The Pale Eye of Bethel Moor

By the time I got to Bethel the sun was already gone, and the place felt cold. Nothing moved out there. Nothing grew. It wasn’t dead, more like it had stopped living. Some places just carry a kind of sadness in them, like the land itself had just given up. Bethel was one of those places.

The old manor stood by itself, half-sinking into the ground with age. You could tell it used to mean something to someone. Now it looked more like something that had been left behind and forgotten on purpose.

I was only there because of a letter I had received with just my address, no name. Just a few lines, the ink faded and shaky, like whoever wrote it had been holding onto something too long.

"Come before midnight. The boy still waits."

No return address. Only the crest of Saint Marrow’s Academy, a place scorched from both map and memory nineteen years prior.

I told myself I came to silence a delusion. To prove something dead stayed dead. Yet beneath that resolve lay a quieter truth: I feared it hadn’t, and worse, I feared I had left it alive.

The front door opened before I could knock. Behind it stood an old man with eyes covered in cataracts and skin that looked like paste. He said no words. Only stepped aside. His body trembled as though the effort of standing belonged to a younger man.

I entered.

The wall lamps cast a dim, light. Their weak glow barely reached the far end, leaving most of the hallway nearly dark. Every painting was turned face-down, as if whoever lived here didn’t want anyone looking or remembering.

The old man said nothing. He just pointed down the hall and was gone before I could ask a single question.

In the room he’d shown me, there was a boy. Couldn’t have been more than seventeen. Just sitting there, quiet, pale, motionless and clad in the green uniform of Saint Marrow’s Academy with silver buttons. An embroidered owl gripping a key on his chest. That uniform should have burned. I had seen it burn. I had smelled it as I fled the hill above the dormitory.

His head turned slowly toward me. That same half-smile touched his lips, the one he wore the morning before the fire.

"Hello, Arthur," he said.

My name. Spoken in a voice I hadn’t heard since the screams were swallowed by flame. I staggered back, heart clawing inside my chest.

"Gideon," I breathed. "You’re"

"You read the letter." He tilted his head, owl-like. "And you came. That means something."

"You... you were inside. You didn’t make it out."

His eyes never wavered. "Did you try to pull me out?"

"I tried the handle." My voice rasped. "It was burning."

"You called my name once." He ran a finger along his blazer cuff. "Then you turned. You reached the path. You did not turn back."

I said nothing. There was no defense that didn’t reek of cowardice.

"I thought you were behind me," I said.

"You hoped I was."

I took a step back, hoping this was just a dream I could shake off. The lights in the corridor turned a sick, greenish color. Somewhere deep below the manor, something let out a long, low groan, like it was buried under tons of stone and trying to move.

"No," I said, though my feet moved forward.

He led me through twisting staircases, downward. The doors on either side of the hall thudded as we passed them. Some bore names carved in crude strokes: THOMAS, JULES, BARNABY. I knew them all. Knew their laughter. Knew their silence when I arrived at the chapel alone the morning after the blaze.

Every step stirred what the fire had left behind.

Then came the stairs, stone worn smooth by something older than footsteps. At the bottom: a door made of heavy wood, split slightly down the middle as though pried open by hands too desperate to worry over splinters.

The chamber beyond was vast, like a chapel hollowed from beneath the moor. There were beds, row on row, made from rusted brass. Upon each, a boy lay. Dressed in the same green uniform. Silent. Unmoving. Their faces turned upward toward the ceiling that did not end. Each had eyes open wide, but no pupils, no irises. Just pale, reflecting orbs like dull moons.

"They stayed," Gideon said.

I stepped forward, unable to help myself. The boy nearest me, Reuben, I recognized him, held something in his hand. A matchbook from the tavern outside Saint Marrow’s gate. Inside the cover, I saw my own handwriting.

"Next time, your round."

I dropped it and stumbled back.

"You didn’t die here," I muttered. "This isn’t real. You’re a dream of guilt. A figment of rot."

"Perhaps." Gideon stood at my shoulder. "But even figments need witnesses."

I ran.

The halls wound tighter now. The lamps burst as I passed. I saw things, glimpses of memories I never lived. Boys locked behind doors, calling my name. Children with mouths sewn shut. Teachers with their faces reversed, smiling with the backs of their skulls.

My lungs ached. My vision blurred. I returned at last to a chamber that had once been mine. The wallpaper bore my initials carved in uneven lines. Upon the desk sat the letter again. The one that had summoned me.

The ink had changed.

"Confess before dawn, or stay."

I turned toward the window. The sky had softened to gray. Dawn lurked just beyond the horizon, slow and sullen. Time crawled in this place. Light approached as if uncertain it was welcome.

"I was afraid," I whispered. "I didn’t mean to leave you."

"But you did." Gideon’s voice was gentle now. "You ran. And then you buried us, in silence, in liquor, and in shame."

I turned, and he stood by the bed, his face thinner than before. The skin beneath his eyes darkened. A line of soot marked his throat.

"I’m sorry," I said.

He nodded.

"I know."

He reached and touched my shoulder; his hands were cold.

Then he turned and walked toward the hallway. No smoke, no fire and no wrath. Only retreat.

The chamber brightened.

A bird called.

When I opened my eyes, I lay on the moor. The manor was gone. A circle of scorched earth remained. Charred brickwork protruded from the ground like ribs. Wind cut across the barren field. My watch read 5:41.

In my fist, I still held the matchbook.

Saint Marrow’s Academy has no records. No living alumni. Ask anyone, and they’ll say it never existed a myth, a fabrication. And yet, I remember.

I remember the taste of soot on my tongue. The single scream that echoed when I turned away. I remember Gideon’s eyes through the smoke.

Each year, on this night, I return. To remember. To wait for the letter that comes without fail.

Because dawn never absolves what we bury in the dark.