‘My dad was one of the relatives of the founding members of the council,’ says Sophia. ‘I followed him one night and walked into a secret meeting. Turns out, the other council members wanted to sacrifice me, no matter what it took. All of their farms were failing and they were close to losing their livelihoods. That’s what happened to John Hammel. His own father and his brother killed him. They strung him up by his neck one day while he was sitting underneath the tree, drawing a sunset. They made it look like John did it to himself.’
‘But why? Why would members of the council kill their own son and brother? What did John do to deserve that?’
‘The same thing I did. He found out too much and got too close to the truth.’
‘Which is?’ asks Stephen. He can barely draw breath.
Sophia pauses a moment. ‘The members of the village committee are, and always have been, a bunch of sadistic murderers. For over a hundred years, they’ve run this village and they’ll do anything to stay on top, including scaring the rest of the community into believing in a curse. They created it. Haven’t you noticed how only four farming families are still thriving around here? The other farms and businesses in the area are dwindling each year, eventually having to close up,which ensures the remaining farms and businesses continue to thrive.’
Graham mutters a few indecent words under his breath.
Stephen clears his throat. ‘Let me get this straight because I’m a little confused. You’re saying that the founding members of the village council, including your father, have been controlling this entire village going back generations? That they’ve been killing anyone who’s got in their way and covering up deaths somehow, all while remaining undetected by everyone else around them?’
‘Pretty much, yeah. They have control over a lot of things, including what gets leaked to the press and what doesn’t. They’ve got everyone scared. Even the police. They killed one of them too, and they’ve been getting away with it for over a century.’
‘But your father … he’s hidden you and your mother down here to keep you safe. If he’s one of them, then why didn’t he allow you both to be sacrificed for their gain?’
Sophia sniffs loudly. ‘Turns out he does love me enough to not want me dead, but not enough to turn his back on the council. He’s scared too. They wanted to sacrifice my mum to start with, so Dad hid her away, but everyone’s farms and businesses started declining. They got it in their heads that the curse was real. They had to sacrifice someone, someone close to one of the council members. And since John Hammelstarted it all, they set their sights on me, a pure Hammel family descendant, but Dad couldn’t let them do it, so he grabbed me too.’
‘No one else knows you’re down here? The other village members have no idea that one of their own has been betraying them for over a decade?’
Sophia shakes her head. ‘I don’t know, but that leads me to my next question. How did you guys find us?’
‘Your father. He … left us a clue. A message. He said he was sorry and then … we found him hanging in the tree. I’m sorry,’ says Graham. ‘Stephen managed to decipher his code, managed to take the clue before the council members found him and took his body down.’
Sophia sinks to the floor, using the bars for support. Her body shakes as she sobs quietly.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Graham again.
Sophia sniffs loudly again, wiping her streaming nose and eyes with the cuff of her filthy shirt. ‘Do you think he did it to himself?’
‘I believe so, yes. He tried to right the wrongs, sacrificing himself for you and the community. He even tried to provide Stephen and I with other clues, including hiding a sketch and a missing person poster of you in the scarecrow’s jacket.’
Sophia frowns. ‘Ah, so that’s why he took John’s jacket from me.’
Graham nods.
‘There’s something else I don’t understand,’ says Stephen, interrupting the conversation. ‘If your father isn’t the main man in charge of the council, then who is? Who’s been leading the story of the curse? Is it Ceri Griffiths?’
Sophia opens her mouth to respond, but as she does, a loud bang echoes from behind them, sending cascades of dust and soil down upon their heads.
Stephen’s whole body freezes.
‘I think we may have just been locked down heretoo,’ says Graham.
Chapter 50
GRAHAM
As soon as the loud thud appears from above, Graham knows they are trapped. He turns to Sophia, whose eyes have turned to saucers. She grasps the bars, her knuckles white, shaking her head side to side in quick succession.
‘Sophia, is there another way out? How did your dad get in and out all the time?’
‘As far as I know, he used the ladder every day, but as he’s got older, he’s been making the trip less and less. We have stores of food down here, but we have run out once or twice.’
‘Where is your mother?’ asks Graham, looking behind her into the darkness.
‘She’s resting.’
