My Husband Says I Died Three Years Ago
A TaleDale Story · Story concept by Nora Ashwick
I did not open the door.
“Take off the hood,” I called.
The woman faced the camera. Her features blurred whenever she moved, hidden by some filter in the security feed.
“You have the wrong room,” I said.
“Locker 314,” she replied. “A red scarf. A broken watch. Your father’s last confession.”
The brass key felt hot in my palm.
“Who did we kill?”
“Open the door.”
“Say the name.”
She turned sharply toward the stairwell. A second later, the feed went black.
I heard running footsteps, then silence.
When I finally looked outside, the corridor was empty. A small digital recorder lay on the carpet.
I brought it inside and pushed play.
My own voice filled the room.
“If you are hearing this, then the lake plan failed.”
The recording hissed. I sounded controlled, almost cold.
“You will believe Julian betrayed you. That is necessary. Anger makes you move; love makes you hesitate. Follow the evidence, but remember that evidence can be manufactured. We proved that ourselves.”
I stopped the recording.
We.
The woman outside had used the same word.
I pressed play again.
“Do not trust Celeste. Do not trust Julian. Do not trust Vivian Vale.”
My mother.
“Most importantly, do not trust me. I knew what I was becoming, and I chose it anyway.”
A crash sounded in the recording, followed by a man’s voice too faint to understand.
Then I spoke one final sentence.
“The dead man is in the lake house.”
The file ended.
I replayed it three times. On the fourth, I heard something beneath the static: church bells, six slow strikes. St. Orison rang those bells every evening. Whoever recorded this had been near the cemetery.
I connected the recorder to the motel television’s USB port. A directory appeared containing the audio file and a text document named RULES.
There were five.
ONE: NEVER GO HOME ALONE.
TWO: NEVER LET JULIAN SEE THE RED SCARF.
THREE: IF CELESTE USES YOUR VOICE, ASK HER ABOUT THE BLUE ROOM.
FOUR: YOUR MOTHER WILL TELL THE TRUTH ONLY WHEN A LIE IS MORE USEFUL.
FIVE: IF YOU REMEMBER THE WATER, RUN FROM YOURSELF.
The creation date was three years earlier. The file had been opened again six weeks ago—the night the fisherman found me.
I checked the recorder for fingerprints and laughed at the absurdity of it. I had no kit, no training I remembered, yet my fingers avoided every smooth surface automatically. I was holding it like evidence.
That was when I noticed a sixth rule scratched into the battery compartment rather than saved digitally.
DO NOT LET HIM TAKE YOU TO LOCKER 314.
Even forgotten, my past had learned to argue with itself.
The warning was carved deeply enough to bend the plastic. I ran my thumb across each letter and felt a strange certainty: I had not written it. Whoever added the sixth rule knew the other five—and expected Julian to disobey them.
My phone displayed 12:14 a.m. There would be no trains until morning, but the old central station was twenty minutes away on foot.
I pulled on the coat Dr. Bell had brought and opened the door.
Julian stood outside.
He had removed his tie. Blood darkened one cuff.
“Whose blood?” I asked.
“Not mine.”
I tried to close the door. He blocked it with his shoe.
“The woman who came here works for your mother,” he said. “She wanted you to find that recorder.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I made the recording.”
I stared at him.
“That’s my voice.”
“You wrote the words. I set the recorder in the cemetery wall three years ago. Someone removed it last week.”
“Why?”
“Because your instructions said to.”
I held up the key. “Did I instruct you to give me this?”
His expression answered before he did.
“No. Elena, there was never a locker 314.”
A car turned into the motel parking lot. Its headlights swept across us.
Julian grabbed my arm and pulled me inside.
“Your mother’s security team,” he said. “They cannot see you.”
“You said she didn’t know I was alive.”
“She didn’t until you went to the grave.”
Doors slammed outside.
Julian locked the room and crossed to the bathroom window. “We have eleven minutes before the local police respond to a disturbance call. If we leave now, we can reach the station first.”
“Why should I go anywhere with you?”
“Because whoever gave you that key wants you to open something Elena designed never to be found.”
The motel door shook beneath a heavy knock.
“Mrs. Mercer?” a man called. “Your mother sent us.”
Julian pushed open the bathroom window.
As I climbed onto the sill, the recorder activated by itself behind us.
My voice whispered from the empty room:
“If Julian takes you to the station, he has chosen her.”