Chapter 2: The Boy Who Watched the Dirt
The memory hit Arthur with the violence of a physical assault. The funeral. He remembered standing by the open grave, his vision blurred by tears. He remembered the weight of the coffin, or rather, the lack thereof. He had assumed it was the numbness of grief, the inability to process the weight of his own world ending. But then, he recalled the sound—a hollow, metallic thud that had echoed when the gravediggers nudged the casket into place.
Arthur had been so consumed by the sight of the black earth that he hadn't noticed his son’s behavior. Julian hadn't been crying. He had been standing with his hands tucked into his pockets, his posture perfect, his face an impenetrable mask of serenity. He had been smiling—a small, thin expression that Arthur, in his blindness, had mistaken for a child’s way of processing trauma.
"Julian," Arthur whispered into the empty air of the ballroom.
He found the boy sitting in the library, illuminated by the dim, flickering light of the fireplace. The child looked like a miniature version of his father: perfectly tailored suit, the black bow tie tight against his neck, his hair slicked back with clinical precision.
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"If that’s Mom’s ring," Arthur said, trembling, "then who did we bury in her coffin?"
Julian looked up, his eyes not watering, but radiating a lethal, untouchable power that made Arthur recoil. "Something much heavier than Mom, Father. Something you should have disposed of years ago."
