Eli hadn't slept. Even as Clara lay curled on the floor beside the fireplace, her bloodied hand bandaged and her face pale with exhaustion, his eyes remained wide open, fixed on the ceiling. Every sound outside—branches creaking, wind rustling, distant owls—sounded wrong. Twisted.
He could still feel it.
Not inside him, exactly. Not anymore. But around him. Near.
Like something once tethered now circled back—free, but not gone.
When the first light of dawn filtered through the curtains, Clara stirred, groaning as she sat up. Her eyes met his, red-rimmed and sharp.
"You didn't sleep," she said.
"Couldn't," he replied, voice rough. "I feel like... it's watching."
She nodded slowly. "It is."
They both knew the binding hadn't worked the way it was meant to. Clara had followed every step, every word, even offered blood. The entity had been pulled back—but not sealed.
The curse had bent.
Not broken.
Clara pushed herself to her feet, grabbing the Lexicon from the floor. Most of the ink was still legible, though pages were warped with moisture and blood. She flipped through until she found a section she hadn't dared read before.
"When the Binding fails, the Bound seeks a new vessel."
She swallowed hard.
"I think it's looking for something else," she said aloud. "Someone else. Maybe not you. Maybe not even me."
Eli leaned forward. "Then who?"
Clara didn't answer. Her fingers trembled as they landed on the next passage.
"The Curse unbound walks the ancestral line. It follows the blood."
Suddenly, her stomach dropped.
"My mother," she whispered.
Eli blinked. "You said she left years ago. She's gone."
"She didn't leave," Clara said, voice hoarse. "She ran."
They drove out before noon, heading northwest on cracked roads that hadn't seen a repair crew in years. The trees blurred past, but Clara's focus was fixed on the photo in her lap—her mother, Miriam Hale, holding an infant Clara. The only picture Clara had ever seen of her.
"She used to send letters," Clara murmured. "Up until I turned ten. Then nothing."
"You think she's hiding from the curse?" Eli asked.
"I think she knew exactly what she was passing on."
The old address on the back of the photo led them to a cabin nestled deep in the Whispering Pines Reserve. The structure was weather-worn, nearly overtaken by vines and moss, but smoke curled from the chimney.
Someone was there.
Clara knocked three times. No answer.
She knocked again—louder. "Miriam Hale!"
The door opened a crack, then swung wide.
A woman stood there. Gray streaked her dark hair, and her eyes—so much like Clara's—were rimmed with disbelief, recognition... and dread.
"No," the woman whispered. "Not you. Not now."
Inside, the air was heavy with sage and something older—earth, clay, stone. The shelves were lined with bottles, bundles of dried herbs, bones suspended on thread. Clara sat on the edge of a wooden bench, her hands clenched in her lap.
"You knew this would happen," Clara said.
Miriam didn't answer. She moved slowly, setting a kettle on the stove, her back rigid.
"You left me with it."
"I tried to take it with me," Miriam snapped, spinning around. "Don't you think I tried?"
Eli, standing quietly by the door, shifted uneasily.
Miriam's eyes softened a fraction. "It's not bound to one person. It's bound to our blood."
"Then why didn't it follow you?" Clara asked, tears burning.
"I severed everything. Family, name, ties, home. I buried the well under sigils and runes before I left."
"Well, they didn't hold," Clara said bitterly. "We reopened it."
Miriam paled. "God help you."
The room went quiet except for the whistling of the kettle.
Finally, Miriam spoke again, voice low. "When I was your age, the same thing happened. My sister tried the first binding and failed. It took her. I tried the second ritual and nearly died. The third... the third one, Clara, doesn't seal the curse. It welcomes it."
Clara's breath caught.
"You mean the final ritual brings it in?"
Miriam nodded. "But only so it can be contained. Not banished. Not destroyed. The curse is older than Woodpile. Older than names."
"Then why do we keep trying?" Eli asked suddenly.
The women turned to him.
"Why do we bind it? If it keeps breaking loose?"
Miriam looked at him, tired. "Because someone has to keep the world safe. For another generation. And another. Until someone stronger comes."
The ritual required three participants. Blood of the line, will of the vessel, and spirit of the bound. It had to be performed at the heart of the curse—inside the well.
"That's suicide," Eli said flatly.
Clara didn't argue. She simply looked at him. Then at her mother.
"I'll go."
"No." Miriam's voice cracked.
"You can't stop me."
"You don't understand what it wants."
Clara stood. "It wants freedom. I want peace. So I'll meet it halfway."
They returned to Woodpile after dark. The moon was only a sliver now, pale and sickly. The well, when they reached it, had changed. Its edges had expanded. The stone ring looked jagged, warped—like something had grown outward from within.
And in the air: a hum. Not a sound, but a vibration in the chest. Like a voice preparing to speak.
Clara stepped into the circle without hesitation.
Eli lit the ward candles again, now double the number. Miriam traced the old sigils in ash across the well's stones. And then, all three began the rite.
Clara descended first—down the old rope ladder, into the throat of the earth. The darkness swallowed her.
Water dripped somewhere far below. Roots pushed through stone walls. The further she went, the colder the air grew, until it felt like she was breathing smoke made of ice.
Then the bottom.
She stood in the center of the chamber beneath the well—an ancient room, circular, its walls covered in glyphs that pulsed faintly.
From the far wall, it emerged.
The curse had taken form. Human-shaped, but impossibly tall, its skin made of shadows that shimmered like oil on water. It had no eyes. No mouth. Only a hollow space where its face should be.
"You've come," it said—voice inside her mind. "You are ready."
Clara took a step forward.
"No," she said. "I'm not ready. But I'm willing."
The entity reached toward her. Not aggressively. Almost gently.
"One vessel. One gate. Open to bind."
Clara raised the pendant—Abigail's shattered sigil, reforged with her own blood. The Lexicon was open beside it.
"I offer myself," she whispered. "But not as gate. As jailer."
The chamber roared. The glyphs burst into white fire. The entity screamed—not in pain, but in rage.
Above, Eli and Miriam continued the incantation. The earth trembled.
Clara dropped the pendant. It exploded in light.
The entity surged forward—engulfing her.
She didn't resist.
She held it.
Bound it.
With every fiber of her will, she wrapped herself around the curse like chains of fire, locking it inside.
And in that moment, she understood everything—the curse, the well, the voices. It was never just about sealing. It was about sacrifice.
Her body arched, spine snapping back, mouth open in a silent scream. The chamber lit with light brighter than the sun—
And then
nothing.
When the dust settled, the well was quiet.
Eli stood at the edge, staring down into the darkness. Miriam held his arm.
No sound.
No breath.
Until—
A flicker.
From the depths, a dim, pulsing glow.
And Clara's voice. Barely a whisper.
"I'm here."