We’ve reached the end, friends. Chapter 5 closes Vera’s childhood ends here and her life in America begins—the one you saw way back in Chapter 1.
Thank you for reading this strange, shadowy, unsettling tale. It stretched me. I hope it lingered with you.
🖤
—Skelly
Chapter 5 — Saying Goodbye
Vera hadn’t been to the marketplace in weeks.
Her body was healing, but slowly. Her steps were cautious. Her ribs still ached if she twisted too quickly. Her legs trembled after long walks. The doctor had cleared her for travel, but he warned her parents: Vera needed rest.
Still, she wanted to see it one last time. Northumberland. Her home.
The shoreline glistened in the late afternoon sun. Waves crashed against the rocky cliffs, and the cold sea air filled her lungs with a kind of ache that felt sacred. Vera closed her eyes and breathed it in like a prayer.
The tall grass swayed along the worn sandy paths. The market stalls were smaller than she remembered. Or maybe she had grown. Maybe she had just seen too much.
Alice walked beside her, cheerfully greeting merchants as she sold off the last of their supplies. Pies. Bread. Jars of stew.
Everyone complimented her on how clever she was—how she’d made something out of nothing.
Vera looked at the jars and turned away.
They left at dawn the next morning.
The cottage was empty. The goats had been sold. The barn door stood open one last time, creaking in the wind.
Vera didn’t say goodbye.
She just stood on the path, clutching her coat, and stared at the place that had shaped her. She stared until Wallace called her name from the cart, and Alice told her to climb aboard.
She never looked back.
Closing Scene — Home Again
The kettle whistled softly in the corner of the kitchen.
Vera Turnball, now old and thin, moved slowly to her stove, her hand curled around a chipped mug. The brownstone creaked around her with the weight of years. The neighborhood had changed. Children now rode scooters down the sidewalks. The market was just a chain grocery store. No one remembered the woman who had once made the best meat pies in three boroughs.
She stirred her tea slowly.
Outside, the wind rustled the city trees. A siren wailed in the distance. Somewhere, someone’s dog barked.
Inside, the house was still. Too still.
Vera walked to the window and looked out at the street below. Her bones ached. Her breath came shallow. But her eyes were sharp.
She didn’t fear death.
What she feared… was being remembered.
Because if they remembered her, they might ask questions.
They might wonder how a coal miner’s daughter made it to New York. How she managed to build a life on the other side of the sea with nothing but jars of stew and a well-practiced smile.
They might wonder what was in those jars.
She turned from the window.
Back to the fire. Back to the silence.
Sometimes, she thought of the cellar.
Of the weight in her arms. Of the way her mother’s eyes changed that night. Of Wallace’s voice telling her to be strong.
Of the way it never really left her.
Not even now.
She carried it still.
A soft knock came at the door.
Three taps.
Slow.
Vera froze.
The tea in her mug sloshed slightly as her hand trembled.
She waited.
The knock didn’t come again.
She didn’t move to open it.
Some things—some secrets—are best left on the other side of the door.
Sk-
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