Gothicana

Something else had been found.

Corvina gripped the strap of her bag with white knuckles, keeping her eyes on the lake as a team of people rushed to the diver in a boat, taking whatever he gave them, before going down again. The team hurried to the bank, carefully placing whatever was in their hand on the tarp they had laid out. Her friends hurried there to see what it was but Corvina stayed on the spot, suddenly feeling the warmth of his presence at her back as the chill invaded her bones.

“It seems like you were right, little crow,” he spoke quietly, his tone somber.

“They found the bodies?” she turned to look at him, her heart pounding.

“Bones.”

Corvina shivered, the urge to step closer to the warmth of his body severe.

“They’re still finding them,” he told her, his eyes on the lake. “The bodies were weighed down.”

Corvina remembered her dream, the hands gripping her ankles, dragging her down. “From the feet, weren’t they? Something tied to their feet?”

He slid a glance her way. “Yes.”

They stood in silence after that, witnessing the aftermath of the mayhem his grandfather had created. This couldn’t have been easy on Vad.

Corvina looked around to see no one was watching, then slowly ran a finger over his hand in solidarity. “Are you okay?”

He huffed a laugh. “I’m actually happy. Relieved.”

Corvina glanced up at him, her brows furrowing. “At the bodies being found?”

“Yes,” he ran a hand through his hair, over that white streak. “We’d probably never be able to identify all of them, but knowing they’re found, it’s a relief. Having so many deaths in one place,” his voice went quiet. “It might actually lift some of the curse off this castle.”

“You think it’ll finally stop the disappearances on the Black Ball?”

“We’ll know in a month, won’t we?”  

Over the next few hours, as more and more students from the university came to the lake just to stand on the sidelines and watch the proceedings, Corvina stood with her friends in a daze and saw as the divers took equipment down and brought something out, over and over, until dusk began to fall and the diving had to be paused.

It took three days for the divers to bring everything they found on the lakebed upside. By the end of it, more investigators flooded the area, more students coming to see what was found, more forensic experts to neatly organize and record everything.

On the last evening, under a full moon, a neat row of the items collected lay on over four wide tarps. From personal belongings like shoes and hair clips and watches to skeletal remains. 

Bones.

Fourteen skulls.

A total of eight hundred and sixty-eight fragmented bones, human and animal, rest of them probably buried under the lakebed.

The feminine voice didn’t come again.

And her one question remained unanswered.

How the hell had she known about them?