Mural of the Forgotten

Arthur stood in the corner of the great hall, as rigid as the masonry itself, watching the fog crawl through the narrow high-slits of the stone walls. The vents breathed out grey ribbons of cloud that swallowed the room’s corners, carrying the scent of damp earth and the aftermath of a dawn downpour. But beneath the rain lay a sharper, older scent: the pungent tang of lime-wash and boiled flax that Grandmother Carmilla was mixing in clay saucers, arranged around her like sacred relics. She sat hunched on the floor, her spine a weathered arc of endurance. Her hand, mapped with a century of veins, held a needle-thin brush of black goat hair. She was drafting minute triangles, lining them with a precision that demanded silence. As soon as the bristles kissed the coarse stone, the physics of the room shifted. Arthur heard it—a low thrum, a muffled vibration humming between the rocks. It was his grandfather’s voice, a rhythmic whisper like a prayer caught in the throat of the house. It wasn't an echo in the air; it was a pulse in the stone, a tremor that traveled through the pores of the wall and settled in Arthur’s bones, as warm as his grandfather’s calloused palm. “Grandmother, Unc…