Lilly Harper left West Wood Cemetery just as the first light of dawn began to creep over the horizon. The cold night gave way to a crisp, misty morning. She could feel the chill deep in her bones. Her mind was still on Silas Mercer as she walked home through the quiet streets, largely vacant at this hour and offering ample time for thinking.
She could not get Silas's words out of her head, the resonance of some broken record that refused to stop. "Not everything in this place is as harmless as it seems. You might want to be careful." His voice had come out soft, almost gentle, but there was a darkness behind it, a weight pressing down that needed release.
The dead didn't spook her. They never had. But Silas wasn't like the others. Something was unnerving about his tranquility, his control. Most spirits she'd seen over the years were lost, fragmented pieces of themselves, wandering, stuck in some kind of loop of their final moments, or clinging to some half-remembered emotion. But Silas? He was different. He was aware. He was… deliberate.
Her footfalls echoed on the pavement as she passed through the quieter part of town, heading toward her small, drafty apartment. Lilly pulled her hoodie tighter into herself, trying to ward off the cold that had seeped through her bones from the cemetery. She hadn't gotten much done that night in terms of cleaning, but that didn't matter. What mattered was the man—no, the ghost—sitting on his gravestone and chatting with her as if this were the most normal thing in the world.
She wanted answers.
Her exhausted brain argued with her curiosity, telling her to just let it go, find another job, pay her rent, and keep her life tidy. Something about Silas, though, had hooked her small fish brain and reeled her in. He knew things: about the cemetery, about the spirits that still lingered, and most disturbingly, about her. His warning had been more than a casual observation; it had been a challenge.
When she finally reached home, she kicked the boots off and fell onto her bed. She was tired and wanted to sleep, but her brain wasn't shutting off. Silas wasn't going to say what was happening. He acted like he was highly entertained by the question—too evasive. If she wanted some answers, she was going to have to find them on her own.
By the time she fell asleep, her mind was made up. She was going to start digging into Silas's past—first through the local archives. It was about time she learned a little more about Silas Mercer and just why he'd been lingering in that graveyard.
Lilly had hardly slept. She woke after a few hours in flight of mind, although her apartment was bathed with exuded sunlight through the thin curtains into a soft golden tint, her head was still condoled by the long night.
Lilly showered quickly before drinking a couple of strong cups of coffee, after which she took her bag and went to the local library.
It was a quiet, secretive place tucked away in the center of town, and she had been there only a handful of times. This being the modern age, most people didn't bother much anymore with old libraries—they had the internet for research—but Lilly knew better. If she wanted information on someone who'd been dead for more than a century, the dusty old records were her best bet.
As she stepped inside, the old wooden doors of the library creaked under her hand, wafting in a familiar scent of old paper and polished wood into her nostrils. Save for an elderly woman who sat behind the front desk, her eyes set on the book in front of her, the place was mostly empty.
Lilly walked to the back of the library where historical archives were maintained.
She wasn't quite sure what she was looking for, but the name "Silas Mercer" would be a good starting point. It was tedious work finding old records and documents, but she didn't let that deter her. The library maintains old newspapers on microfilm, town records, and even some personal archives donated over the years. It wasn't the most modern system, but it had what she needed.
After a few minutes of digging, Lilly found herself rummaging through microfilm, scanning headlines and articles from the middle 1800s. She didn't know much about Silas yet, other than his name and what year he died—1844—but it was enough to start with.
One headline in particular that caught her eye read, "Man Found Dead Under Mysterious Circumstances."
Her pulse quickened as she began to read the article beneath it. The small write-up from 1844 was about the body of a young man who had been found outside the edge of town. His name had been Silas Mercer, and he was dead—the cause undetermined—natural causes, many said, but some people whispered foul play. There wasn't much information in the article, but there was this innuendo of Silas's death not quite being as black-and-white as it had appeared.
Lilly frowned, inching closer to the screen as if that would somehow bring more clarity. No one had been arrested, no charges filed, and it would appear the article implied the investigation died quietly.
Suspicious, she thought.
She scribbled down all the details quickly. There was one name mentioned in this article that called her attention—a prominent family called the Greys, which had been attached to the investigation. The Greys were one of the most powerful families in town at that period, known for their wealth and influence. Could they have had something to do with Silas's death? The deeper she went, the more questions it seemed she found. Another article, a few weeks later, referenced rumors of a personal dispute involving Silas, but it had not gone into detail. Little was said about his family, let alone any sort of investigation follow-up. It seemed as though Silas' death had been swept under the rug and forgotten by time. But Lilly was not about to let that be forgotten. This needed follow-up. She had sat in the archives for hours, looking through every mention of Silas that she could find, but the information was sparse. He had lived a bit of a quiet life up until his death, or at least so the impression came from the articles themselves. There were no great scandals, no infamous public disputes—just the quiet life of a man who had died too young. Mondaugen: The Greys seemed to be the key. Their name cropped up in connection with Silas more than once. The fact that a powerful family had been involved in the investigation—and that it had gone nowhere—set off alarms in Lilly's head. It wasn't until late afternoon that she finally left the library, her head buzzing with what she had read. Silas hadn't died a natural death; of that, she was now sure. Something had happened to him, something the town had buried along with him. And if it involved the Greys, that meant someone wanted it to stay buried. As she walked back home, one troublesome thought reconstituted itself and grew in its insistence: What if this had to do with Silas's unfinished business? What if the reason he was still hanging around the cemetery was because of how he died—and by whose hand?"