"Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are." - Oscar Wilde

The Unfolding Silence in Oakhaven

The chipped porcelain of Mrs. Gable’s teacup rattled slightly as she spoke, the sound amplified in the otherwise hushed living room. “He always said that, you know. Old Mr. Hemlock. ‘Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.’ A peculiar man, Hemlock. Kept to himself mostly, but always had a knowing look, like he held the town’s secrets in the wrinkles around his eyes.”

Oakhaven, a town usually defined by its predictable rhythm of farmers’ markets and Friday night bingo, is currently anything but. The disappearance of Elias Thorne, the town’s recently appointed historian, has cast a long, unsettling shadow. Thorne vanished a week ago, leaving behind only a half-finished manuscript detailing the town’s founding – and a growing number of unanswered questions.

Initially, the assumption was a simple case of a man needing to escape. Thorne, a city transplant, had seemed somewhat overwhelmed by the quietude of Oakhaven. He’d spoken of needing “space to breathe,” of the weight of history pressing down on him. Sheriff Brody, a man built like an oak and equally immovable, initially treated it as such. A voluntary absence. But the longer Thorne remains missing, the more unsettling details emerge, and the more Brody’s initial assessment feels…incomplete.

The manuscript, discovered on Thorne’s antique writing desk, is proving to be a source of both fascination and anxiety. It doesn’t detail the expected tales of pioneering families and agricultural triumphs. Instead, it focuses on a period largely glossed over in Oakhaven’s official history: the early 19th century, specifically the years surrounding the mysterious death of Silas Blackwood, the town’s original benefactor. Blackwood, according to Thorne’s research, wasn’t the benevolent philanthropist the town legends portray. He was, the manuscript suggests, involved in something…darker. Something involving land disputes, questionable business dealings, and whispers of a secret society.

“Elias was obsessed with Blackwood,” says Martha Bellweather, owner of the local bookstore and one of the few people Thorne confided in. “He kept asking about old records, deeds, anything relating to the Blackwood estate. He said he felt like there was a story being deliberately buried. He asked me if I’d ever heard the stories about the ‘Stone Circle’ on Blackwood land, before the forest reclaimed it. I told him they were just old wives’ tales.”

But Thorne didn’t seem to believe in tales. He believed in digging. And he asked a lot of questions. Questions that, according to several residents, made people uncomfortable. Questions directed at the older families of Oakhaven, families whose lineage can be traced directly back to the town’s founding.

Old Man Hemlock, before his passing last year, was one of those questioned. Mrs. Gable remembers the encounter vividly. “Elias came by asking about the Blackwoods, about Silas specifically. Hemlock just stared at him for a long time, then said, ‘Some stones are best left unturned, young man.’ Then he repeated that quote, about questions and answers. It was…odd.”

Sheriff Brody is now revisiting those initial interviews, realizing that the carefully worded responses, the evasive glances, the subtle shifts in body language, might have been more telling than he initially thought. He’s also discovered that Thorne, in the days leading up to his disappearance, had been making inquiries about a local historian who vanished under similar circumstances in the 1970s – a historian also researching Silas Blackwood.

The silence in Oakhaven is no longer peaceful. It’s a heavy, expectant silence, filled with the weight of unspoken truths. The townspeople are beginning to wonder if Thorne stumbled upon something he shouldn’t have, if his relentless pursuit of the past has led him into danger. And they’re starting to understand the chilling wisdom of Oscar Wilde’s words. It wasn’t the questions Thorne asked that were the problem, it was the answers he was getting – or, more accurately, the answers people were avoiding giving. The deeper Brody digs, the more he suspects that the truth about Oakhaven’s founding is a carefully constructed facade, and that someone, or some group, is determined to keep it that way. The search for Elias Thorne is no longer just a missing person case; it’s a descent into a history that Oakhaven desperately wants to forget.