open the blood-stained cover of the diary, exposing the final, frantic entry scribbled on the last page. "She wrote this on the night she disappeared. And she named her killer."
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