Читати книгу - "Secrets of the Ancient Estate, Kyuriym"

Pritchard’s cottage was a small, isolated building at the edge of the forest. It looked unassuming from the outside, but Sam had learned never to trust appearances. As he approached the door, he noticed the windows were dark, and the air was unnervingly still.

Sam knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He tried again, louder this time, but still nothing. His heart quickened. Something wasn’t right.

“Pritchard!” Sam called, banging harder on the door. Still no response.

After a moment’s hesitation, Sam reached for the door handle. It turned easily in his hand. The door wasn’t locked.

Sam stepped inside, his senses on high alert. The air inside the cottage was stale, filled with the musty scent of old wood and damp earth. His flashlight cast long shadows across the small room, revealing little more than a worn armchair, a table, and a few scattered books.

“Graham?” Sam called again, but the silence was deafening.

He moved through the cottage cautiously, his flashlight sweeping across every surface. The place looked untouched, as though Pritchard hadn’t been there in days. But there was something strange about the room—an undercurrent of tension that Sam couldn’t quite place.

As he neared the far wall, his flashlight caught the glint of something metallic. Sam crouched down and found a small lockbox, hidden beneath a pile of old blankets. His pulse quickened. With one sharp tug, the rusted lock broke, and he opened the box.

Inside were several old letters, photographs, and a small leather-bound journal. Sam quickly flipped through the letters, his eyes widening as he realized what they contained. The letters were correspondence between Pritchard and other prominent members of the village—Father Thomas, the village doctor, and even the mayor. But these weren’t ordinary letters. They detailed secret meetings, cryptic references to “the society,” and discussions about the Colton family.

One letter, in particular, caught Sam’s attention. It was dated twenty-five years ago and addressed to Lord Andrew’s father, William Colton.

“The society grows impatient. The blood debt must be paid, and your family is running out of time. The rituals must continue, as they have for centuries. You know what is at stake. If you fail, it will not only be your family that suffers but the entire village.”

Sam’s heart pounded in his chest as he realized the full extent of what he was reading. The Colton family’s curse wasn’t just an isolated legend. It was tied to the village itself, to a secret society that had existed for generations. The villagers—the very people Sam had spoken to, the people who had seemed harmless and ordinary—were involved in this ancient, twisted web of blood rituals and sacrifice. And they weren’t just involved. They were complicit.

Sam sat back on his heels, trying to process the enormity of what he had uncovered. The society had been using the Colton family for their own purposes, exploiting the family’s wealth and influence to protect their own interests. Every generation, a member of the Colton family had been sacrificed to fulfill the terms of a pact—a pact made long ago, when the village was first established.

But there was more. As Sam read further into the letters, he came across a name that had been mentioned before—Eleanor Colton, the wife of Lord Andrew’s great-great-grandfather. According to the letters, Eleanor had been at the center of a scandal that had rocked the Colton family. She had fallen in love with a man from the village, a man who was part of the secret society. Their forbidden love affair had been discovered, and Eleanor had been forced to choose between her family and her lover.

In the end, she had chosen her family—but not before making a terrible sacrifice. To protect her lover from the wrath of the society, Eleanor had offered herself as the next blood sacrifice, ensuring that the pact would be upheld and the village would be spared.

But her death had not been enough to break the cycle. The society had continued its rituals, and the curse had persisted, claiming the lives of the Coltons for generations.

Sam’s mind raced as he pieced together the puzzle. The society had betrayed the Coltons, using them as pawns in their twisted game of power and control. And now, with Lord Andrew’s disappearance and Mrs. Taylor’s murder, the cycle was repeating itself.

But there was still one question that haunted Sam: who was pulling the strings? Who in the village was orchestrating these murders, and why had Lord Andrew disappeared?

As Sam stared down at the letters, the weight of the truth settled over him like a suffocating blanket. The villagers were involved—Father Thomas, the mayor, the doctor. They were all part of the society. But someone had to be leading them, someone with the power to keep the secrets hidden and the rituals alive.

His thoughts were interrupted by the creak of a floorboard behind him. Sam whipped around, his flashlight cutting through the darkness. A figure stood in the doorway, their face obscured by the shadows.

“Detective,” a voice said, cold and calm. “I wondered when you would find this.”

Sam’s heart raced as he recognized the voice. It was Alice, Lord Andrew’s cousin. She stepped into the room, her face illuminated by the beam of the flashlight. Her expression was unreadable, her eyes dark and calculating.