I press Publish and hold my breath like I’m submerging under winter water. The episode tile rotates once in the dashboard—The Locket That Learned How To Scream: Ep 1 — Receipts, Then Bells—and the progress wheel snaps to done. For a heartbeat, nothing moves. Then the analytics graph sprouts a first green spike like a blade of grass forcing concrete.
“We’re live,” I whisper to the locket where it rests by the spacebar, cool as a coin. The room smells like warm dust from the rack fan, mint tea gone tannic, and the clean metallic note of cables. Outside, the lake huffs at the breakwater; the building’s old window turns the sound into a long breath that pushes and pulls—the vents riding the same seiche rhythm I measured in the tower.
The first comments land: one heart, two prayer hands, three side-eyes. Then the machine wakes. Downloads rally into the thousands—geographies lighting up like tiny buoys on the map: Buffalo, Toledo, Duluth, a scatter from phones on church pews here in Ashgrove. The lake-facing pane fogs with my exhale; I wipe a circle with my sleeve and watch a single gull ride a current that doesn’t belong to wind.
The episode opens exactly where Lydia told me to begin. Thirty seconds of the council hot mic—Ames murmuring thanks to Everett for “quelling the podcaster”—then the chain-of-custody: dates on screen in the show notes, signatures read with Ruth’s steady voice. I kept the roomprint dry, no varnish: claps and sweeps, the bell overtone ladder like hammered light. Then survivor terms, voiced by the girls who wanted to speak first, with silence left intact between them like shoulders to lean on. I cut the locket excerpt to ten seconds—only enough to anchor place and week—prefaced by a content warning I didn’t read myself.
“Look,” I say, swiveling when I hear Ruth’s key at the back door. “The graph.”
She steps into the studio peeling off knit gloves, cheeks wind-pink, bringing with her the early-morning cocktail of dog-walker air: diesel from a passing plow, wet rope from the marina fingers, and a ghost of percolated coffee from the church office she cut through to beat the light. She leans over my chair, forearm against my shoulder.
“Good,” she says. “Not a bonfire. A steady burn.”
“I’m trying to be the opposite of a bonfire,” I say. “I’m trying to be a pilot light.”
We watch the numbers tick until watching feels like counting my pulse. A chime doubles—email and DM. The inbox yawns open: subject lines like little knives and lifelines both.
“I heard bells that night too.”
“Countdown game at the boathouse, 2006–2010.”
“He kept clove smokes in his sleeve.”
“Marina wives group is deleting posts. I have screenshots.”
“You are filth, leave our town alone.”
“My niece.”
I drag a sticky note labeled TRIAGE into the center of the desk and tap out columns like lanes: Immediate / Corroborate / Noise / Safety. Ruth pulls a legal pad from her coat like a magician producing a dove.
“Rules?” she says.
“Receipts first,” I answer. “No solo-source accusations. Prioritize time-sensitive tips, protect minors, route threats to the Annex officer who still owes you a favor.”
“And hydration,” she says, pointing at my ignored water glass. “Don’t fight a public fire with a dry brain.”
I drink. The water tastes faintly metallic from the pipes—brass in my mouth, the way wealth tarnish hides blood. The next chime lands as a low drumroll: the Patreon tier we earmarked for the resource fund ticking up one name, five, eight, twelve. People type in the comments that they’re skipping lattes; people demand to know why I’m profiting off grief; people paste the counselor list we posted and tag friends with quiet “for you?” notes that make me blink hard and look away.
“Start with the ones that have dates and places,” Ruth says, sliding into the spare chair. “You read. I’ll mark.”
I open the first DM. “Subject: ‘Boat 17 summers.’ From: oldcrew74. He writes: ‘Senior year, boys dared girls to “earn a bell.” Countdown started at three. We laughed at the first two. Third was the push. Diesel smell from the Crane generator; cloves from Mason. I hated it then, I hate it now. I’ll talk off mic.’”
I look over. Ruth nods once and writes: oldcrew74—off mic / corroborate.
A ping interrupts: an audio file. I slip on the headphones. In my ear: a phone recording of a TV in a living room where a woman narrates what she’s survived while a blender runs in the kitchen—life barging into confession. Under her words: a faint bell that doesn’t belong to any broadcast I know, pitched a half-step odd, likely the TV speakers resonating with a stray sound from a nearby church bell test bleed. It’s low quality, but my chest still tightens at the signature.
“Upload and mark,” I say. “We’ll check against St. Brigid’s maintenance logs.” I know those logs have holes you could row a legacy shell through, but I also know sound travels over this lake like memory—skips, repeats, lands where no one expected it.
The public spreadsheet we opened for community resources populates in real time: volunteers for rides to the county counselor’s office; a teen offering to moderate comments for survivors only; a retired engraver listing pro bono work to catalog jewelry evidence. The Facebook swap group I hate-watch most starts policing the thread already—“good families only”—deleted posts drifting back to me as screenshots with time stamps and names grayed out by women who’ve learned the choreography of survival in a town that calls it civility.
A text bubbles from Lydia: listening with the nurses. you kept your promises. I hold the phone against my sternum and let the words sit there like a warm compress.
Another email subject line jumps. “Countdown at St. Brigid’s steps, 2009.” The sender writes about bells rung for freshman crews after regatta heats, about boys touching the bell rope like it’s a sword they earned, about girls who learned to clap at the right moments so they wouldn’t be the joke. She mentions a bruise pattern that matches what we measured by Boat 17. She says her cousin still keeps a crumpled raffle ticket from that night in a locket that never fit right.
“Patterns are emerging,” I say, half to Ruth, half to the screen. “Countdown, clove, diesel, bell rope. The rope is a sacrament and a weapon.”
“Write it on a whiteboard,” Ruth says, eyes scanning. “Then refuse to say it like a slogan.”
“I will,” I say, and I feel my mouth shape the words like a promise to my own worst instincts.
The threats arrive in their expected uniforms. An email with no subject line and a single sentence: “You don’t know what the lake keeps.” A voicemail of empty wind for sixty seconds. A picture of a bell clapper captioned 🔔 free delivery. Ruth flags each for the Annex; I forward quietly without feeding the theater. We add a new column to TRIAGE: Risk / Source / Action.
A new DM hits with a photo: the underside of St. Brigid’s choir loft railing, initials carved and filled with graphite: E C and M Y. The sender writes, “I thought it was cute at the time. Now I’m not sure.” My hand goes cold against the mouse. I paste the image into the case folder and breathe through my teeth until the room returns—foam panels, a coil of XLR, the mint gone flat.
“We can document without declaring,” Ruth says, not looking up. “Remember: physics, paper, then mouths.”
“I want to shout,” I say.
“So does everyone,” she answers. “We’re not everyone.”
The analytics graph throws a taller spike just then, a building bell in data form. The episode breaks my previous best by a factor that would make sponsors call if sponsors weren’t on pause. The Patreon comments argue about whether ads are evil or necessary; one listener offers to underwrite therapy for one person and adds, “I owe the lake a debt.” The room vibrates faintly under my feet—delivery truck hitting the curb cut outside—and for a second I feel the tower under me instead of this second-floor studio. I ground myself with inventory: tongue—the penny taste of overtime coffee; eyes—graph lines; ears—the fan’s even purr; skin—the locket’s edge, a tiny nick that never smooths.
“Break,” Ruth says, standing. “Then round two.”
“Five minutes,” I say, already opening the next email.
The icon is a crest I recognize from fundraiser programs: Crane House Marina Club. The subject line reads, “Welcome Collaboration.” The preview text purrs: “Ashgrove thrives when we row in the same direction.” I feel my shoulders climb toward my ears.
“Read it,” Ruth says, returning with two granola bars and one of those church-basement Styrofoam cups that lick, lick, squeak when your lip finds the seam.
I click.
Dear Ms. Keane,
We applaud your commitment to truth and healing. In that spirit, Crane House would welcome a dialogue about constructive storytelling. We propose a joint roundtable—safety experts, clergy, survivors, and donors—to help ensure accurate context. We can also facilitate access to archival materials under a shared-disclosure agreement. Our community needs partners, not flames. If you’re willing to collaborate, we can amplify the good and quell the harm. Warmly, Everett Crane.
The word quell stings like lemon in a cut—cousin to the mic that caught Ames. I picture Everett’s hands steepled over a folder embossed with his family’s crest, the club’s varnished bar reflecting him tidy and correct.
“Velvet trap,” I say.
“Teeth under the ribbon,” Ruth says, chewing. “They’ll want your notes and your rights. They’ll want veto in the name of ‘context.’”
“He’s offering archives,” I say, hating that some part of me wants them. “If there’s a photo or a log that breaks this open—”
“If there is, it will come another way,” she says. “And if it doesn’t, you don’t invent one by borrowing his leash.”
I scroll. There’s a sweetener at the bottom—“We can sponsor the resource hub you mentioned if we can align on messaging.” I taste that brass again. I imagine the Facebook swap group congratulating themselves on tasteful charity while they delete posts that name their nephews.
“I’ll draft a reply,” I say, fingers hovering. “Thank you for your note. We decline shared-disclosure and editorial alignment. Survivors set our terms. If you have ‘archival materials,’ please release them publicly with metadata intact.”
“Shorter,” Ruth says. “Short makes fewer hooks for them to pull.”
I pare it down and save it as a draft. I don’t send it. The graph ticks up again; a new country blinks on the map. My phone vibrates with an unknown number. I let it go to voicemail and it comes in as text: “Your tower math is cute. The lake takes what it’s owed.”
“Add to the Annex list,” Ruth says, already doing it.
We dive back into tips. A man remembers a sophomore night when someone rang three times into his girlfriend’s ear while holding her shoulders too hard; he writes that he married her anyway and they never talk about that year. A former sexton says a key went missing the week after the regatta; he’s kept a photocopy of the ledger margin where someone wrote E.C. in pencil. A girl-now-woman uploads a photo of a wrist bruise with the caption, “Spacing in inches? Thought it was a bike fall.” It matches our chalk.
“We need a color system,” I say, sticky notes breeding like minnows. “Red for time-sensitive, blue for corroborate, yellow for ‘needs safety plan before contact.’”
Ruth nods and starts coloring. “And green for hope,” she says, barely smiling. “We’re allowed one.”
I print a page for the committee meeting tonight: agenda, safety protocols, consent language. Lydia texts again: nurses brought muffins. i told them the credits were quiet. good. I send a heart and the address for the Annex hall.
The lake slaps louder against the quay; a sudden gust rattles the old glass, a miniature seiche that makes the street’s sound hop into our room. I think of how regatta culture baptizes freshmen under bells, how the town pretends the ring means legacy and not liabilities. I think of brass—bells, locket, donor plaques—how metal keeps shape even when it stains.
“One more pass before I shower,” I say, and open the DMs sorted into Immediate. The top one is from shoreboxgirl with a photo thumbnail—cardboard flaps, a strip of glossy paper poking out, the color of 2000s drugstore prints. The message reads: “Found a shoebox in my aunt’s attic. She’s moving tomorrow. Lots of boat party pics from regatta week, 2008. One looks like tower glass with a reflection? I can’t swear. Landlord tosses stuff at 7 a.m. If you want them, come tonight. No cops. I don’t want drama.”
My scalp prickles. The analytics graph fades to wallpaper.
“Ruth,” I say, already reaching for my coat. “Attic. Photos. Tonight.”
“Address?” she asks, on her feet before the word finishes.
I type, get a crossroads, get a porch description—purple hydrangea wreath, three cracked steps. I ask for permission to record the handoff and she replies, “No mics. Just take them.”
I tuck the locket under my shirt, cold against my skin, and kill the monitors. The room blinks down to the amber eye of the rack power. For a second, we stand in a pocket of near-silence except for the lake’s breath and the little tick of the analytics graph still moving on a sleeping screen.
My phone buzzes one more time. It’s Everett again, same subject line, new sentence previewing: “I urge you not to chase rumors into attics.” I look at the timestamp and feel the floor tilt—not wind, not water.
“How does he know?” I ask, stupid and not.
Ruth’s mouth goes flat. “We’ll answer that after we get the box.”
I lock the studio, pocket the draft reply to Everett, and ask the question that bites my lip as we take the stairs two at a time: with tips roaring and traps baited in velvet, which message do I miss if I blink—and which one, if I answer, pulls the bell rope I can’t afford to grab?