The back house of the ancestral hall stood apart from the main manor, a solitary stone structure nestled in the shadow of ancient yew trees. It was a place of temporary rest, a waypoint between the world of the living and the cold, final embrace of the family crypt.
Tonight, it held a secret that the Thompson family was desperate to bury.
Inside, the air was unnaturally still. It smelled of damp earth, old, rotting wood, and the faint, sickly-sweet scent of funeral incense. A single, thick white candle burned on a small, unsteady table near the head of the coffin. Its flame sputtered and danced, casting long, erratic shadows that seemed to crawl up the rough stone walls like dark, grasping fingers.
The simple wooden coffin lay in the center of the room on a trestle. It was unadorned. No gold leaf, no velvet lining, no family crest. Just plain, rough-hewn pine for a criminal who had taken her own life in a dungeon cell.
