Scarlett couldn't help but feel that the pieces were now getting faster. The documents from the cedar chest haunted her while she tried to make sense of them; too many questions and whispers in shadows, without any clear line of questioning.
She however knew that this was one thing she alone could not do.
Eliot hangs about in her head eerily intimidating. She thought about the gentle voice and impenetrable stare last night when he was standing on the porch, his words were those that he had not spoken. He seemed to know something about the town, something about the shadows, about the things that lived underneath the misty top cover of the town.
If someone was going to disentangle this web for her it was going to be him.
She would look for Eliot, then, since it had heated up a little by afternoons, turning to gold, like a picture of trees, now the pale colors too, made all street light up. She would look to try to find out from whom in that town's hall, some such local café known to each town's people thronged; for there people sat and their tales.
There was the scent of coffee and freshly baked pastries as she pushed open the door to enter The Hawthorne Café, merrily blending with sounds from muffled conversations and clinking mugs on saucers. The room is warm, sand mall, the walls made of exposed brick, wooden tables worn smooth after all those years of being used.
And there, by the window, sat Eliot. His hair was a little mussed, his jacket open, and his dark eyes stared at a steaming cup of coffee as if he were trying to solve the universe.
Scarlett paused for just a moment, her heart fluttering in her chest. She didn't know how she was supposed to approach him, but the pull toward truth was much stronger than she was about her uncertainty.
She took a breath and walked over to his table.
"Eliot?" she asked, hesitantly.
He looked up, his gaze sharp but calm.
"Scarlett," he said smoothly, gesturing to the empty chair across from him. "Sit. Let's talk."
She sat down only after a pause. Eliot put down his coffee, his fingers gripping the ceramic cup, and he stared at her with the same unreadable intensity.
"I think you know why I'm here," Scarlett started to say, not knowing how to express her thoughts.
He nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. "I suspect so."
Scarlett leaned forward and spoke low. "Found some papers. Letters. They have references to the Hawthorne Collective. My father's involved somehow. His leave, his absence, connects to this. And I think it's connected with the town's secrets".
Eliot set his cup down, furrowing his brow as he gazed out the window. He seemed to think before speaking. " They are well, let's say a powerful entity with influence that has always hovered on the periphery of Hawthorne's history."
Scarlett leaned back and crossed her arms. "What do you mean by 'influence'? What is this group?"
He paused, his eyes falling back to her.
"They move in the dark," he whispered low. "They aren't just businessmen or financiers. They've had fingers in pies that people prefer not to speak about deals, trade accords, funding, and yes, secrets. It is this group, behind many of the things that keep Hawthorne humming quietly in its mist.
Scarlett's heart pounded inside her chest. "And you know this how?"
Eliot sighed slowly. "I have suspected for years. My family's roots go way back. I was told, as a child, of the Collective. Some of it is rumors, some of it truths."
He hesitated before he added, "My father knew too much. And when you know too much about them, they start to watch you."
Scarlett felt him find his mark. His voice was low but carried the weight of a mule behind it.
"What are you saying, watch me?" she asked tightly in her voice.
Eliot glanced away for the space of a breath then, his eyes were distracted and not on the horizon.
"They protect their secrets no matter the price. People who get too close to it…they just disappear in one way or the other. My father knew too much. He went to pay for being a nosy person.
Scarlett looked at him with a heavy silence. "What happened to your father?"
He closed his eyes as if collating his thoughts. When he opened them again, they seemed darker, somehow. "He was a historian. He spent his whole life unearthing stories of this town. Too many questions, and too many patterns. One day, he dug up something, something that made him see how much lay beneath this mist that veiled the town.
Scarlett could feel the edges of his pain though he was trying to mask it.
"I've returned to Hawthorne because my father left me pieces of his research," Eliot went on. "He suspected the Hawthorne Collective was pulling the strings of the town, keeping their secrets to ensure survival. I think they may have done the same thing to your father."
Scarlett's breath caught. "You think they made him leave?"
"I think they made him leave," Eliot said, his voice level. His dark gaze met hers. What did he uncover? And what were they afraid of?
Scarlett swallowed hard. She could feel the pull between Eliot's words and her father's absence.
But what do they want? Why control all of this?" she pressed.
Eliot shook his head, his jaw set. "Control is power. Power keeps secrets alive. They know that secrets are like shadows: the longer they stay buried, the harder it is to pull them back into the light. My father's research and your father's disappearance could shine a light on that. And the Hawthorne Collective will fight to keep that light dim.
Scarlett gazed at him, thinking, all falling into place but feeling loose and incomplete.
"What do we do?" Scarlett asked.
Eliot paused. "Dig. But carefully. The town is old. Whispers of old. Secrets run so deep than most people know or understand. If we are not careful, we disappear like my father did."
Scarlett's heart sank. She knew he was right, but her need for answers, for closure, outweighed her fear.
Eliot looked at her for a long moment, and something of admiration, and respect flickered in his gaze.
They had started on a journey now. A journey into the shadows, into the whispers, into the secrets that clung to this town for too long.
But they'd have to tread lightly, though. Secrets, Eliot said, are dangerous things.