^^^Yorkshire Moors, 1793 ^^^

The first frost always took the Hartleys.

They whispered about it in Blackthorn’s taverns, between pints of bitter and pipe smoke—how the Lennox heirs would vanish into the mist each December, returning with snow in their hair and secrets rotting behind their teeth. But Liora Hartley, the baker’s boy with wheat-gold curls and a laugh like church bells, didn’t believe in fairy tales. Not until the morning they found him.

Seventeen, seven days wed, and perfectly preserved beneath the snow.

No scream. No struggle. Just a smile, soft and sweet as a spouse’s, and a single strand of silver hair coiled in his palm.

Two centuries later, the frost still takes.

...**CASE FILE: BLACKTHORN FROST MURDERS**...

...Classified Level 4 // EYES ONLY...

##SUBJECT 001: DET. ADRIAN HAYES

- ROLE: Lead Investigator, Blackthorn CID (1959–Present)

- PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE: Obsessive, guilt-driven (see Incident Report #45-89 re: E---’s death), dismissive of occult theories despite evidence.

- PHYSICAL MARKERS: 185 cm, green-gold eyes, jagged scar across left palm (origin: unknown, resembles Lennox family crest).

...**KEY EVIDENCE TIES**...

- RE: Victim #4 (Margaret Harlow): Discovered journal fragment linking 1793 & 1993 murders.

- RE: Subject 002: Claims "visions" of 18th-century figure ("A--- L---") during interactions.

- ANOMALY: Body temp. drops to 33°C near Subject 002.

...**NOTES**...

Hayes exhibits erratic behavior post-Incident #45-89. Recommend psych eval. Filed under "HIGH RISK."

SUBJECT 002: LIORA HARTLEY (DECEASED)

- STATUS: Spectral entity (Unconfirmed). No physical remains recovered.

- HISTORICAL RECORD: Born 1776, died 1793. Married A---- (heir to Thornfield Estate) prior to death. Case closed as suicide; reopened 1823, 1893, 1993.

- CURRENT MANIFESTATION:

- APPEARANCE: Male, 17–20 y/o, pale hair/eyes, frostbite mottling on hands.

- BEHAVIOR: Non-hostile. Observed aiding Hayes’ investigations.

- ANOMALIES:

- Thermal displacement (ambient temp. drops 10°C within 3m radius).

- DNA traces recovered from Victim #5 scene match 1793 coroner’s report (99.7% certainty).

...**CURSE PROTOCOL (CLASSIFIED):**...

..."H----L--- Cycle" - Confidential Document...

- MECHANISM: Ritual sacrifice every 100 years to sustain L---- family

- VECTOR: Silver hair follicles (harvested from victims) used in t----

- BREAKPOINT: Hayes’ scar (linked to ---) may d---

...**EVIDENCE EXHIBIT #17:**...

- ITEM: Liora Hartley’s diary (1793).

- EXCERPT: "He says the frost speaks. It calls me his ‘everlasting ledger.’ I fear he knows what his family did. What they’ll do to us both."

...### **TEASER EXCERPT**###...

Adrian Hayes didn’t believe in ghosts.

Not until one followed him home.

It stood in his kitchen at 3 a.m., barefoot and bleeding frost onto the linoleum. Not a ghost—a boy, maybe nineteen, with hair like a winter dawn and eyes that held five centuries of silence.

"You took something from the lake," the boy said, voice crumbling at the edges. "They’ll kill you for it."

Adrian leveled his service revolver. "Who are you?"

A smile, fragile as old glass. "You named your sister after me."

The gun clattered.

Eva. Liora.

Outside, the first snow began to fall.

"Love is the only vow that outlives frost." — Last entry, Liora Hartley’s diary

...##CHAPTER 001: THE FROSTBITE CIPHER##...

^^^Blackthorn, Yorkshire – December 1993^^^

The village clung to the moors like a bruise, all stone cottages and smoke-stained chimneys coughing into a leaden sky. Detective Adrian Hayes’s boots crunched over gravel as he approached the crime scene, the fifth in as many weeks. Same M.O.: a body found beneath fresh snow, lips parted in a serene smile, a single strand of silver hair coiled in their palm. The press had dubbed it the “Frostbite Murders.” Adrian called it obsession.

He knelt beside the victim—Margaret Harlow, 62, retired librarian. No signs of struggle. No fingerprints. Just that smile, as if death had been a lover’s kiss. The local constables muttered about curses. Adrian ignored them, gloved fingers brushing Margaret’s frozen cheek. A flash of memory struck him: sepia-toned, a boy with wheat-gold hair laughing in a sunlit bakery, the scent of lemon cakes lingering in the air. He pressed his thumb to the jagged scar on his palm—a thorn-shaped mark he’d had since childhood—and the vision dissolved.

“Detective?”

The voice came from behind him, soft as snowfall. Adrian turned, and the world narrowed.

The man stood at the edge of the police tape, pale as the drifts encircling them. His hair—white, not blond—fell in untamed waves beneath a charcoal wool coat too thin for December. Eyes the color of ice under moonlight locked onto Adrian’s, and something in his chest twisted, a key turning in a rusted lock.

“You’re trespassing” Adrian said, sharper than intended.

The stranger’s gaze flicked to Margaret. “She isn’t the first.”

“You a journalist? Historian?”

“A concerned party.” His breath didn’t fog the air.

Adrian stepped closer. The temperature plummeted. “Name.”

A pause. Wind snatched the reply away.

“What?”

“Liora.” He pronounced it Lee-ora, the vowels round and foreign. “You’ll want this.”

A photograph materialized in Adrian’s hand—no, placed there, though he hadn’t seen Liora move. The image showed a newspaper clipping from 1890: Tragedy at Thornfield Manor – Young Bride Found Dead in Snow

“Margaret Harlow’s great-grandmother,” Liora murmured. “Also smiling.”

Adrian’s pulse thrummed. “Where did you—?”

But Liora was already walking away, boots silent on the snow. Adrian followed, logic warring with instinct. They stopped at the edge of the woods, skeletal trees clawing at the sky.

“Why come to me?” Adrian demanded.

Liora’s gloved hand rose, hesitant, toward Adrian’s face. Cold radiated through the leather. “You… remind me of someone.”

The touch never landed. A constable shouted from the road—“Hayes! Coroner’s here!”—and when Adrian glanced back, Liora was gone. Only a feathering of frost marked where he’d stood, forming a serpentine pattern Adrian swore he’d seen in his dreams.

Later – The Blackthorn Arms Pub

Adrian spread the files across his room’s narrow bed. Margaret Harlow. Alice Turner (1953). Eleanor Grey (1889). Each victim descended from the original 1793 case: Liora Hartley, baker, 17, found dead seven days after his wedding to landowner Arthur Lennox. The official report declared it suicide. Arthur disputed it, then vanished. The estate burned.

A knock startled him. Mrs. Doyle, the landlady, handed him a parcel. “Left for you at the bar.”

Inside: a diary, its pages brittle as autumn leaves. Liora’s diary.

October 1st, 1792

Arthur brought me violets today. He says they match my eyes. I told him violets are blue, not grey, and he laughed until he wept…

October 12th, 1792

Arthur’s father visited today. He brought a silver comb, said it was a wedding gift. When he touched my hair, the room turned cold. Arthur argued with him after—voices low, urgent. I found broken glassware in the parlor. The shards formed the same pattern as the frost outside our window: a serpent crowned with thorns.

November 15th, 1793

The servants whisper about “the seventh night.” Arthur dismissed them, but I saw his hands shake. He’s hidden a journal under the floorboards. Last night I dreamed of a tree with roots made of hair, its branches clutching silver rings. Arthur says the Lennoxes have tended this rot for centuries. He’s begging me to flee, but where?

December 6th, 1793

Arthur confessed his family’s secret—a pact sealed with Hartley blood. He says they’ll come for me at dawn. We’re to flee to the quarry tunnels. But the locks…the locks won’t open. I hear his father’s cane on the stairs. God help us.

December 7th, 1793

They took him. Pembroke’s men. Arthur fought, but they bound him with chains of frost. The last thing I saw—his palm, bleeding thorns, reaching for mine as they dragged him into the snow. I write this in the dark. They’re scratching at the door. It smells like bergamot and—

A splatter stained the page—ink, or something darker. Adrian flipped it, finding a sketch: the serpentine frost pattern from the woods.

His hands shook. In the room’s grimy mirror, his reflection seemed to blur, replaced for a heartbeat by a man in 18th-century dress, face contorted in grief.

A floorboard creaked.

Liora stood in the doorway, snow melting in his hair. “You see now.”

Adrian’s voice cracked. “Who were you to him? To Arthur?”

Liora unbuttoned his coat. Beneath it, a waistcoat of faded brocade. “What if I said ‘husband’?”

The admission hung between them, fragile as the frost on the windows. Adrian’s scar itched—the one he’d had since childhood, jagged across his palm, shaped like a thorn.

Liora’s breath hitched. “May I?”

He didn’t wait. Cold fingers brushed Adrian’s scar, and the room tilted.

—Arthur’s hands, scarred from briars, cupping Liora’s face—

—A scream smothered by snow—

—A vow: “Find me again.”

Adrian jerked back. “What the hell was that?”

Liora trembled, his edges blurring like a watercolor left in rain. “Nothing. Just a memory.”

To be continued...

...##CHAPTER 002: THE THORNFIELD EQUATION##...

^^^Blackthorn, Yorkshire – December 1993^^^

The vicarage attic reeked of mildew and mothballed secrets. Adrian’s torchlight carved through dust-swirled shadows, illuminating a trunk marked Lennox & Sons, 1793. Liora lingered by the attic window, his silhouette bleeding into the frost-etched glass. Three weeks since their first encounter. Three weeks of stilted silences and unsolved murders.

“Arthur’s steward hid this,” Adrian said, prying open the trunk. Inside lay a rusted flintlock pistol, a map of Thornfield’s quarry tunnels, and a ledger sealed with wax—a serpent crowned with thorns.

Liora’s breath crystallized midair. “Don’t-”

Adrian cracked the seal.

^^^12th December 1793^^^

To Lord Pembroke,

The boy conspires with the baker. Eliminate the Hartley before solstice. Stage the scene as before. Payment enclosed: 200 pounds, silver.

Adrian’s scar prickled. “They paid to bury you alive.”

Liora’s form flickered, edges dissolving like ink in water. “Arthur intercepted their mercenaries. He—” A shudder wracked him, frost spiderwebbing across the floorboards. “He died in the snow, clutching my ring. They entombed us together beneath the stables.”

Adrian’s thumb grazed the thorn-shaped scar. Find me again. “Why the smiles? The hair?”

“Mockery.” Liora pressed a hand to his own chest, where a silver locket hung—empty now. “The Lennoxes believed stolen hair tethered souls to their control. The smiles…” His voice fractured. “A reminder that we died grateful for their ‘mercy'.”

Outside, sleet needled the roof. Adrian’s pager buzzed—Eva’s emergency code. Mill. Now. Found the ledger.

^^^Blackthorn Mill – 10:47 PM^^^

Eva’s laughter echoed through the derelict building, her torchlight dancing in the rafters. At 22, she was all sharp edges and reckless curiosity, her latest find clutched in ink-stained hands: a shipping ledger from 1893.

“They’ve been funneling Hartleys to Thornfield for centuries” she said, breath clouding. “Look—1889: ‘Eleanor Grey, 19, seamstress.’ 1953: ‘Alice Turner, 24, librarian.’ All transported by Lennox Rail under ‘specimen’ codes. All killed on December 7th.”

A floorboard groaned.

Eva froze. “Adrian…?”

The temperature plunged. Frost bloomed across the ledger pages, crystallizing the name Margaret Harlow.

^^^The Blackthorn Arms – 11:29 PM^^^

“She’s not picking up.” Adrian slammed the payphone receiver, panic acid-sharp on his tongue.

Liora materialized in the doorway, snow avoiding him like a repelled magnet. “Your sister.”

“You knew”

“I suspected. I warned you they fixate on kin.” His gaze dropped to Adrian’s scar. “You carry Arthur’s blood. Eva carries yours. To them, she’s… collateral.”

Adrian gripped Liora’s collar, gloves sinking into velvet. “Where. Is. She.”

Liora’s eyes flickered—fear, or its ghost. “The mill. But Adrian, you mustn’t—”

He was already running.

^^^The Mill – Midnight^^^

Eva lay supine in the snow, cheeks porcelain, lips curved in that cursed smile. A silver strand coiled in her fist—her own hair, Adrian realized, torn from the root.

He collapsed beside her. “Eva. Eva.”

Liora materialized, trembling. “They’ve grafted the cycle onto your bloodline. A Lennox heir kills a Hartley descendent every century to renew their power. Your sister… she’s the fifth.”

Adrian cradled Eva’s head. Her skin held the unnatural chill of a freezer aisle. “Why her? Why now?”

“Because you’re close to the truth.” Liora knelt, frost crackling beneath him. “Because I…”

Adrian seized his wrist.

*Vision:*

—Arthur dragging a iron box through quarry tunnels, his hands bleeding thorns—

—A ledger entry: “7th December 1993: E. Hayes, 22. Payment: 10,000 pounds (Silvia Lennox)”—

—Eva’s scream, cut short by snow filling her lungs—

Adrian recoiled. “Silvia Lennox. The coroner.”

Liora nodded. “She certified your sister’s death. Her family has overseen the ritual since 1793.”

Wind howled. A twig snapped in the woods.

Liora stood, resolve hardening. “Arthur hid a box in the quarry tunnels. It holds proof to break the cycle. Bring it to Thornfield’s chapel by dawn.”

“Or what?”

“You’ll join the pattern.”

Ephemera

- Eva’s Pocket Journal: A page torn from a Lennox ledger lists payments to Silvia Lennox for “waste disposal” (1989–1993).

- Liora’s Token: A dried violet falls from his coat—Arthur’s final gift, pressed between pages of his diary. Its stem bends into a crude 'A'.

To be continued...