Chapter 63 The Name Beneath the Stone
For several moments, no one moved.
The word remained beneath the raven carving.
Veymont.
Beatrice stared at it until the stone seemed to become something other than stone.
Nathaniel was the first to speak.
“Beatrice.”
She heard him.
She simply could not answer.
Elias stepped closer to the wall.
“The name is connected to you.”
“Yes.”
Her voice was quiet.
Mara lowered her lantern.
“You know what Veymont means.”
Beatrice looked at her.
“I know what it means to me.”
She reached toward the carving again but stopped before touching it.
“My family history is complicated.”
Elias gave a faint smile.
“That may be the understatement of the evening.”
Beatrice almost smiled.
Almost.
Then her eyes returned to the stone.
“Veymont is part of my bloodline.”
Nathaniel's expression became thoughtful.
“And Breedlove?”
“My family.”
Mara looked between them.
“Then perhaps the old record was not wrong.”
“What old record?” Nathaniel asked.
Mara hesitated.
Silas appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Mara?”
She turned.
“What is it?”
“I found something.”
He held up a small iron key.
Beatrice looked at it.
“Where did you find that?”
“Under the floor.”
Mara's face changed.
“The floor?”
Silas nodded.
“One of the boards sounded hollow.”
Elias glanced down.
“Then perhaps Blackmere has been keeping more secrets than we thought.”
Mara moved toward the centre of the chamber.
“Show me.”
Silas knelt beside a row of old boards near the bell mechanism.
He placed the key into a small iron fitting that was almost invisible beneath the dust.
It turned.
A section of the floor lifted.
Cold air rose from beneath it.
Beatrice stepped closer.
A narrow compartment had been built beneath the boards.
Inside lay a wooden box.
No larger than a man's hand.
Mara stared at it.
“My grandmother told me never to open that.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
“And yet you brought us here.”
“I did not bring you here.”
Mara looked at Beatrice.
“You came.”
That answer settled over the room.
Silas carefully lifted the box.
The wood was dark with age, but the hinges were still intact.
Mara took it from him.
For a moment she simply held it.
Then she opened it.
Inside were three things.
A folded piece of parchment.
A small silver key.
And a pressed flower, brown with age.
Beatrice looked at the flower.
Her heart tightened.
She knew it.
Not because she had seen that particular flower before.
Because she remembered its kind.
Silvermist blossoms.
They had grown near the lake.
Her lake.
Her mother's stories.
Her first home, though she had never known it as a child.
She whispered the name.
“Silvermist.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
“You recognize it.”
“Yes.”
Mara carefully lifted the parchment.
“This was written by one of my ancestors.”
She unfolded it.
The handwriting was uneven.
Old.
But readable.
Mara began to read.
“On the eighteenth day of October, a traveller came by the northern road.”
Beatrice listened.
“She carried no luggage and asked for no shelter. She asked only for directions to the lake.”
Beatrice's breathing slowed.
Mara continued.
“She said her family had once lived beyond the valley, and that she had returned to find what had been left behind.”
Elias glanced at Beatrice.
“Keep reading.”
Mara did.
“The traveller gave no name.”
She paused.
Then looked at the next line.
“But when she departed, she left this flower.”
Mara lifted the pressed blossom.
Beatrice stared at it.
The room seemed suddenly colder.
“What year?” she asked.
Mara checked the faded writing.
“Eighteen twenty-three.”
Nathaniel's eyes moved to Beatrice.
She did the calculation silently.
She had been a child.
Too young to remember.
But old enough for the history to matter.
“Who was she?” Beatrice asked.
Mara shook her head.
“The record does not say.”
“There must be more.”
“There is.”
Mara turned the parchment over.
A final paragraph had been written on the back.
Her voice became quieter.
“She told us that one day a daughter would return who carried two names within her.”
Beatrice felt the blood drain from her face.
Nathaniel stepped closer.
“Two names?”
Mara nodded.
“Breedlove and Veymont.”
Silence.
The bell above them gave a faint metallic creak.
No one touched it.
Beatrice looked upward.
Then back at the parchment.
“Who wrote this?”
Mara swallowed.
“My ancestor.”
“And the traveller?”
“We don't know.”
Beatrice stared at the old flower.
She knew what Mara was trying not to say.
The answer might be closer than any of them wanted.
“Could it have been my mother?”
Mara did not answer.
Nathaniel placed a hand gently against Beatrice's shoulder.
“Beatrice.”
She looked at him.
“I need to know.”
“I know.”
Elias folded his arms.
“Then we find out.”
Mara looked toward the staircase.
“There is one more place.”
Nathaniel's eyes narrowed.
“Where?”
“Below the tower.”
Silas looked startled.
“Mara, you said there was nothing beneath it.”
“I said my family had never found anything.”
She looked at Beatrice.
“Perhaps that was never the same thing.”
They descended.
The staircase beneath the tower was narrower than the one above.
The stones were damp beneath their hands, and the lantern light moved strangely across the walls.
At the bottom stood a small wooden door.
Mara used the silver key.
The lock turned immediately.
Inside was a room no larger than a pantry.
There were no treasures.
No weapons.
No ancient chest.
Only shelves.
And on those shelves were books.
Beatrice stepped inside.
She ran her fingers across the nearest spine.
Dates.
Names.
Places.
Blackmere records.
Births.
Deaths.
Visitors.
For generations.
Elias reached for one of the oldest volumes.
Nathaniel opened another.
Beatrice remained still.
Something had caught her attention.
A single book rested apart from the others.
Its cover was plain.
No title.
No ornament.
Only one word had been written across it.
Veymont.
Beatrice reached for it.
The moment her fingers touched the cover, the lantern flame flickered.
Nathaniel looked at Elias.
Elias looked back.
Neither spoke.
Beatrice slowly opened the book.
The first page was blank.
The second was blank.
The third contained only a date.
October 18, 1823.
Below it was a single sentence.
She read it aloud.
“She came seeking the child who had already been taken.”
Beatrice froze.
Nathaniel's face changed.
Elias lowered the book in his hands.
Mara whispered,
“What child?”
Beatrice stared at the page.
She did not know.
But somewhere deep inside her memory, something had shifted.
Not enough to reveal the truth.
Enough to tell her that the truth had been waiting.
And that Blackmere had remembered it all along.
