Secrets Beneath the Surface

Ariana walked home with a bunch of thoughts still running in her head, replaying the encounter she'd had with Liam. His warning seemed to ring in her head loud and clear, sending chills down her spine.

"There are things in this town you don't understand... Stay out of the woods.”

What was that supposed to mean? And how did he know her name? Those were the questions tumbling in her head, but one thing was palpable: Liam was not any kind of stranger. There was something about him that had her insides twisted with curiosity and fear. The way he moved, the way he'd emerge from shadows, the way he'd looked at her like he was part of the dark.

Ariana reached her front door, pausing with the doorknob in her hand at the threshold. It was dark inside the house, her grandmother was more than likely asleep by now. Yet Ariana's nerves still hummed, and she wasn't so sure she could sleep when so many questions swirled inside her mind.

She stepped inside and silently shut the door behind her, leaning against it for a second. The only sound in the house was the soft ticking of the old grandfather clock in the hall. She always loved that sound growing up; comforting, a reminder of the stability and safety of her childhood home.

Not any of that, which usually felt so stable tonight did. All this on the edge of something... unknown it felt.

Ariana crept upstairs, quietly, her feet hushed against the dark silence of the house. She came in, shut the door behind her, and leaned on it, breathing. She did not know what she was expecting— For wolves to break down her door? Liam materialising again out of nowhere? Nothing about this felt right, but the urge to find some answers overwhelmed her.

She crossed the room and plopped herself onto the edge of her bed, digging out her phone. Her fingers hovered over the screen as her mind moved over the people she had to choose from. But who would she ask about giant wolves and weird men warning her off the woods? It all sounded ridiculous.

She shook her head and laid the phone down on her nightstand, her gaze drifting to the old attic door across the room. That attic had been closed off for as long as she could remember. Her grandmother had told her that it was full of old things from their past. One that Ariana had never really asked about.

Yet now she wondered if there were answers up there. Something about Liam, something about the wolves, seemed to have flicked a switch somewhere in her mind and triggered a fragmentary sense of familiarity that she couldn't quite place. Maybe her family had been connected with this strange world in ways that up until now she could just never have imagined.

It was a consideration that made her heart run, but before she could take back the thought, she had grabbed her flashlight from off the nightstand and began towards the attic door. It was an old wooden door that creaked slowly to show a thin stairway upwards into darkness, and the first wave of dust carried with it the smell of old wood as she climbed up the steps, the flashlight in her hand sending long shadows dancing across the walls.

Upstairs, the attic opened into a wide, low-ceilinged space full of boxes and old furniture in white sheets. It had not been touched in years, maybe decades. Ariana took one cautious step forward, the flashlight beam splashing across the mess. She did not know what she was looking for, but something in the bottom of her gut knew that answers hid up here.

Slowly, she made her way around the attic, her eyes scanning over boxes and trunks, pieces of furniture that were dust-covered and broken. Most of it seemed unremarkable, but as she reached the far corner of the room, something caught her eye: a small leatherbound journal, tucked inside an old chest.

Ariana's heart had leapt with surprise when she pulled the journal out of the chest and brushed off the layer of dust covering it. The cover was cracked and well-worn with age, the edges frayed. She opened it with care; the pages were brittle beneath her fingertips.

The handwriting inside was neat and delicate, yet what had jumped out at her the most was the name inside the cover—Eleanor Bellamy.

"Her mother's name."

Ariana's breath was caught as her shaking hands flitted through the pages. She had lost her mother when she was a child and her grandmother never said much about her. This was the very first real connection to her mom Ariana had ever found.

As she flipped through the pages, it became clear this was no ordinary journal. Strange symbols filled its pages, jotted notes about herbal remedies, and mentioned something called “Moonstone”. There were wolves and moons sketched in, and... strange markings that made Ariana's skin crawl.

"What was this?"

Her mother's words were vague, but a sense of warning ran throughout the entries, as if she had prepared for something or someone. Ariana's heart pounded as she found what seemed like a particularly key passage near the end of the journal:

"The Moonstone has been hidden, but I fear it won't stay that way for long. I must protect her, she is the last hope. The bloodline is powerful, but it will also be their downfall if they find her. The curse... it all begins and ends with her."

*

Ariana's hands shook as she read and reread. The Moonstone. The curse. Bloodlines.

Her mind was racing, thinking this had to be what Liam was talking about, what her mother had been afraid of. Cryptic words, but little question her mother had been involved in something way over Ariana's head. And it was connected, somehow, with her, she was the last hope.

Then, behind her, the floor creaked.

Ariana went rigid, her breath lodging in her throat as she whirled and flicked the light up the stairs. A figure was standing at the top of the stairs, back in the dark shadows, watching her.

It was Liam.

Ariana's heart stuttered into high gear, and her instincts pushed her a step backwards. "How did you-?"

"Doesn't matter," Liam said, his voice low even while firm. "I told you to stay out of this, Ariana."

She clutched the journal to her chest, running a mile a minute with a thousand questions. "What is this?" she demanded, her voice shaking. "What does this have to do with me?"

Liam's gaze flickered to the journal clutched in her hands and his expression hardened. "That's not for you to know.”

Ariana's grip on the journal turned tight, a boil of anger rising in her chest. Too long she had been kept in the dark. "It's my family's," she snarled. "I have a right to know."

Liam stepped closer to her, his expression unreadable, yet there was something almost…protective in the way he regarded her. "This world, this curse, will destroy you if you're not careful.”

Ariana swallowed hard, her head spinning from all she'd picked up. "Then help me understand," she whispered with desperation laced in her voice. "Help me find out what this is."

Liam hesitated. His eyes locked onto hers for a long moment. There was a battle raging behind those eyes, something dark and conflicted. But finally, he nodded, his voice barely more than a whisper.

There are things you don't know about your family, about the wolves. Things that have been kept from you all your life."

Ariana's heart was racing as Liam made another step closer, the confined space of the attic feeling completely overwhelmed by his presence.

"And whether you like it or not, Ariana," he continued with low, taut tones, "you are a part of this now.”