Chapter 2: Beneath the Blackthorn Tree
**Blackthorn Manor — Dawn**
The crows were gone by morning.
Eleanor sat on the floor of Agatha's bedroom, the grimoire clutched to her chest. Her hands still shook. She'd barricaded the door with a dresser after the birds began hurling themselves at the windows—*thud, thud, thud*—like fists pounding for entry. The words in the grimoire had vanished at first light, leaving the pages blank again.
"Hallucination," she muttered, though the scratches on the windowpanes told a different story.
She needed coffee. Or whiskey.
The kitchen was a time capsule of rusted appliances and jars of unidentifiable preserves. A cast-iron stove squatted in the corner, cold and cobwebbed. Eleanor rummaged through Agatha's cabinets and found a tin of decades-old tea leaves and a bottle of bourbon with a label so faded it could've been poison. She drank straight from the bottle.
The bitter warmth steadied her. So did the daylight.
Sunrise painted the backyard in hues of gold and decay. The Blackthorn family oak dominated the space—a gnarled titan with bark like charred flesh. Its branches sagged under the weight of crow's nests and tattered cloth bundles. Eleanor remembered playing here as a child, digging for "treasure" while Agatha muttered about cursed ground.
*"Nothing good grows here,"* her grandmother had said, yanking her away from the roots. *"Not even memories."*
Now, Eleanor approached the tree, a shovel slung over her shoulder. The grimoire's warning thrummed in her skull: ***FIND ME.***
She stabbed the shovel into the earth.
---
**The Locket**
The roots fought back.
Every scoop of soil revealed thicker tendrils, black and glistening as though coated in oil. They writhed when exposed to light, retreating deeper into the earth. By noon, Eleanor's blisters had blisters, and the hole was knee-deep.
Then the shovel struck metal.
She knelt, brushing dirt from a tarnished silver locket. Its surface was engraved with the same spiral-rooted tree from the grimoire. Inside, a miniature portrait flaked with age: a girl no older than ten, her dark curls framing a face that mirrored Eleanor's own.
***Abigail Blackthorn***, the grimoire's voice hissed in her mind. ***First sacrifice. First anchor.***
Eleanor dropped the locket. The roots surged.
A hand burst from the soil—bone-thin, gray, fingernails curved into claws. It seized her wrist.
She screamed, scrambling backward, but the hand held fast. The earth churned as something *rose*: a girl in a tattered colonial dress, her skin mossy and split at the seams. Vines spilled from her eye sockets.
***"Sister,"*** the corpse whispered, her voice a chorus of beetles skittering in dead leaves. ***"You're late."***
Eleanor grabbed the shovel and swung.
The girl dissolved into a cloud of rot and moths.
---
**Sheriff Callahan's Warning**
The sheriff's cruiser pulled up as Eleanor vomited into the rosebushes.
He stepped out, thumbs hooked in his belt—a man built like a brick wall, with a handlebar mustache and eyes as warm as a shotgun barrel. His badge read *C. CALLAHAN*.
"Miss Blackthorn." He tipped his hat. "Heard you had a rough night."
She wiped her mouth. "Crows."
"Hollow Hill's welcoming committee." He nodded at the shovel. "Digging up trouble already?"
"Gardening."
Callahan's smile didn't reach his eyes. He kicked a clump of blackened roots. "Funny. Your grandmother said the same thing when we found her out here with a pickaxe and a jar of pig's blood."
Eleanor stiffened. "Why are you really here, Sheriff?"
He leaned in, the scent of peppermint and gun oil sharp in her nose. "To give you the same advice I gave Agatha: *Leave.* Bury whatever she hid here. Let the dead lie."
"Or what?"
"Or you'll join them." He tossed a flyer onto the ground—a missing persons poster. The face was blurred, but the headline screamed: ***LOCAL TEEN VANISHES NEAR BLACKTHORN MANOR.***
"Third one this year," Callahan said. "Folks are getting restless. And when Hollow Hill gets restless…" He glanced at the oak. "…it eats."
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**The Whisper in the Walls**
Eleanor waited until sunset to open the locket again.
The portrait of Abigail stared back, her eyes now glowing faintly green. The grimoire lay on the desk, its pages fluttering despite the still air.
***ASK ME***, it wrote in jagged script.
"Who are you?" Eleanor demanded.
***YOUR BLOOD. YOUR BURDEN.***
"What happened to Abigail?"
The book hissed, ink swirling into a scene: a pyre, a woman in colonial dress (Mercy) weeping, a shadow with needle-teeth wearing Abigail's skin.
***THE VEIL TOOK HER***, the grimoire wrote. ***THE VEIL TAKES ALL.***
A cold breath brushed Eleanor's neck.
She spun. The room was empty—but the air smelled of damp soil and funeral lilies.
"Hello?"
***Eleanor***, a voice echoed, young and sorrowful. ***Don't let it take you too.***
The locket snapped shut.
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**Chapter 2 End**
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### **Key Elements Introduced**:
1. **Abigail's Locket**: A cursed heirloom linking Eleanor to Mercy's tragedy.
2. **The Animated Corpse**: A vision of Abigail's corrupted spirit, hinting at the Veil's corruption.
3. **Sheriff Callahan**: Represents the town's hostility and secrets; his warning raises stakes.
4. **The Missing Teens**: Foreshadows the Veil's growing hunger and danger to outsiders.
5. **The Grimoire's Sentience**: It communicates directly, blurring the line between ally and manipulator.
### **NextChapterTeaser**:
In **Chapter 3: WhispersintheAttic**, Eleanor explores the sealed upper floor of Blackthorn Manor, discovering Agatha's hidden workshop and journals that reveal her grandmother's desperate attempts to delay the curse. Meanwhile, the missing teens' ghosts begin appearing in town, and the sheriff's deputy is found dead—mouth stuffed with crow feathers.