Chapter 65 The Keeper of Forgotten Name

Beatrice remained beside the bell long after the others had stopped speaking.

The silver token rested in her palm.

It was small.

Simple.

Yet it seemed heavier than anything she had ever held.

The letter V caught the lantern light.

Veymont.

Her birth family.

Her forgotten beginning.

And perhaps the first piece of an answer she had never known to ask for.

Nathaniel stood nearby, watching her without pressing her for words.

Elias had returned to the records.

Mara remained at the doorway.

Silas was the first to break the silence.

“Do you remember being here?”

Beatrice shook her head.

“No.”

“But you saw something.”

“Yes.”

“A memory?”

“I don't know.”

Beatrice looked toward the dark opening in the tower wall.

“It felt like one.”

Mara slowly closed the old record.

“My grandmother used to say that memory does not always belong to the person who remembers it.”

Elias looked up.

“That sounds like something your family has been thinking about for a very long time.”

Mara gave him a faint smile.

“Blackmere has had a great deal of time.”

Beatrice turned.

“You said your family protected certain names.”

Mara nodded.

“Names, records, stories.”

“From whom?”

Mara hesitated.

“From being forgotten.”

“That isn't what I asked.”

The older woman met Beatrice's eyes.

“No.”

Beatrice waited.

Mara finally sighed.

“From being erased.”

Nathaniel stepped closer.

“Who would erase them?”

“People who believed the truth was dangerous.”

Elias closed the book in his hands.

“And what truth was so dangerous?”

Mara looked toward the shelves.

“One name.”

Beatrice's fingers tightened around the token.

“Veymont?”

“No.”

The answer came softly.

“Breedlove?”

“No.”

Beatrice frowned.

“Then whose?”

Mara walked toward the oldest shelf.

She removed a thick ledger bound in cracked leather.

“This.”

She placed it on the table.

Beatrice looked down.

The cover bore no title.

Only a faded date.

1819.

Mara opened it.

Several pages had been torn away.

Not accidentally.

The edges were clean.

Someone had removed them carefully.

Elias leaned closer.

“Someone wanted these pages gone.”

“Yes.”

Nathaniel studied the binding.

“Can you tell when?”

“No.”

Mara turned several pages.

Births.

Deaths.

Visitors.

Trades.

Weather.

The ordinary records of a village.

Until she reached a page where the ink had been scratched away.

Beatrice leaned closer.

Beneath the damage, she could make out the remains of letters.

She traced them with her eyes.

I.

S.

A.

D.

O.

R.

A.

Her breath caught.

“Isadora.”

Nathaniel looked at her.

“You know that name.”

Beatrice stared at the page.

“She raised me.”

Elias stepped closer.

“Your mother?”

“My adopted mother.”

Mara's expression changed.

“She came to Blackmere?”

“I don't know.”

Beatrice looked at the damaged record.

“But her name is here.”

Mara turned the page.

Nothing.

Another.

Nothing.

Then she found a small notation written along the margin.

Beatrice leaned closer.

The handwriting was different from the main record.

Only four words had survived.

She came with the child.

Beatrice's heart seemed to stop.

Nathaniel read the words.

Elias did too.

Mara whispered,

“Then your mother was here.”

Beatrice closed her eyes.

She remembered Isadora's hands.

Her voice.

The way she had always answered questions about Beatrice's earliest years with gentle affection rather than detail.

Not lies.

Never obvious lies.

Just omissions.

Things left unsaid.

“She knew,” Beatrice whispered.

Nathaniel touched her shoulder.

“Perhaps.”

Beatrice opened her eyes.

“I need to know what she knew.”

“And we will find out,” Elias said.

Silas suddenly looked toward the stairwell.

“Someone is coming.”

Everyone became still.

Footsteps sounded below.

Slow.

Measured.

Someone climbed the stairs.

Mara reached for the lantern.

The footsteps stopped.

A moment later, a man appeared at the top of the stairs.

He was middle-aged, travel-worn, and carried a dark cloak over one arm.

He looked at Mara first.

Then Nathaniel.

Then Elias.

Finally, his eyes settled on Beatrice.

“Are you Beatrice Breedlove?”

She nodded cautiously.

“Yes.”

The man reached inside his coat.

Nathaniel moved forward.

“Slowly.”

The stranger stopped.

“I mean no harm.”

He removed a folded envelope.

“It was given to me on the northern road.”

Beatrice stared at it.

Her name was written across the front.

Not Breedlove.

Not Lady Breedlove.

Simply:

Beatrice.

Her hands went cold.

“Who gave you that?”

The stranger looked toward the window.

“A woman.”

“What woman?”

“I don't know her name.”

“Then describe her.”

He hesitated.

“She wore a dark blue cloak.”

Beatrice's heart began to race.

“Anything else?”

“She carried no luggage.”

Mara stepped closer.

“Was she alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did she speak?”

“Only once.”

Beatrice looked at him.

“What did she say?”

The man met her eyes.

“She told me the bell had remembered.”

Silence.

Beatrice slowly took the envelope.

The seal was plain.

No crest.

No initials.

Only a tiny pressed flower beneath the wax.

Silvermist.

Her fingers trembled.

Nathaniel looked at her.

“Do you want to open it?”

Beatrice stared at the envelope.

“Yes.”

She broke the seal.

Inside was a single sheet of paper.

Only one sentence had been written.

You were never meant to forget where you came from.

Beneath it was a second line.

Ask Isadora about the lake.

Beatrice read it twice.

Then a third time.

Elias whispered,

“Silvermist Lake.”

Beatrice folded the paper.

The answer was no longer only waiting inside Blackmere.

It was waiting somewhere much closer.

At Breedlove Manor.

And for the first time since arriving in Blackmere, Beatrice was no longer afraid of what she might discover.

She was afraid of what she might already know.