Eli sat cross-legged on the floor of the study—once his grandfather’s, later Uncle Ray’s—a room steeped in quiet obsession and pipe smoke. Generations of Turners had pored over maps and journals here, though none, he suspected, with quite the same intensity as Uncle Ray. The old desk still bore faint rings from Ray’s favorite coffee mug. Above it, a dusty antler mount kept solemn watch.
Across from him, Kate Landers knelt beside a box labeled Clippings & Oddities. She gingerly pulled out a brittle sheet of paper, squinting at the faded ink. “This one’s a recipe for sorghum cookies,” she said. “Unless ‘use before the harvest moon’ is some kind of code.”
Eli chuckled. “If it is, then my Uncle Ray was a cryptic baker.”
Kate smirked. “Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing we’ve found so far.”
They were three days into their self-appointed quest—part historical investigation, part treasure hunt. Since discovering the ledger and the marked map, they’d been combing through Ray’s lifetime of notes, looking for patterns. So far, they’d uncovered references to five “marks” supposedly created by Elias Arvin in 1836—four with potential location clues, and one called simply “The Fifth Mark,” hinted at as the key to everything else.
Eli slid a large, brittle scrapbook across the floor and opened to the back cover. Tucked inside was a 1910 township map of the area. Faint pencil dots formed a triangle west of the East Fork of the White River.
“There,” Kate said, leaning in. “That triangle—three dots. If we fold it just so…” She carefully creased the page. “They converge near a patch of land with no label.”
Eli nodded. “Ray used to talk about that area. Said it was too unstable to build—sinkholes, soft ground. But maybe Elias saw that as protection.”
Kate flipped through the ledger again and pointed to a margin note:
“Three bends beyond the bluff, the white oak leans with time. There, the compass sings true.”
“Poetic,” Eli said. “But frustratingly vague.”
“I don’t think it’s just vague,” Kate replied. “I think it’s layered. He was hiding something, but also leaving a trail.”
There was a pause. Then Kate asked, “You mentioned photo albums in the attic, right?”
Eli sighed. “Yep. And plenty of spiders.”
She stood up, brushing dust from her jeans. “I’ll grab the flashlight. You bring courage.”
Scene Two – The Attic Archive
The attic door groaned as Eli pulled it down, and the wooden steps creaked with reluctant age. A single bulb hung from the rafter like a hesitant moon. Dust hung thick in the air.
Kate waved her flashlight beam across trunks, boxes, and stacks of old furniture under canvas sheets. “This looks like a time capsule exploded.”
They opened a steamer trunk lined with quilts and family papers. A faded photo album sat near the top, its leather binding cracked but intact. Kate opened it carefully.
“Turner Family Reunion, 1917,” she read aloud from a hand-lettered caption. The photos showed mustached men and bonneted women standing stiffly in front of porches, wagons, and what looked like an early church building.
Then she turned to a sepia image that caught Eli’s eye—a log cabin beside a bluff, with the river barely visible behind it.
He leaned closer. “That might be the original Arvin homestead.”
Kate flipped it over. In elegant cursive:
“West of the bluff, before the flood took the south field.”
A penciled date read 1894.
Eli rubbed the back of his neck. “That confirms the bluff location. If we can find the remains of that homestead…”
Kate paused. A smaller photograph had slipped loose and landed on the floorboards. She picked it up—heavier paper, sharper image, darkened with age. It showed a solitary man standing beside a moss-covered stone, broad-shouldered and still.
Etched faintly on the bottom: E.A.
Kate handed it to Eli without a word.
They both stared.
“I think,” she said softly, “we just found our next step.”
Eli nodded, his voice barely above a whisper. “It’s time to follow the marks.”
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