PART 2 — THE GHOST ON THE RANCH… AND A SECRET IN THE ATTIC!
PART 2 — THE GHOST ON THE RANCH… AND A SECRET IN THE ATTIC! 💔
Ethan couldn’t breathe.
Beneath the tarnished silver clasp, etched in delicate cursive, were the letters: E. J. Blackwood — Always.
Clara stepped between them, her mother’s instincts flaring. “Who are you? What do you know about Sophie’s father?”
Ethan looked up, his hand visibly trembling as he pulled his hat back down over his brow. The hardened recluse the town feared was completely shaken.
“Her father was my identical twin brother, Julian,” Ethan rasped, his voice rough with raw emotion. “Four years ago, his car went off Miller’s Ridge during a blizzard. The vehicle burned. We were told there were no survivors… and that Julian had died alone.”
Clara gasped, covering her mouth. “Julian never told me his family’s name was Blackwood… He said he was running from dangerous people. He left the day after Sophie was born to keep us safe, and I never saw him again.”
Ethan stared at Sophie, whose bright blue eyes matched his own perfectly. She wasn’t just a stranger at a depot—she was his blood. The niece he never knew existed.
“Richard Hayes was wrong about one thing,” Ethan said, standing tall and glaring toward the road where Richard had fled. “You aren’t sleeping on any street.”
Without waiting for objections, Ethan loaded their two worn suitcases into the back of his heavy-duty truck and gently lifted Sophie into the pᴀssenger seat. As they drove past whispering townsfolk and through the towering iron gates of Blackwood Manor—a sprawling 2,000-acre ranch—Clara couldn’t shake the eerie tension hanging over the land.
Ethan carried Sophie into the grand foyer, but the welcoming warmth stopped the moment an elderly housekeeper emerged from the hallway.
The woman took one look at Sophie’s face and dropped her tray, shattering porcelain across the hardwood floor.
“Dear God…” the housekeeper whimpered, backing away in terror. “She has his eyes. Ethan, you can’t bring her here! If she finds out…”
“Enough, Martha,” Ethan warned, his tone sharp.
That night, after Ethan had settled Clara and a sleeping Sophie into the warm guest wing, Clara couldn’t sleep. The mansion was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ silent—except for a faint, rhythmic sound overhead.
Thump… drag… thump.
Footsteps. Coming from the locked third-floor attic that Ethan had explicitly told her never to approach.
Curiosity overtook fear. Barefoot, Clara crept up the dusty staircase. The heavy oak door at the end of the hall was slightly ajar, a single candle flickering inside.
Clara pushed the door open just an inch and peered into the shadows.
There, sitting in front of a vanity surrounded by old newspaper clippings of the fiery crash, was an elegant woman in a black mourning veil, holding an identical silver bracelet.
Ethan’s mother—a woman the entire valley believed had died of grief three years ago.
Before Clara could draw a breath to scream, a cold hand clamped тιԍнтly over her mouth from behind, and a sinister voice whispered directly into her ear:
“You should have stayed on the train, Clara… Julian didn’t run away. We put him in that ground.”
TO BE CONTINUED… 😱
