Cozy Mystery For Sleep: Briar Hollow | Chapter 11

This is a reading of 'Chapter 11: Twelve Steps and a Loud Laugh' from my personal story "The Last Cozy Lantern in Briar Hollow". This is 22 minutes of reading with no ambient sounds or music.
There are 20 chapters in total.
Story:
In the quiet village of Briar Hollow, an ordinary autumn evening takes a troubling turn when a familiar light fails to appear. As questions begin to gather around the loss of a respected villager, a careful observer starts noticing the small details others have overlooked.
Settle in for the opening chapter of a gentle, atmospheric fair-play mystery filled with lamplight, village secrets, and the slow unraveling of a carefully hidden truth.
Chapter 11 Description:
Voss returns to the tower and retraces the path of Eldred's final climb. Twelve worn steps and the physical reality of the stair begin to challenge the simple explanation everyone has accepted.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Restful Journeys. I'm glad you're here. To NYE. We'll be continuing our story. THE LAST COZY LANTERN OF BRIAR HOLLOW WITH CHAPTER ELEVEN TWELVE STEPS AND A LOUD LAUGH But before we begin, Take a moment. To make yourself comfortable. Whether you're settling in for the night or simply taking a little time for yourself, Allow the busyness of the day to gently fade away. There's nothing you need to do right now, Nowhere else you need to be. Just relax, Listen, And let the story carry you somewhere peaceful. And now, Let's return to Briar Hollow. Chapter 11, Twelve Steps and a Loud Laugh. Vos fitted the iron key to the lock, Said a short word to it about rust, And turned it. She had wound the clock herself on Thursday, Forty turns of the great crank, For a weight Eldred had hauled up every week of his life, And it had gone on as if nothing had changed, Which she thought the unkindest thing it could have done. Gone. The striking train she had left alone, It stood gummed and silent behind its own wheel, A mechanism that had forgotten how to say more than four notes, And she meant to free it if the fund held out. She had meant to count nothing yet, But the habit of a trade is a stubborn passenger, And she found herself numbering the clack the lock gave. The taper in her other hand leaned in the draught from the square. She cupped it, Put her palm to the door, And stepped into the round ground room, Where the bench stood against the wall and the stair began in a dark curl at the back. She pulled the door behind her but left it on the latch so the morning could come in if it cared to. One, She said and started up. The stone was gritty underfoot, A fine sand shed by the treads themselves. She counted aloud, A clockmaker's count, Steady as an escapement. The iron rail ran beside her, Its bracket screws set in mortar that had been patched at least twice by different hands. At the first window slit, She leaned out and could not find the church roof. Or the lampposts, Or the cobbles a man's height down. The taper showed her one step ahead and nothing past it. She made forty-three at the top, Where the stair opened on the clock-room threshold and the great wheels stood in their frame. She wrote the figure on her cuff and it came down the same way, One hand on the rail. 43. She said at the bottom, Which pleased her. And she went up again, Slowly, And did not count. She watched. The steps were not equal. Some had worn to a shallow bowl in the middle, Where centuries of boots had gone up and down along the same line, And the edges stood proud of the dip like the rim of a saucer. At the twelfth, She stopped and lowered herself onto her heels. The taper she propped up on the step above. Here, The hollow ran deeper than on the threads either side of it. She pressed her thumb into the middle and felt the stone give way to a smooth cup, Like the inside of a spoon. Dip and shifted her weight. The stone held her foot like the way a hand holds an egg. She tried it again with her heel on the rim and the boot rocked and she put out a hand for the rail and found it. That was a stumble, If a man wished to have one. A man who climbed it every week of his life did not set his heel on the rim. His foot would have found the cup without being told. A fall from the twelfth tread. She said aloud. And the stone gave the words back to her, Thinner, From somewhere else above. Unless you meant to fall. Are you up there, Or have you gone into the works with the clock? " The call came up the spiral from below, Round and booming, And bounced off the stone twice before it reached her. Vos leaned over the rail. A band of daylight lay across the ground-room floor from the open door, And in the middle of it, A broad figure shifted a covered basket from one arm to the other. Here mod on the twelfth step. You'll have been up there since breakfast. I know your sort, Love. You forget to eat when you're at a clock. My late husband's brother was the same with a barometer. The basket gave a thump against her hip. Come down before it goes cold. I carried it across the square at a trot. Voss went down with the taper held out ahead of her. The smell met her somewhere near the last window slit. Warm pastry and butter and gravy rising through a stairwell that otherwise smelled of wet stone and old iron. A woman doesn't want to be measuring steps on an empty stomach. Maud said. You'll fall down them yourself. That would be a poor advertisement for the work. Vos reached the flagstones, Stood the taper upright on the bench in a puddle of its own wax, And held out her hands. Give it here. You've carried it far enough. The handle dragged her arm down. There was a whole pie in it by the weight and more besides. She set it on the bench. Maud sat anyway on the very end of it and twitched back the cloth. Steam came up. Pie, Shortbread underneath, And a hill of good cheese. Eat the pie first. The shortbread wants to come after. Vos broke off a corner of the pie and ate it while it was still too hot, Which was the right way. Maud watched with deep professional satisfaction. Mod. Baal said when she had swallowed. The old columns and Eldred's rounds a ledger. Who did he buy from? It was the second time of asking, And a good deal quieter than the first. Maud's hands went to the edge of the basket cloth and began to smooth it. Oh, Those! She said. She laughed once, A note higher than the question wanted, And the tower scented round the walls and back. Then she stopped. She did not reach for the shortbread, Or the flour, Or the weather. The laugh simply went out of the room and left the stone behind it. Vos lifted the pie, Found the edge where the crust had caught and browned darker than the rest, And broke off a piece of that. It crunched. She ate it slowly and she did not ask again. The ground room had gone quiet enough that she could hear the last flakes of pastry land on the flagstones. Maud's hand had found the basket handle and were gripping it as if it might be taken. I sold nothing and I bought nothing. " Maud said at last. Very low for her. I'd like that understood first. I bought oil from Elder Advance. Two years now. At a kind price, Under the Chandler's and under what it cost him, I shouldn't wonder. He'd leave the cans at my back door for a Thursday and take what I put in his hands, And I never once asked. Why not? Because I knew a lamplighter's wage couldn't stretch to it. She looked at the basket. 40 lamps burn a dill of oil love. But the village pays for every pint, And here's a man selling me cans out of his own pocket at less than cost. But I thought he's scamming. I thought, He's taking it off the lamps, A little off each, And I'd be a fool to ask where from. She flattened the cloth. And I took the cans. I'm ashamed. Has been sitting in my throat since you asked me about those columns. " twice, " Voss said mildly. I counted. Twice, And I laughed like a gate on a bad hinge both times. If I'd got started, I'd have had to finish, And I didn't care to finish with the stranger. Now you've got it, And you can think what you like of me. I think nothing yet. I haven't seen the books. Voss brushed the crumbs from her fingers. A skimmer would write it down. Differently, I imagine. Or not at all. Eldred wrote down everything. He did. Maude looked up quickly. But that's what kept me awake. Then perhaps there's more in this book than we've read. I won't gossip it, Mod. Not at the inn, Not at the shop, Not to Ellara. You have my word. " Maud studied her with the famous squint, The one that could read a tally slate across a crowded bar. Whatever she read, She gave one short nod. That'll do. That'll have to. She lifted the cloth over the basket, Tucked its corners in, And rose. Eat the middle, The edges dry. And don't let her Laura have it all. She'll say she's not hungry, And then she'll take two. How to count the slices. Maud gave a bark of a laugh, Pitched where it belonged this time, And went to the door and hauled it open. Daylight came in white and flat with a breath of damp. Then she was out, Her boots sounding on the cobbles, Quick and heavy, And the door swung back on its weight and settled almost shut. Voss sat with the basket beside her and took a second piece of crust because it was there. Two years of cans, She thought, Cheap and not stolen, Or Eldred would not have written it down. She chewed. Then where did a lamplighter find the surplus? The step stood at her back going up into its own dimness. Nothing answered from it. The latch of the door clacked before she had decided to go up again, And a draught came up the stairwell, Bringing the smell of the square, Wet cobbles, And wood smoke and lamp oil. Allara stood on the threshold with her skirt hitched in her fist and a bundle of trimmed wicks in the other. She pushed the door with her heel, Crossed the flagstones, And lifted the cloth on the basket. Mod. She said. She's been here already. She leaves a trail. She tucked the wicks into her satchel, Broke a piece off the pie, And bit the corner standing up. Practically a confession of love. She said, I forgot to eat. She's right about the forgetting. Going up? I'll come. I've nothing to trim till the afternoon, And I'd as soon be out of the cottage. " Boss took the taper and went up first, Holding it low so the flame lit the treads and not her face. The stair turned tightly to the right. Alar's boots followed a few steps below, Unhurried, And the smell of pastry climbed with them into the stone throat of the tower. At the first slit, The square had vanished into the fog. The twelfth tread, Vos stopped, Set her heel on the sound edge and held the taper out over the hollow. Allara came up beside her a step lower so their eyes were nearly level. She licked a crumb from her finger and looked down at the dip in the stone without any particular expression. He climbed these every week of his life. Not once did he grumble about them. He used to say that if you put your foot square in the dish, The stair carries you. She laughed, Short and quick. Which is a ridiculous thing to say about a stair. It's a fair thing to say about a stare. Boss said. Most people only discuss them when they fall. She meant it lightly, And Allura took it lightly, And it seemed to be a good moment for one small question, Asked as one asks after the weather. Did he ever stop here? Hold the rail or lean on the wall. Alara looked at the twelfth step, Then at her. Never. On the landing to get his breath, Because he was 63 and the landing's the landing. But not here. He'd go up past this one like a boy. She stopped. Why? The doctor told the inquest he complained of dizzy spells. I know, I was in the third row. She said it flat. Dizzy. I sat there thinking I'd walked into the wrong funeral. He never said a word of it to me, And I'd have heard him from the next room for a week. She frowned at the stairwell as if it might supply the date. Dr. Finch must have had it from him. Who else would? Who else? Vos said and lowered the taper. She asked nothing more, And Ellara, After a moment, Climbed the one step past her and put a hand flat to the wall. The way a person touches a door, She had a mind to go through rather than discuss. Will that taper last us to the top? Another quarter hour, If the draught is kind. I want to show you the third wheel in the going train. Uncle swore it was the one that dragged, And I said it was the pallets, And we never settled it. Her voice had picked up speed, Warm again, Bright with the argument. You'll tell me I'm right. You'll have to. I've been a week of wicks. I don't bet on wheels I haven't seen. Then I'll go first and you can be disappointed. She came down past Voss with her hand back to the curved wall and stopped. Oh, I've only this minute remembered. I promised Mrs. Pinnock I'd look at the pump-lantern before noon. The latch never stays shut. " Keep me a slice of that pie, Would you? If it's left on the bench, She'll feed it to the vicar. I'll guard it with the crust if necessary. Don't eat the crust. Her boots rang on the stone and went flat and soft as the spiral took her around the curve. Far below, The tower door scraped open on its long groan and thumped to behind her. After that was only the small tick of the taper. Vos stayed on the twelfth tread with her boot settled in its worn dip. Above her, The stair wound on into dark. A window slit showed only a pale blur of glass, And when she held the taper out at arm's length, The flame lit her sleeve in the nearest four steps and not an inch more. She could not see the next slit from here, Nor the one below it. She thought of a heavy-eyed man coming to this stair at ten at night, In fog, With a key in his hand, For a business that had nothing to do with winding. A man who took the twelfth step like a boy every week of his life. Did not need to be told it was a danger. She did not mean to think that. It had come on its own, As the number 43 had come. She did not put it down. She pinched the taper out between thumb and finger. The wick hissed and a tread of smoke went up past her face and bent towards the slit as if it wanted the air outside. Her eyes took a moment to find the pale of the wall again. A clock wound on Thursdays, She told the empty stair. Wants nothing on a Monday night at 10. Nothing answered. The square's noises, A pump handle, And a hen, And someone calling for a boy, Came up the stairwell as a murmur through the stone. She stayed where she was, Her boot in its worn dip, The unlit taper in her fingers, And stood on the twelfth step for a good while before she went to see the third wheel. That concludes Chapter 11, Twelve Steps and a Loud Laugh, From the story The Last Cozy Lantern of Briar Hollow. Thank you again so much for continuing to listen to this story. I hope that you find it peaceful, Relaxing and have possibly fallen asleep.