001: The Frostbite Cipher

...##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...

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