The Historian
The classroom emptied, the scrape of chairs and shuffle of shoes fading down the hall until the silence pressed in. Evelyn remained seated at her desk, Clara’s notebook still beneath her hands. The weight of it was absurd, as though the pencil lines within were stone.
She closed it carefully, like someone shutting away a dangerous thing, and set it aside.
Her pulse still pounded. Thomas Vale. A name Clara had said with absolute certainty.
Evelyn told herself to focus, to breathe, to gather her belongings and step into the ordinary rhythm of her second day of teaching. But there was no ordinary rhythm now. Clara had cut through it with a surgeon’s precision.
By the time she dismissed the next class, her hands were trembling again. She tucked them into her pockets, hoping none of the children noticed.
---
Outside, the afternoon sky was a soft, unsettled gray. Mist drifted over the streets, curling through the trees. Evelyn decided to walk. The town was small enough—she’d memorized the main streets already—but today they seemed different. Narrower, shadowed. People greeted her with polite nods, but there was a watchfulness in their eyes, as though they, too, were measuring how she fit here.
She passed the post office, the diner, the library. Each storefront felt like a stage set, fixed in its role, waiting for her to speak her line.
The library slowed her steps. If anyone in town kept records, even ordinary ones, they would be here. Evelyn hesitated, then pushed through the glass doors.
The building was quiet, its interior steeped in dust and wood polish. The scent was oddly comforting. Rows of shelves stretched into dimness, the overhead lights humming faintly.
Behind the desk sat a man with dark hair, head bent over a book. His frame was lean, shoulders hunched with focus. He looked up at the sound of the door, eyes narrowing slightly.
Evelyn felt the weight of that gaze at once. Steady, assessing, the kind of look that searched for things beneath the surface.
“Can I help you?” His voice was low, even, carrying a subtle authority despite its quietness.
She swallowed. “I’m Evelyn Hale. The new teacher.”
Something flickered in his expression—recognition, perhaps—but it vanished quickly. “Vale,” he said, and returned his eyes to the book.
The name hit her like a stone. Clara’s voice echoed in her head: Ask Thomas Vale.
Her breath caught. “Thomas Vale?”
Now his gaze lifted again, sharper this time. “That’s right. Why?”
Evelyn’s throat felt tight. She wanted to demand answers, but the library’s hush pressed against her, making the words brittle. “One of my students mentioned you,” she said carefully. “Clara Jennings.”
His jaw tightened. He closed the book slowly, deliberately, and set it on the desk.
“You should be careful, Miss Hale,” he said. “Clara speaks more than she should.”
The phrasing was too precise, too deliberate. Evelyn’s pulse quickened.
“What did she mean?” she asked. “About… remembering? About me?”
For the first time, Thomas Vale’s mask slipped. His expression darkened, something heavy moving behind his eyes. He leaned forward, folding his hands together on the desk.
“This isn’t the place,” he murmured. “Not here.”
Evelyn’s skin prickled. “Then where?”
His gaze flicked toward the windows, toward the shelves, toward the silence itself. “Come back after sunset. The library will be closed. Then we can talk.”
The finality in his tone left no room for argument. He stood, collected the book, and disappeared between the shelves, leaving Evelyn alone with the faint hum of the lights.
---
By the time she stepped outside, the mist had thickened, clinging to her hair and coat. The streets looked altered, blurred at the edges, as though the town itself were shifting.
Evelyn walked back to her rented room above the diner. She locked the door, dropped her bag onto the desk, and sat on the bed.
Clara’s notebook was still there, tucked into her papers. She pulled it out. Her hand hesitated on the cover before she opened it again.
The drawing of herself drowning stared back. Each line seemed deeper now, as though etched into the page rather than drawn.
She turned the page. The next sketch was smaller, rougher: a building half-hidden by trees. The lines curved in such a way that she recognized the slope of the library’s roof.
Her stomach tightened.
---
The hours until sunset dragged. Evelyn tried to write lesson plans, tried to read, even tried to nap, but her mind circled the same orbit: Clara’s words, Vale’s warning, the way the town seemed to watch her.
When dusk finally settled, she wrapped her coat around her and stepped outside. The air was colder now, the mist thick enough to bead on her skin.
The library loomed ahead, its windows dark, its sign creaking softly in the wind. Evelyn hesitated at the door, then pushed it open.
Inside, the hush was deeper. No hum of lights, no shuffle of footsteps. Only the faint scent of paper and dust.
“Close the door,” Thomas Vale’s voice said from the shadows.
She obeyed, heart hammering.
He emerged from between the shelves, a lantern in his hand. The light carved harsh lines across his face, deepening the hollows of his eyes.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” he said quietly. “But since you did, you need to hear the truth.”
Evelyn forced her voice steady. “The truth about what?”
Vale studied her for a long moment, as though weighing whether she could bear what he was about to say.
“This town,” he said at last, “is not what it seems. It never has been. And Clara is right—you have been here before.”
The words landed like a blow. Evelyn’s knees felt weak. She gripped the back of a chair to steady herself.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered. “I’ve never—”
“You don’t remember,” Vale cut in, his tone sharp. “None of us do, not completely. That’s how Ashwick Falls survives. It erases. Resets. Bends us until we forget the shape of what came before. But some of us… some of us are left with pieces.”
He set the lantern on the desk, its light spilling across the surface. From a drawer, he pulled a bundle of old papers bound with twine.
“These are my family’s records,” he said. “For generations, we’ve kept what the town tries to destroy. Names, events, vanishings. And you—Evelyn Hale—you’ve walked these streets before.”
Evelyn shook her head, her chest constricting. “No. I would remember—”
“Would you?” His eyes pierced hers. “Think, Miss Hale. The dreams you’ve had. The feeling of déjà vu. The map your mother left you. You think that was chance?”
Her breath caught. Her mother’s map. She had never told anyone about it.
“How do you—”
Vale’s voice lowered. “Because your family has ties here too. Deeper than you realize. That’s why you came back.”
The silence between them was heavy, pulsing. Evelyn’s mind spun. None of it could be real, and yet every word struck some hidden chord inside her, some part of her that already knew.
She swallowed hard. “What happens here, Vale? What is Ashwick Falls?”
His jaw tightened. “A cycle. A prison. A secret written into the bones of this land. Every so often, it begins again. People disappear. Memories shift. Identities blur. And when it’s finished, the town resets—erases the traces, smooths over the scars. Except for those of us who keep the records.”
Her voice shook. “And me?”
“You…” Vale’s eyes darkened. “You’ve always been at the center. Every cycle. Always here. Always searching. Always drowning.”
The lantern light flickered. Evelyn felt the ground tilt beneath her.
Before she could speak, a sound shattered the silence—a heavy knock on the library door.
Both of them froze.
The knock came again, louder this time, rattling the frame.
Vale’s face hardened. He swept the bundle of papers into the drawer and blew out the lantern, plunging the room into shadows.
“Not a word,” he whispered. “They can’t know you’re here.”
Evelyn’s heart thrashed against her ribs.
The knock came a third time. Then a voice, low and commanding, carried through the wood.
“Thomas Vale. Open the door.”
Sheriff Conrad Doyle.
