The Blackwater Falls Historical Society sat at the edge of town like a forgotten tombstone—a two-story brick building with ivy choking its windows and a crooked sign that read Est. 1872. The air smelled of wet stone and decaying paper as Elena pushed open the heavy oak door, a brass bell tinkling overhead like a ghost's laugh.
Inside, time seemed suspended. Glass cases held yellowed photographs, rusted tools, a child's porcelain doll with one eye missing. Dust motes drifted in slanted beams of light, and silence pressed in—not empty, but waiting, the way silence did everywhere in this town now.
"Can I help you?"
The voice came from behind a high desk stacked with ledger books. A man in his late fifties stood, spectacles perched low on his nose, tweed coat frayed at the cuffs. His eyes were sharp, curious, and instantly wary.
"Dr. Aris Thorne?" Elena asked, remembering the name from Maya's journals.
He nodded slowly. "And you are?"
"Elena Vance. Maya Vance's sister."
Recognition flickered in his gaze—followed by something darker. Pity? Guilt? He removed his glasses and polished them with deliberate care. "Ah. I'm sorry for your loss. Maya was… singular."
"She came to you," Elena said, stepping closer. "About the Hollow Voice."
Thorne's hand stilled. He didn't deny it. "She did. Many have, over the years. Folklore draws the curious. The desperate." He gestured to a chair. "Sit. You look like you've seen a ghost."
Or heard one, Elena thought. But she sat.
Thorne poured two cups of bitter-smelling tea from a dented pot. "Maya believed the Hollow Voice was real. Not a metaphor. Not mass hysteria. A thing." He handed her a cup. "She showed me recordings. Patterns. Disappearances that recurred every thirty to forty years—always tied to new audio technology. Phonographs in 1893. Radios in 1937. Cassette tapes in 1979." He leaned forward. "Now? Digital voices. Smart speakers. Voice memos."
Elena's blood ran cold. Her dead phone. The whisper from its speaker.
"Maya thought it evolves," Thorne continued. "That it doesn't just haunt—it adapts. It learns how humans speak, then how they record speech… and finally, how they listen."
"Why?" Elena whispered.
Thorne's eyes darkened. "Because voices are identity. To steal a voice is to steal a soul's fingerprint. And once it has enough… it doesn't need to hide in static anymore."
He rose and walked to a locked cabinet. From it, he withdrew a leather-bound journal. "This belonged to my great-grandfather, Silas Thorne. He was the town physician in 1893. He tried to stop it."
He opened the journal. Sketches filled the pages: a stone circle in the woods, a strange device made of copper wire and quartz crystals, and a chilling notation:
"The Resonance Cage. It does not kill the Voice—it traps it in harmonic stasis. But it requires a sacrifice: a voice willing to be silenced forever."
Elena stared. "Maya knew about this."
"She did," Thorne said grimly. "She believed she could rebuild it. That she could contain it." He closed the journal. "But containment requires understanding. And the Hollow Voice… it doesn't like to be understood."
A sudden crash echoed from the back room—glass shattering.
Thorne tensed. "Just the wind," he muttered, too quickly.
But Elena heard it: beneath the settling dust, a whisper. Faint. Familiar.
"…Ellie…"
Her own voice.
She stood abruptly, tea sloshing over the rim of her cup. "It's here."
Thorne's face paled. He hurried to the window, peering out. "Go," he said, voice urgent. "Now. And Elena—don't play any recordings. Don't speak its name aloud. And for God's sake…" He met her eyes. "Don't let it learn your silence."
She didn't ask what he meant.
She ran.
Behind her, as she reached the street, the Historical Society's lights flickered once—then died.
And from inside, a phonograph began to play.
A woman's voice—clear, sweet, achingly young—sang an old lullaby Elena hadn't heard since childhood.
Her mother's voice.
But her mother had been dead for sixteen years.
And the lullaby… it had never been recorded.
End of Chapter 6