Bonne Terre, Missouri

September 23, 1871

We paused at a rural depot near Bonne Terre just before sunset. No one disembarked but me. I told Ma I needed air. The station was abandoned—no conductor, no agent, just dust and a single open door that led into a waiting room of rotted benches and peeling hymnals.

On the far wall: a mirror, cracked diagonally, and behind me in its reflection stood a gathering of women in black veils. I turned. No one.

But the air was heavy with myrrh.

I reached into the wooden bench and found a folded cloth bundle—inside it, a key and a brittle page from the grimoire, written in the same red ink as the note. The glyph scrawled across it was unfamiliar—circles within circles, a blade piercing a crescent. Beneath it, in delicate script:

“To speak is to bind.”

I haven’t spoken aloud since.