Chapter 9

The Violet Hour

The days no longer felt like days. Genevieve awoke to pale light bleeding through the high windows of the east wing, unsure whether she had truly slept or merely drifted. The monastery had grown quieter since the chamber, but not in a peaceful way. It was the kind of silence that pressed on the bones. A silence that absorbed footsteps before they touched the stone. She sat up in bed slowly. Her body still ached in places where nothing had physically touched her. Behind her eyes, a pulse echoed faintly, like something remembering itself. She could no longer tell where her thoughts ended and something else began. The dreams hadn't stopped, only blurred into her waking life. There were no boundaries anymore, not between night and day, not between then and now. She dressed and stepped into the corridor. The eastern hallway, once blank and dust-covered, now bore faint impressions of things that hadn't been there before. A spiral etched shallowly into the stone floor near the base of a column. Handprints smudged onto the walls at irregular intervals, as if someone had leaned against them in a panic. A trail of black petals, dried and fragile, leading toward the library. Genevieve didn't follow them. Instead, she made her way to the courtyard. The old garden had begun to rot. The flowers that once bloomed along the edge of the path had wilted, their petals curling inward as if to hide from the sky. The tree that had once towered at the center of the courtyard was no longer there. In its place stood the stump — blackened, smoldering faintly, radiating a sense of absence. She could feel it even from across the stones. The Hollowroot was gone, but not dead. She could feel it remembering her. Genevieve sat on the broken bench at the edge of the garden and looked up. The sky was wrong again. The clouds hovered, but they didn't move. There was no wind. No birds. The monastery had always been remote, isolated, but now it felt like the rest of the world had fallen away entirely. She heard footsteps behind her and didn't need to turn. Elias joined her silently, carrying the gray journal. He sat without speaking, placing the book between them like a shared wound. Genevieve glanced at it but didn't reach for it. Did you read more? she asked. Some. Not all. Enough. What did it say? It doesn't matter what it says anymore. It's not warning us. It's remembering us. They sat in silence for a while. The air smelled faintly of salt and earth. The shadows from the cloister pillars stretched long across the flagstones, even though the sun was directly overhead. Time had stopped making sense days ago. Genevieve finally spoke again. What if we're not the first to open it? We aren't. She looked at him sharply. You're sure? Yes. It's in the journal. There were others. Different names. Different versions. Some of them didn't survive. Some did. They made it to the end, sealed it, walked away. But it always opens again. Because someone always remembers. Genevieve stared at the black stump. And we remembered. Elias didn't reply. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. What if forgetting is the only way to win?Maybe. But forgetting means becoming part of it. Letting it rewrite us. Letting it keep us. Then what do we do. We walk further in. Genevieve turned to him, eyes narrowing. What do you mean? We go deeper. Beneath the library. Past the crypt. We find the source, the first seed. We don't seal it again. We uproot it. That's suicide. Maybe. But it's a better death than fading into someone else's memory. She stood abruptly. Show me. Elias nodded once and rose. Together, they walked back into the monastery, past the shattered doors, through the archways filled with dust and silence. They passed the chapel, which now stood bare and hollow. No spiral. No altar. No trace of the painting. Just stone and cold. They descended into the lower hallways, into the western wing where the old library loomed like a fossil in the dark. The doors groaned as they opened. Inside, bookshelves leaned at awkward angles. Pages had spilled across the floor like leaves in autumn. Dust hung in the air, unmoving. At the far end of the room, where the archives once stood, the ground had cracked. Elias led her to it. A thin fissure, wide enough for a body, stretched from the wall down into darkness. A makeshift ladder had been assembled from old shelves and rope. You made that? No. It was already here. I just added the rope. Genevieve looked into the pit. It breathed. You sure it leads somewhere? I'm sure it doesn't lead nowhere. She hesitated, then swung one leg over the edge and began to climb down. The air changed almost immediately. It grew warmer, then colder. The scent of old roots and blood filled her nose. As she descended, the light faded, and her own breath grew louder in her ears. When her foot touched the ground, she realized it wasn't earth. It was wood. Petrified. Smooth. A platform shaped like a spiral. Elias joined her a moment later, holding a lantern. It flared to life with a sickly green glow. In the lamplight, she saw the passage ahead. It wasn't a tunnel. It was a root. Hollowed out. Leading downward. Carved with symbols she didn't recognize but understood instinctively. We go together, she said. We go until it ends, Elias replied. And they stepped forward into the dark.

Great. Here's **Chapter 9 – Part 2** of *The Violet Hour*, continuing the story from where we left off. This part brings us deeper into the underground root structure beneath the monastery as Genevieve and Elias descend toward the source. The tunnel curved gently as they walked, always downward. The walls pulsed faintly, not with light, but with something else—like breath. The wood beneath their feet was dark, smoothed by time or memory, impossible to say which. Symbols glimmered briefly as the lantern passed over them, as if reacting to the proximity of their bodies. Genevieve kept her hand on the wall as they moved. It was warm, like skin stretched thin over something alive. She tried not to think of it that way, but the illusion persisted. The deeper they walked, the less the tunnel felt like a place and the more it felt like a throat. Elias was quiet. His jaw was tight, eyes fixed ahead. She knew he was listening the same way she was. Not to sounds exactly, but to impressions. There was no air movement, yet she felt wind. No sound, but the faint suggestion of voices that hadn't been spoken in years. Eventually the tunnel opened into a chamber. It was circular, like the inner ring of a tree. The walls were layered in growth rings, each marked with more of the spiraling script. In the center stood a basin carved from the same wood, filled with water that did not reflect. Genevieve stepped forward cautiously. The basin didn't seem dangerous. In fact, it felt familiar. Like she'd been here before, though she knew she hadn't. Elias lit another lantern and hung it from a crooked hook embedded in the ceiling. The light cast their shadows strangely, as if they were longer than their bodies allowed. She leaned over the basin and looked in. No reflection. No bottom. Just depth. What is this? she asked softly. Elias didn't answer immediately. Then he stepped forward and reached into his coat. He pulled out the journal. The entries mention it. The Memory Well. It records. Not like a book, but like a wound remembers pain. What happens if we touch it? We remember what isn't ours. Genevieve stared into the well. She felt it pulling on her thoughts, trying to line them up with something older. Something cold. So we don't touch it. Not yet. They left the basin and followed another tunnel, narrower than the first. This one was lined with bark that rippled when touched. The spirals here were different—sharper, more erratic. They no longer formed patterns but tangled knots of language that refused to sit still in the mind. The air grew thinner. Their footsteps quieter. Eventually the tunnel widened again, and they emerged into a long hall. This was not grown from the root. It was built. Stone walls. Pillars carved in spirals. Candles in sconces that lit themselves as they passed. A cathedral underground. And at the far end, an altar. Not an altar for prayer. An altar for sacrifice. On it lay a body. Genevieve froze. Her pulse stuttered. The figure was clothed in a simple white shift. Hands folded over the chest. The face covered by a thin veil. Elias approached it slowly. This wasn't in the journal, he said. Genevieve stepped forward, dread in every motion. Do you think it's alive? She could barely hear her own voice. Only one way to find out. Elias reached out and pulled back the veil. Genevieve recoiled. It was her face. Pale. Still. Eyes closed. Elias dropped the veil, hands shaking. This is a copy, he said. No. Not a copy. A placeholder. She stepped back, heart racing. Why is it here? I think it's part of the pattern. The monastery keeps a version of you here. In waiting. Maybe in case you fail. Or maybe to replace you. She turned away, bile rising. Why show us this now? Because we're getting close. Elias turned toward a narrow door behind the altar. This leads to the root chamber. The real one. Genevieve followed him, not trusting the silence. They moved through the door into the narrow corridor beyond. Unlike the previous tunnels, this one was straight and cold. No warmth in the walls. No script. Just stone, old and damp. And ahead, a faint violet glow. They reached the final chamber. It was vast. A dome carved from the inside of the root, ribbed and alive with pale veins. In the center, suspended in the air, a mass of tangled root and flesh pulsed with light. The heart of the Hollowroot. Elias stepped forward, eyes wide. It's still alive. Genevieve felt it too. Not just alive—aware. It had been waiting for them. You feel that? she whispered. Yes. It knows us. It remembers every version of us. What do we do? Elias reached into his coat and took out the bone key. We end it. How? We plant the key. Genevieve stepped toward the pulsing mass. Plant it where? Elias pointed to a hollow in the center of the root. There. She approached slowly. The closer she got, the more the voices rose. Not loud, but present. A hundred versions of herself whispering warnings, pleas, prayers. The key trembled in her hand as she took it from Elias. She stepped onto the raised platform at the heart's edge. Genevieve. She froze. The voice came from behind her. It was her own. She turned. Her doppelgänger stood in the archway, pale veil gone, eyes wide and black. You don't have to do this, it said. Genevieve swallowed hard. Who are you? The other tilted its head. I'm the you that stayed. The you that forgot. The you they kept.bGenevieve stepped back toward the core. You're not real. The doppelgänger smiled faintly. Neither are you. Not to them. Genevieve clenched the key. Then let's see what happens when something unreal breaks the pattern. She drove the key into the heart. The root screamed. Not in sound—in memory. And the chamber went dark.