CHAPTER TWO: Bellview’s Silence

The silence started just past the diner.

Not the absence of sound—Bellview had never been that kind of town. The old gas station sign still buzzed overhead, the air conditioner from one storefront hissed like a tired dragon, and somewhere down the street, a dog barked as if it had forgotten why.

But beneath it all, the silence was there. Heavy. Intentional.

Like the town had taken a deep breath the second it saw Noah Keene’s car and hadn’t let it out since.

He turned off Main and slowed past the corner store where he’d bought his first beer with a fake ID. The window was cracked. The same neon OPEN sign blinked lazily, as if even it didn’t want to commit.

Someone stood behind the register—a man Noah recognized by posture alone. Tommy Moore. His old classmate. Prom king. Quarterback. Now a cashier in a town too small to escape.

Tommy saw him. Didn’t wave. Just stared.

Noah didn’t wave back.

He pulled into the lot beside Meadow Pines, the only nursing home in town, its sign faded like a memory trying to disappear. The place still smelled like bleach and old toast, even before he stepped inside.

“Afternoon,” the nurse at the desk said, eyes barely flicking upward. “You’re here for Mr. Keene?”

“Yeah.”

She typed something slowly. “He’s in the garden. Hasn’t spoken much today.”

“Has he ever?”

She didn’t answer.

The path to the garden was short, but it felt longer with each step. He passed the same framed photos on the wall: local high school football teams, county fair winners, an outdated fire safety poster that probably hadn’t saved anyone.

Outside, the air was damp. The sky gray but holding back rain. And there, in a wooden chair that creaked even without movement, sat his father.

James Keene. The man who once made judges sweat with a stare. Who once prosecuted three murder trials back-to-back and won all of them. Who now sat in a paper-thin cardigan, watching birds fight over a crust of bread.

“Hey, Dad,” Noah said.

No response.

He walked closer.

James’s hair was more gray than white now. Thinner. His face sagged in places Noah didn’t remember. But the eyes—those sharp, steel-blue eyes—still held a flicker. Of something.

Noah sat beside him. Silence stretched between them like old chewing gum.

“They said you’ve been quiet today,” he said. “Good to see some things haven’t changed.”

Still nothing.

He leaned back, looking up at the sky.

“Place looks the same,” he muttered. “Whole town does, actually. Like nobody told Bellview the rest of the world moved on.”

James stirred, just barely.

“They’re still here,” he whispered.

Noah blinked. “What?”

James’s fingers twitched in his lap. His voice came again, thin but steady.

“They’re burning the truth again.”

Noah turned. “What does that mean?”

James didn’t answer.

Noah crouched in front of him, trying to meet his eyes. “Dad, did you see the fire last night? On Grove Street?”

James shook his head slowly. “It wasn’t just fire. It was a warning. The same way they warned me.”

Noah frowned. “Who?”

James closed his eyes. “The boy in red.”

A chill crept across Noah’s neck. “What boy?”

No answer.

“Dad, look at me.”

But James was already drifting again. Somewhere else. Somewhere far.

Noah stood, rubbing his hands down his face.

“What are you trying to tell me?” he muttered.

From behind him, the nurse called out. “He has lucid moments,” she said, walking up. “But they never last long. Some days, he repeats things from years ago. Other times, he says things that don’t make any sense at all.”

“He just said they’re burning the truth again,” Noah said. “That doesn’t sound like gibberish.”

She gave a polite shrug. “That’s the thing about memory. It mixes truth with the things we want to forget.”

Noah didn’t reply.

She touched his arm gently. “He does remember you. Sometimes.”

“Thanks.”

She left.

He stood there another minute. Watching his father’s fingers twitch. Watching the way his eyes followed something only he could see.

The boy in red.

Noah didn’t believe in ghosts. But he’d seen enough courtroom lies to know that sometimes, the dead never really stayed gone.

Back in the car, he gripped the steering wheel and stared through the windshield. For the first time in years, Bellview looked less like a town—and more like a stage.

And the actors were all pretending.

He started the engine. The tires rolled forward.

As he turned back onto Main, a woman pulled her child closer as he passed. A man on the sidewalk muttered something under his breath.

They remembered him.

But not the version he’d become.

And as Noah drove down the street, with the fire still fresh in the air and his father’s words echoing in his skull, he knew one thing for certain:

Bellview had never been silent.

It had just learned how to whisper loud enough for the truth to get lost.