Page 91 of A Heart So Haunted
I zoomed in.
A scanned copy of a thickened journal page stared back at me. The symbols weren’t exactly the same as the ones on the doorframe, but they were close.
I shot Hadrian a look. The chair creaked as he leaned in.
“Do you think the woman that brought these in would know anything?”
“I doubt it. Her grandmother long since passed and she was the only surviving grandchild,” she said, with a sad huff. “I asked, but she didn’t know much else. Anyway, I thought I’d seen them before, so I started searching through some old folklore forums. Someone had that top symbol, there on the scanned sheet? As their banner.”
“Really?”
I could almost hear her nod. “Yep, so I messaged the guy. He said his family was from Appalachia.OldAppalachia. And his grandparents used to talk about this old man up the street that was tried for blasphemy when they were children, but something happened when they went to retrieve him for Court Day.”
Without thinking, I grabbed Hadrian’s wrist with a gasp. “This must have been—” The dates raced through my mind.
“Mid to late 1800s,” Irene said.
My other hand covered my mouth. I shook Hadrian’s arm. I didn’t realize how close he sat, how near he was, until I heard the flutter of his heart and looked up to those yellow eyes locked on me. That was when Hadrian was born. It had to be related somehow.
“Right,” I said, breathy. I remembered Court Days from researching aesthetic inspirations. I’d somehow landed on a homestead in North Carolina, and my research had told me that Court Days would take place once or twice a month in older towns. Most were open tothe public, and citizens could line up to give grievances to the judge—or cases were open for public observation.
“Anyway, the man had vanished. But he had these symbols all over his cabin.”
My mouth formed an O. My palm, I noticed, burned with anticipation against Hadrian’s skin. Hadrian had supposedly vanished—just like the man. Had his obituary listed him as having died from natural causes, too?
“The guy who ran the forum was looking up the symbols for a separate disappearance, but he’d found a few translations over the years.” Irene’s words turned a little breathless with excitement. Another buzz. Screenshots of text messages filled my screen. “This is what he said.”
The phone went quiet as she let me read.
ZACH:Hey, sorry it took so long. I think I figured out some of it. Some of the symbols aren’t in the artifacts recovered from the cabin but I got enough for you to maybe fill in the blanks. Looks like a sort of loop lmk if that sounds right to you
I got:
The first symbol is for attach, or bound/tied (maybe something similar)
The next two look like the phrase “to be meaningful” the best I could come up with
Don’t know the next three, they look scratchy tbh they look like drawings, not symbols
Last one means “circle”
An echoing sort of disappointment filled me. It wasn’t specific enough to tell uswhatit did, and with the missing symbols, there was no telling what it really meant. How were we supposed to untie a knot when we didn’t know how it’d been tied in the first place?
Then, the next text:
ZACH:Don’t know if that helps much but if it’s on a door I would think it’s keeping something in or out. As long as the door is closed you should be good.
I snorted at that last part. Too late for that.
IRENE:What about the seven symbols on the floor in front of the door?
ZACH:Let me check.
ZACH:Not sure, sorry. Looks like “latch.” I know this sounds like a classic haunting, but sentimental items can hold stuff. Or are you sure there aren’t any remains in the house? They could be holding anything to it until it’s destroyed. I’ve only seen these symbols used as a way of channeling things, not creating them. So whatever is in the house already existed, it wasn’t created from them, if that makes sense. Basically it was either put there on purpose or accidently brought in.
I gave Hadrian a look. Well, at least I could confidently say that there was, in fact, an entity in the house. And it was a full-grown man with horns.
“He’s saying the symbols are there to contain whatever was inside,” I said. I couldn’t keep the defeat from leaking into my words. It might help explain the echoes of memories in the room, but it didn’t explain the things happening outside of Hadrian’s presence. Or why he was changing, and not at will.
