Chapter 52

52

Blurred, dusty faces stare out at her—five photographs, roughly tacked to the cave wall.

Elin feels gooseflesh rising. Panic surges through her and she slowly breathes out, extending the exhalation as long as she can before sucking in another breath.

Bringing up the flashlight to face height, she hesitantly casts the beam across the images.

It's clear that they've been here awhile; each one covered with a thick film of dust, the heavy-duty tape sticking them to the wall peeling away at the edges.

"What the—" Steed starts, but Elin doesn't reply, her gaze fixed on the photographs.

Pulling on a pair of gloves, she reaches up a hand, starts gently wiping away the layer of powder on the image on the far left.

Features appear, but they're pixelated, grainy, as if the photograph has been taken from a distance and then zoomed in. Elin doggedly wipes until the face is revealed—a ponytail, then a wide smile giving a glimpse of crooked teeth.

Her stomach lurches: a photo of a teenage girl, no more than thirteen or fourteen.

Elin moves to the next with a mounting sense of trepidation, because already she knows what these photographs are. These faces are burned into her brain, into the collective consciousness of every person in the area all those years ago.

She's seen them countless times, countless places, and in countless ways—plastered across newspapers, TV screens, blogs.

"It's the teenagers that Creacher murdered back in 2003," she whispers.

A macabre lineup fixed to the cave wall.

These aren't the images that the newspapers used, though. They're candid profile shots; one of the teenagers is frowning slightly, obviously unaware it's being taken.

Another zoomed-in photograph shows one of the boys from the shoulder up, a building Elin recognizes blurred in the background.

Rock House. The school.

"The pictures must have been taken when these kids were on the island. That's the old school behind them."

Steed peers in, silent, processing like Elin is.

What does this mean? Why would these images be here?

Face by face, Elin carefully dislodges the powdery residue from the photographs, but on the last one she hasn't even wiped half of it away before she stops, hand midair.

Her fingers waver.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure." She falters. "This girl... I don't recognize her as one of Creacher's victims. I thought there were only four." She remembers how the newspapers displayed the victims' photographs. Two girls on top, the boys below. There were four; she's certain of it. "Maybe I'm mistaken, it was a long time ago."

Elin's about to take a photograph when the light from her flashlight picks out something else, on the floor, directly below one of the images.

A stone.

As she moves closer, another one pulls clear of the gloom.

Hand shaking, she moves from image to image.

One stone below each photograph.

Elin steps forward, then back, unsure if she's imagined the precision in how the stones are placed, but as she looks again, it's clear: the positioning is deliberate.

"That's weird." Steed's voice is shaky.

"I know." She crouches down, fixing the flashlight beam on the stone beneath the first photograph. "I—" But she stops, words dying in her mouth.

The stone has some kind of form, has clearly been shaped to create fluid dips and curves.

She keeps the beam fixed on it, not wanting to voice it aloud until she's certain.

Is she imagining it? Seeing something that isn't there?

Steadying the beam, she moves it carefully over the surface of the stone.

No, not her imagination .

The form is a gesture more than something definite, but there's no getting away from it: it's been shaped to resemble Reaper's Rock. Loosely hewn to give the outline, the nod to the scythe.

Elin finds herself recoiling, terror clutching at her gut, a primal reaction.

These stones are a link to the rock. To everything it represents. The Reaper.

Death made manifest, here in this cave.

She attempts a photograph, but her hand is sweaty and her phone crashes to the ground.

It skitters across the cave floor. As she searches for it, the beam of her flashlight dimly illuminates the surrounding space. More wall, stretching back into the gloom of the cave.

"Look." She bends down to pick the phone up. "It goes even farther back..."

Gingerly, they step forward, moving their lights slowly around them. A few yards on, her eyes pick out something else on the wall.

More photographs.

There's not as much dust as on the first five, the profiles clear without needing to wipe any away.

Bea. Seth.