Yvette reached her third destination—another manor, this one owned by the Seefried family. The former patriarch had died several years prior, leaving the estate to his son. Rumor had it the old master succumbed to lung disease, though none of the locals seemed surprised.

  "Can you blame them? The man smoked like a chimney," a chatty villager told her. "Old Seefried loved showing off that ridiculous pipe of his—forked like a tree branch. You could fit ten cigars in that monstrosity! My cousin worked as a footman in their household. Said after dinner, when the ladies left and the men stayed to smoke, half the gentlemen would invent excuses to flee rather than endure Seefried's fog of tobacco."

  The family crest depicted a vulture in flight.

  Expecting another ancestral home at the final location, Yvette was surprised to find an active coal mine instead. Miners traversed the shafts like ants, hauling "black gold" from the earth's bowels. The operation appeared prosperous—a short railway even carried coal to barges waiting on a nearby stream.

  In Albion, appearances mattered. Even a bankrupt gentleman would rather starve than sell his last good suit, and beggars in clean clothes received more alms than their ragged counterparts. Yvette's aristocratic attire instantly granted her credibility. The mine manager practically tripped over himself to assist, thrilled to converse with someone of her station.

  "Indeed, sir, this is Blatt family land," he said proudly. "About fifteen years back, surveyors discovered a rich coal seam right beneath their ancestral home. Master Blatt made the shrewdest decision of his life—he moved the old house and started mining. Turned out brilliant! Nobody anticipated Yorkshire's hunger for coal—every textile mill needs fuel, let alone Sheffield, that steel-guzzling beast! Our coal's premium quality—low sulfur, perfect for smelting. Made the Blatts obscenely wealthy. They entrusted me to manage operations from day one, and I've served faithfully."

  "Shrewdest decision of his life?" Yvette arched an eyebrow. "Implying his other choices weren't so wise?"

  The manager coughed. "Well... purchasing Fonthill Abbey was pure madness. Only a lunatic like Beckford would conceive such a monstrosity. Master Blatt invited me there once—it's a blasphemous nightmare. Fifty-foot windows, eighty-foot curtains, and a tower stretching toward heaven like Babel itself. Collapsed twice during construction, and still creaked like a ship in a storm afterward. We visited in summer, yet servants needed sixty fireplaces just to keep the stone halls from freezing us solid. Dreadful place—even the help whispered about its cursed nature."

  Ah, Fonthill Abbey. London's most infamous architectural folly. Its creator, William Beckford, was Albion's spoiled brat extraordinaire—born in 1760 to sugar tycoons, tutored by Mozart, and lavished with forty thousand pounds for his coming-of-age celebration. Little wonder he grew into a Gothic-obsessed eccentric. At twenty-two, he penned Vathek, a novel about a power-mad caliph building a tower to challenge God. Then he decided to live the fantasy.

  Construction began in 1796. The abbey collapsed twice, hemorrhaged a quarter-million pounds (enough for two Crystal Palaces), and took eleven years to become marginally habitable. Then Beckford's scandals exploded—an affair with his sister-in-law, and getting caught with the teenage Earl of Devon's heir (a boy he'd allegedly groomed since childhood). Combined with slumping sugar profits, he fled London, abandoning his dark masterpiece.

  The buyer, Yvette now learned, had been Master Blatt.

  "Surely someone tried to stop him?"

  "Dozens! But it was like he'd been enchanted. Liquidated his fortune, mortgaged future mining revenue—all for that accursed pile of stone. Mark my words, those twisted spires held some devilish glamour. Like the caliph in Beckford's book, Master Blatt became obsessed with his own tower of hubris. And like all such towers in moral tales..." The manager mimed collapse with his hands. "First two falls were divine warnings. He ignored them. The third buried him."

  Yvette frowned. Gothic architecture belonged in cathedrals, not homes. It'd be like someone today modeling their house after a sci-fi skyscraper—garish and impractical. Beckford's eccentricity made sense for a spoiled artiste, but from the manager's account, Master Blatt had been sensible. Why suddenly fixate on a drafty, crumbling nightmare?

  "And his heirs? Where do they live now?"

  "Northwest past the ridge—a villa near the birch grove. The original house stood right here." The manager pointed at a mine shaft. "Master Blatt had it dismantled but demanded an exact replica built elsewhere. Architects begged to modernize it—no servant passages, terrible for hosting—but he refused. Maybe saw it as honoring ancestors before moving to his doomed abbey?"

  "I'll pay my respects soon. Yorkshire's medieval charm is unmatched—though I'd hate to knock on the wrong door. Any identifying features?"

  Pleased by her praise (Yorkshiremen still nursed ancient pride from their lost Wars of the Roses), the manager grinned. "Can't miss it—there's a bull crest over the gate."

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  As her horse ambled along, Yvette studied her map. All four original sites—now including the Hamlyn estate—formed a rough pentagon.

  A pentagram. Her throat tightened.

  The locations might be coincidence, but the family crests told another story. Two years in the supernatural world had taught her symbolism. Greek philosophy's five elements—earth, water, air, fire, and ether—each had alchemical emblems: bull, whale, vulture, and snake. Ether's symbol was a white bird... except the Hamlyns bore a raven, representing decay.

  An inverted pentagram.

  In alchemical tradition, the upright pentagram symbolizes the refinement of the Philosopher’s Stone—a legendary substance said to crystallize from aether, the elusive fifth element beyond earth, water, fire, and air. Medieval texts claimed the Stone’s particles were so fine they slipped through glass, vanishing like mist.

  Yet here, the emblem was inverted. The white dove of transcendence had been replaced by the raven, its dark twin. What did it mean?

  Yvette’s mind raced. Was this a ritual to bind—not to elevate? To solidify what should have remained ephemeral?

  The deaths of five family heads seemed to confirm it. Each had perished in ways mirroring their ancestral crests: fire, water, earth, air... and the wasting sickness. Too precise for chance.

  These weren’t modern heraldries. The families—Hamlin, Pratt, and three others—traced their lineage to the 1500s. Why would their ancestors choose such ominously elemental symbols? And why, after centuries of silence, had the curse awakened now?

  Lord Pratt's relocation of his ancestral home—stone by stone—had breached the ancient design. His was the first death. Sacrifice or warning? The other families soon followed.

  With the pentagram’s final "point" extinguished fortnight ago (old Hamlin’s lungs choked by tobacco), Yvette suspected the cycle had closed. Yet beneath the stillness lurked upheaval. Rituals of this scale left echoes.

  The tenant village buzzed with winter lethargy until a tavern commotion caught her ear. A harried wife lashed her drunken husband: "The florists pay well for wild rose roots! Must I do everything?"

  The man recoiled as if struck. "Never again," he whispered, fleeing like a hunted thing.

  Beyond the fields, the woodland keeper—all false warmth—hid rusted traps behind his grin. Noble privilege earned Yvette passage past teeth-like contraptions meant to cripple poachers.

  At the heart of the woods, the earth swelled like a burial mound. Beneath moss-veiled slabs lay a name:

  Margaret of York, 1434–1468.

  No church stood here now. Yet the marble fragments underfoot matched the Hamlin manor’s finest masonry—likely pillaged during Henry VIII’s Reformation, when abbeys fell to royal greed.

  Ghosts left no traces. Nor did the alchemical reagents glow. But as thorns pricked Yvette’s glove, she understood.

  The tenant’s terror. The roses flourishing where a altar once stood.

  Some roots ran deeper than stone.

  Wild Roses...

  Yvette freed the snagged hem of her dress, her mind drifting back to the drunken farmer she’d passed earlier—his wife scolding him for refusing to gather wild roses to sell. The earnings would fund their child’s apprenticeship in the city come spring.

  Scanning the thicket, she spotted clusters of similar shrubs. A few hours’ work here would yield far more than scavenging the open moors. Clearly, others had the same idea. In the forest warden’s confiscation chest, she’d seen hoes and spades—tools poachers wouldn’t bother with. No, these were for harvesting plants.

  But with the warden’s notorious cruelty, foraging here meant gambling with one’s safety. Perhaps that explained the drunk’s reluctance.

  With a final glance, Yvette swung onto her horse and retraced her path home.

  At Hamlin House, Oleander had just returned. He stood by the butler, debating the merits of converting a parlor into a billiard room. Spotting Yvette, he grinned. "Exploring solo? I nearly sent a search party."

  "London’s crowds stifle me. The solitude was refreshing."

  "North Yorkshire’s charm surpasses manicured gardens, don’t you think? Wilderness suits a true gentleman’s taste."

  "Magnificent views," she agreed. "I even met a local squire’s heir—a fellow alumnus, now a retired lawyer."

  "Ah, Baynes?"

  "You know him?"

  "Naturally. Landowners host annual tenant feasts—a tradition here. To boost attendance, families merged their celebrations generations ago. Though gentry influence has waned, the festival persists. We’ve been coordinating roles—Blatt’s the veteran; this is my first year."

  "Strange how five family patriarchs died in such quick succession."

  "Life’s fragile," Oleander shrugged. "Enough gloom. Join us at the festival—they’d adore you."

  Detecting no hidden knowledge in his tone, Yvette excused herself. Upstairs, she penned a letter to "Dear Mr. Marcus," disguising vital clues within banal travelogues.

  After detailing Yorkshire’s landscapes and cuisine, she casually named five gentry families—noting their crests—then lamented their recent leadership changes. Buried in the ramble was her true purpose: ruins of an old church, ringed by those families’ manors (one now a mine).

  Ravens, ideal in London, were hated here as crop-thieves. Paper was safer—interlopers would see only trivial chatter.

  Several more "letters to friends" followed before she summoned a servant to post them.

  ......

  "Remember: books crystallize thought, and thought breeds calamity—truth more violently than lies. Every volume here is perilous. If voices whisper or shadows beckon, ignore them. Never engage. Understood?"

  "Yes, Lord Marcus!"

  In the library, a black cat loomed over his apprentice—a freckled youth whose childhood encounter with a spectral staircase had led to his recruitment. Now an initiate, he studied under Marcus (a cursed scholar) with starry-eyed reverence.

  "Oh! A letter for you, sir." He offered the envelope.

  "Yvette again?" Marcus slit it open with a claw. "North Yorkshire? Fetch the 1550 case ledger!"

  The apprentice knew these logs documented Bureau interventions in historical "accidents"—especially Albion’s Church-aristocracy collusions.

  Marcus scanned the entries, tail twitching at "Virgil Lorenzo."

  Centuries ago, Rome appointed Lorenzo to oversee North Yorkshire’s prosperous diocese. When Albion’s king (denied a divorce by the Pope) seized Church lands, Lorenzo resisted—until a "commoner" assassinated him.

  Impossible. High-tier awakened don’t die to farmhands.

  Rumors swirled: five gentry families, backed by the crown, hired the killer. Their reward? Lorenzo’s redistributed lands.

  But Bureau agents later found disturbing notes in his belongings—

  ["Escape the flesh’s prison. Cast off suffering’s chains, and the Kindly One shall grant you peace…"] —The Nag Hammadi Codices.