Chapter Twenty-Three: The Thread That Shouldn't Be
The Tether Circle stood silent beneath a bruised twilight sky.
Pair-tethering had become the norm. The people of Grayer's Hollow moved with greater trust, greater caution. With each joined memory, the community healed a little more—thread by thread.
But not everyone tethered with pure intentions.
Some used the ritual to hide their truths within the guise of sharing them. After all, who could verify what was real when pain was performed?
---
It was Ruth who first noticed the anomaly.
A tether line between siblings—Ava and Owen Carrow—glowed a strange greenish hue. Not the silver of memory, not the gold of truth. Not even the familiar red of guilt.
This one shimmered like oil on water. Iridescent. Flickering.
Ruth called the meeting immediately.
Ellie, Granger, Elder Price, and a few Tenders surrounded the pair in the Circle.
Ruth gestured to the thread. "This isn't a memory. It's a story."
Ava scowled. "It's what happened."
Granger stepped forward. "Tell us what you tethered."
Owen was the one who spoke. "The day of the Hollow Root collapse. We claimed we were out of town—at the river cliffs. But... we weren't. We were here. And we—"
He paused, eyes glancing at Ava.
Ava's voice took over smoothly, almost rehearsed. "We saw the first cracks form. We could have warned someone. But we panicked. We ran."
A long silence followed.
Ellie looked into the thread. It pulsed with rhythm, not recollection. Like a song played from memory rather than lived.
"This isn't real," she whispered.
---
The Circle hummed with unease.
"Memory is flawed," Elder Price said slowly. "But this isn't flawed. It's fabricated."
Granger's hands clenched. "They're trying to make us carry a lie. Together."
A ripple of darkness moved along the thread.
Small at first. Then jagged. Like ink spilling through paper.
The moment it touched Owen's fingers, his eyes rolled back—and he screamed.
Not in pain.
But as if he'd seen something beautiful.
---
The web rejected them.
A burst of force knocked the siblings backward, separating them from the pillars. The thread snapped—but it didn't vanish.
It slithered away.
Into the grass.
Toward the woods.
Ellie bolted after it.
"Don't!" Ruth cried.
But it was too late.
---
She chased it past the whispering birches, where roots tangled like veins.
The thread moved like a serpent—pulling itself toward a place Ellie recognized in her bones:
The Cradle of Echoes.
The place where Mei had died.
Where the first untruth had taken root in Ellie's heart.
She slowed as the thread burrowed into the soil.
And something—something—began to rise.
A mirror.
Buried.
Cracked.
Its surface shimmered not with reflection, but with projection.
A hundred Ellies stared back.
Each whispering something different.
> "I didn't push her."
"She slipped."
"She saw something and fell."
"I tried to save her."
"She was screaming before I touched her."
"It wasn't my fault."
And one voice louder than the rest:
> "She deserved it."
---
Ellie fell to her knees.
The thread coiled around the mirror's base.
It had found something to anchor to—not a memory, but a fracture.
A space where truth had never taken root.
The air grew colder.
And the shadow-child stepped forward again.
Only this time, it had grown.
Taller. More defined.
Still eyeless, but with a mouth now.
It spoke with a thousand whispers in unison:
> "Do you want someone to carry that too?"
Ellie shook her head.
"I didn't mean to lie—"
> "But you did."
"Because I couldn't face it."
> "Now you don't have to."
Its arms extended. Gentle.
Mocking.
Ellie looked down at the mirrored surface.
And one reflection—the one she had buried deepest—wasn't whispering.
It was smiling.
---
Back at the Circle, chaos erupted.
More threads began to shimmer green.
People suddenly questioned their own tethers.
"Did I really see him fall?"
"Did she really confess?"
"Was I actually there that night?"
Doubt was contagious.
It moved faster than memory.
Ruth slammed her staff into the center stone.
"Anchor tether—now!"
Granger dropped to his knees, creating a grounding line.
But the silver thread refused to spark.
Ellie hadn't returned.
---
In the woods, Ellie rose.
Sweating.
Shaking.
She had not accepted the offer.
But the thread was still there.
Still pulsing.
Feeding.
And from beneath the cracked mirror, roots began to grow.
Dark. Glowing.
Feeding on doubt.
---
She reached for the pocket beneath her coat and pulled free the shard she kept—a piece of the original Hollow Root, preserved.
With trembling hands, she pressed it to the mirror.
The glass shrieked.
The images flickered.
And all but one reflection vanished.
The one that was true.
The one where she pushed Mei—out of fear, out of panic, not malice.
Not hate.
Just terror.
She whispered to it.
"I see you. I'm sorry."
The mirror cracked—for real this time.
The thread recoiled.
And the shadow screamed.
---
Ellie walked back into the Circle at dawn, blood on her knuckles, dust on her coat.
She said nothing.
But she handed Granger the splintered thread.
"This one... is mine."
He hesitated. "You sure?"
"I need someone to carry it. As it really was."
Granger didn't ask questions.
He took her hand.
And together, they anchored the first truthful lie.