Returning to Oakhaven felt like stepping from a high-definition photograph into a blurred watercolor. As Liam crossed the threshold of the thicket, the roar of the "Quiet" hit him—the artificial cheer of wind chimes, the rhythmic snip-snip of hedge shears, the aggressive pleasantness of a town that refused to mourn.
But something had shifted. The ink on his fingers throbbed in time with his heartbeat, and for the first time, he saw the "glitches."
As he walked down Main Street, he saw Mr. Henderson, the grocer, stacking apples. For a fleeting second, Henderson's arm stuttered, repeating the same motion three times—reach, grab, stack; reach, grab, stack—like a scratched record. His face was a mask of vacant serenity until the loop broke, and he blinked, looking at the apples as if he'd never seen fruit before.
Liam hurried toward the flower shop. He had to know.
"Mrs. Gable?"
The shop smelled of lavender—too much lavender. It was a scent designed to drown out the brine of the sea. Mrs. Gable was trimming a bouquet of white lilies. She looked up, her smile radiating that signature Oakhaven warmth, but it didn't reach her eyes. Her eyes looked like windows into an empty house.
"Liam, dear! You look... haggard. Have you been sleeping? I have some chamomile that would do wonders."
"Mrs. Gable," Liam said, his voice low. He reached out and touched the wooden counter. He felt the weight of the book in his satchel, the memory of Thomas Gable pressing against his spine. "Did you ever want to live in a house with a garden of lavender? Built by someone who knew the smell of sawdust?"
The shears fell from her hand, clattering against the floor. The sound was too loud, too real.
The color in the room seemed to drain. The vibrant purples and greens of the flowers faded to a dusty grey. Mrs. Gable's hand flew to her throat, her fingers tracing a line where a necklace used to be.
"Sawdust," she whispered. Her voice wasn't airy anymore; it was cracked. "The way the light hit the bay... at five in the morning. It was so gold it hurt."
"Thomas," Liam said.
The name hit the room like a physical blow. The "Silence" reacted instantly. A sudden, unnatural fog began to roll in through the open door—not the sea mist of a coastal town, but a thick, white static that tasted like nothing.
Mrs. Gable's eyes widened. For a moment, she was there—truly there. "He went into the water, Liam. I let go. I chose to forget because the hole in my chest was too big to carry. I gave it away. I gave him away."
She began to sob, a raw, ugly sound that Oakhaven hadn't heard in decades.
But then, the Fog reached her ankles.
The sobbing cut off as if a switch had been flipped. Mrs. Gable blinked. She looked down at the shears on the floor, then up at Liam. Her face smoothed out, the wrinkles of grief ironing themselves away into a terrifying, porcelain mask.
"I'm sorry, what were we saying? The lilies are very fresh today."
"You were talking about Thomas," Liam pressed, his heart sinking. "You were crying."
"Thomas? Who is Thomas?" She laughed, that light, dandelion-fluff sound. "I don't know any Thomases. And I never cry, Liam. Life is far too lovely for that. Now, would you like the chamomile or not?"
Liam backed out of the shop, his stomach churning. He realized then that the Archive wasn't just a library; it was a life-support system. By "catching" the memory of Thomas, he had disturbed the town's equilibrium. The Silence was already moving to repair the leak.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin.
It was Elara. She looked frantic. She pulled him into the alleyway between the florist and the bakery.
"It's happening to the records, Liam," she whispered. Her yellow ribbon was lopsided, and there were ink stains on her cheeks. "I went back to the office, and the files are... changing. Not just blanking out. They're being rewritten. The 'Great Storm' in the old weather logs? It now says 'A Period of Refreshing Rain.' The casualty lists from the old mine collapse? They've been replaced by a list of winners from a 1970s bake-off."
"The town is healing itself," Liam said grimly. "Or what it thinks is healing."
"No," Elara said, her eyes wide with terror. "It's erasing the exits. If we don't remember that things were ever bad, we'll never realize we're in a cage. Liam, I saw a man today. A man in a charcoal coat. He was standing by the clock tower, but when I tried to point him out to a tourist, he... he just dissolved into the light."
"Elias is fading," Liam said. "He told me he's losing the Weight. I'm the only one who can hold it now."
As he spoke, the ground beneath them gave a sharp, violent shudder—a glitch in the earth itself. The shadow of the clock tower elongated, stretching across the cobblestones like a dark finger pointing directly at Liam.
The Silence wasn't just an abstract force anymore. It felt focused.
"Liam," Elara whispered, looking toward the street. "Why is everyone stopping?"
Liam looked out from the alley. Every person on Main Street had frozen in place. Mr. Henderson with his apples, the mailman with a letter, the children with their hoops. They all turned their heads in perfect unison toward the alley.
Their eyes were completely white.
"The Keeper," they said—not with their own voices, but with a sound like a thousand whispers layered over each other. "The Keeper must be quiet. The town must sleep."