“Thomas Mercer.”
Morgan looked from Mrs. Bell to the photograph.
“No.”
Mrs. Bell’s expression tightened.
“No?”
“No more names without explanations. Who was Thomas Mercer?”
People continued talking around them as though nothing unusual had happened.
The photograph remained on the empty chair.
YOU CAME HOME.
HE CAN TOO.
Mrs. Bell reached for it.
Morgan caught her wrist.
“Don’t.”
Mrs. Bell stopped.
“You’re the one who keeps telling me not to touch things that appear where they shouldn’t.”
For the first time all evening, DC looked amused.
“She has a point.”
“This isn’t funny, DC.”
“I know. I’m coping.”
Morgan crouched beside the chair.
The fresh ink had dried.
“Was Thomas the person my grandmother was waiting for?”
“I don’t know.”
Morgan looked up sharply.
Mrs. Bell raised a hand before she could object.
“I truly don’t. Evelyn never told me who she was waiting for.”
“But you knew Thomas.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Mrs. Bell looked around the Golden Parlour.
“Not here.”
Morgan stared at her.
“You cannot possibly be serious.”
“Morgan.”
“No. We have tried not here. We have also tried tomorrow. Neither has been particularly productive.”
DC coughed into his hand.
Morgan looked at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Mrs. Bell sighed.
“Thomas was our friend.”
Morgan's attention returned to her.
“Yours and my grandmother’s?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Bell looked toward the empty chair.
“A very good one.”
“The photograph was taken here in Bellweather?”
“At the orchard.”
“I know that. When?”
“October 17, 1978.”
Morgan looked down at the photograph.
The date on the back suddenly meant something different.
“That was the day he disappeared?”
Mrs. Bell nodded.
“And you were both with him.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Mrs. Bell’s gaze shifted toward the crowded room.
“Not all of us agree.”
Morgan frowned.
“About what happened?”
“About what we remember.”
Before Morgan could ask what that meant, someone called Mrs. Bell’s name from across the parlour.
Mrs. Bell ignored them.
“You wanted answers. Tomorrow morning, go to the historical room upstairs.”
Morgan folded her arms.
“Why?”
“Because I can tell you what I remember.”
Mrs. Bell looked at the photograph.
“But Bellweather wrote down something else.”
The Gathering ended shortly before midnight.
Morgan took the photograph home.
Nobody stopped her.
The thirteenth apple had stopped knocking.
She wasn't sure whether that made her feel better.
She left it beneath the mixing bowl anyway.
The photograph went on the table beside the brass key.
Morgan sat across from both of them with a cup of coffee and stared.
Thomas Mercer.
She searched his name on her phone.
Almost nothing.
A few genealogy results.
A mention of the Mercer family in a digitized Bellweather anniversary booklet.
But nothing about a disappearance.
Nothing about October 17, 1978.
Nothing about a missing man.
Morgan searched again.
Thomas Mercer Bellweather missing
Nothing.
Thomas Mercer October 17 1978
Nothing.
She leaned back.
A man had disappeared from a small town where people still remembered who won a pie contest thirty years ago, and somehow the internet had nothing to say about him.
Morgan looked at the photograph.
“That’s not suspicious at all.”
She closed her laptop.
Tomorrow, then.
The Bellweather House looked completely different without the Gathering.
No music.
No crowds.
No tables filled with food.
Morning light poured through the tall windows and revealed every scratch in the old floors.
Morgan climbed the staircase.
The historical room occupied what had once been a bedroom.
Glass cases lined the walls. Old maps hung beneath framed photographs. Shelves held town ledgers, school yearbooks, newspaper clippings, and enough local history to keep a very specific kind of person entertained for weeks.
Morgan found a volunteer behind the desk.
“Can I look at records from 1978?”
The woman barely glanced up from her book.
“Cabinet four.”
Apparently Bellweather’s secrets were self-service.
Morgan opened the cabinet.
Folders had been arranged by month.
She found October.
Inside were newspaper clippings, council notes, photographs, event programs, and a thin folder labeled:
OCTOBER 17, 1978
Morgan stared at it.
That had been easier than expected.
She carried it to the table.
The first page contained a list.
AUTUMN SEARCH RECORD
Thirteen names had been typed beneath the heading.
Morgan recognized several surnames.
Bell.
Bennett.
Carter.
Families still living in Bellweather.
She counted.
Thirteen.
Except the final name was gone.
Not crossed out.
Not covered with ink.
Erased.
Someone had rubbed the paper so aggressively that it had become thin and rough beneath Morgan’s fingertips.
She turned the page.
A map of the western woods.
Another page.
Search times.
Weather conditions.
Names of volunteers.
Morgan went back to the list.
Thirteen names.
Twelve readable.
One missing.
She held the paper toward the window.
Nothing.
Morgan lowered it.
Then paused.
There was something on the back.
She turned the sheet over.
Faint pencil marks covered the paper.
Not words.
Indentations.
Someone had written on another sheet while it rested on top of this one.
Morgan grabbed a pencil from the desk.
She hesitated.
Then lightly shaded across the impressions.
Letters emerged.
THOMAS MERCER
Morgan stopped.
The erased name wasn't Thomas.
His name had been written separately.
She kept shading.
Another line appeared.
SEARCH PARTY: 13
Then beneath it:
RETURNED: 12
Morgan stared.
Someone had gone into the woods looking for Thomas Mercer.
And someone else hadn't come back.
She flipped the page again.
Twelve readable names.
One erased.
Morgan’s pulse quickened.
She scanned them.
Margaret Bell.
Evelyn Bennett.
Richard Carter.
Nine others.
And the missing thirteenth.
The historical-room door creaked behind her.
Morgan turned.
Nobody was there.
She looked back at the paper.
Something had changed.
Dark lines were beginning to appear where the erased name had been.
Not ink.
Not pencil.
The damaged fibers themselves seemed to be darkening.
One letter formed.
Then another.
Morgan stood so quickly her chair scraped across the floor.
The name continued appearing.
MORGAN BENNETT
She stared at it.
“No.”
The lights flickered.
Morgan grabbed the page.
Her name vanished.
The paper was blank again.
Except for four words written beneath the list.
The handwriting was familiar now.
The same hand from the photograph.
YOU USED TO REMEMBER.
Morgan backed away from the table.
A dry leaf drifted past her face.
She watched it land on the floor.
Then another fell.
And another.
Morgan looked up.
Golden maple leaves covered the ceiling.
Hundreds of them.
They trembled despite the still air.
One broke free.
Then ten.
Then all of them.
Morgan threw her arms over her head as leaves filled the room.
They struck the floor in a rushing wave.
And then everything stopped.
Morgan slowly lowered her arms.
The historical room was empty again.
No leaves.
No movement.
Only the record remained on the table.
Morgan approached it.
The message was gone.
But something else now rested on top of the page.
A single golden maple leaf.
Morgan picked it up.
Written across its surface in black ink was a date.
October 17, 2005.
Morgan stared at it.
She knew that year.
She was seven years old.
The same age she'd been in the photograph at the cabin.
And suddenly Mrs. Bell’s words returned to her.
I know you should.
Morgan slipped the leaf into her pocket.
For the first time, she understood.
Whatever had happened to Thomas Mercer in 1978 wasn't the only thing Bellweather had buried.
Something had happened to Morgan, too.
And somehow, she had forgotten it.
