Episode One- Thirty One Days {The Omission}
June 14 – 07:12 a.m. – Cherrywood Street, My Kitchen
I never imagined I’d be keeping a journal at this point in my life. The thing about journals is that they’re honest—no sugar‑coating, no audience, just the slow‑march of ink across paper. I’m a doctor; I’m used to documenting symptoms, prognoses, and outcomes. But these entries are different. They are less about patients and more about… us. About the town that has been ripped apart, thread by thread, by a single, missing woman’s pen.
Yesterday, the paper’s circulation hit a new high. The town’s coffee shop, the boardwalk market, even the quiet kitchen tables where the Gable sisters sip tea—everywhere, people read the pages Yn left behind. She vanished the night she posted her final entry, the one that laid bare the sins of Pitmedden like a scalpel’s incision. And now, three weeks later, the town is still bleeding.
I sit at my kitchen table, the morning light spilling over the scarred wooden surface, and I hear the hum of the refrigerator—a low, steady sound that reminds me this house is still mine, still my place. The kettle whistles, and I let the steam curl around my hands as I write.
It’s been a month. A full, calendar month since the world I knew cracked down the middle. One might think that after thirty days, the initial shock would have subsided, the tremors given way to a quiet rebuilding. They would be wrong. The fissures in Pitmedden are not healing; they are deepening, branching out like insidious roots beneath the pavement, threatening to shatter the very foundations of this town.
The air at St. Matthews is the thickest I’ve ever known it. It’s a palpable thing, heavy with unspoken accusations and the ghosts of broken trusts. I walk the halls, the squeak of my leather shoes the only familiar sound in a symphony of hostile silence. I saw Sally Mallard today in the canteen. Her usually bright blonde hair seemed dull, pulled back so tightly I could see the strain at her temples. She was stirring a cup of coffee with a violence that belied the simple action, her knuckles white. Carter Murphy, our star surgeon, walked in, and the clatter of Sally’s spoon as she dropped it was like a gunshot in the quiet room.
Carter, for his part, just flinched. He carries himself differently now. The easy confidence is gone, replaced by a hunted, haunted look in his grey eyes. He looks at everyone as if expecting a blow. He knows what they whisper. He, Angie Tae, and Jaccob Bennet from the corner shop. A cult. It sounds so absurd, so theatrical, to write it down. The Triad of Penance. That’s what Yn called them in her journal. A sick little group that believed absolution came through administered suffering, a belief that twisted itself into the murder of Detective Lois Tyron when she got too close. Now, Carter performs surgeries with hands that people imagine are stained with more than surgical dye. Angie, once a serene presence at the convent, is confined to its grounds, a pariah among her own sisters. Jaccob’s shop is almost always empty; people would rather drive twenty miles for milk than buy it from him.
And the Mallards… God, the Mallards. Their divorce is the town’s most public spectacle. James, our priest, with his balding head and a gaze that used to be filled with paternal warmth, now just looks… hollowed out. His affair with young Sister Megan Duvall was the talk of the town for a week, a simple, tawdry scandal. But Yn’s journal didn’t just expose the affair; it laid bare the years of James’s emotional cruelty to Sally, the pious pronouncements he’d make from the pulpit on Sunday while slowly, methodically grinding his wife’s spirit into dust at home. The pews at St. Matthews are nearly empty now. Who can listen to a sermon on forgiveness from a man who needs it more than anyone in the congregation he’s betrayed?
Sally wears her fury like armor. She’s sharp and brittle at the hospital, her professionalism the only thing holding her together. But I see the cracks. The way her blue eyes well up when she thinks no one is looking, the slight tremble in her hand when she administers an IV. Yesterday, she told a patient, quite coldly, that faith was a luxury for the foolish. I saw a piece of her die in that moment. As for Sister Megan, she’s become a phantom. I saw her once, walking along the riverbank, her honey-blonde hair a tangled mess, her face pale and tear-streaked. The other nuns, the townspeople, they shun her. She is the living symbol of a sacred vow broken, a visible stain on the town’s already filthy laundry.
Then there are the Gables. Martha Gable, a woman so devout she practically breathed incense, was a pillar of our community. She was at every bake sale, every charity drive, her hands always busy, her tongue always quick with a blessing. Yn’s journal exposed her piety as a mask for a different kind of devotion: a pathological, cruel abuse of her granddaughter, Kimber. The journal included excerpts from Kimber’s own diary, which she had secretly shared with Yn. The descriptions of Martha’s punishments, the psychological torment, the way she used God as a weapon to keep the girl terrified and compliant… it turned my stomach. Now, Kimber lives with Lois Tyron’s daughter, Merritt—the two of them orphans of this town’s secrets, finding solace in each other. Martha is a recluse, the curtains of her immaculate house drawn tight, a prison of her own making.
Friendships have been incinerated. Families are fractured. The quiet, predictable rhythm of Pitmedden has been replaced by a tense, wary silence. And through it all, there is my name. Or rather, the absence of it.
This is the question that haunts me in the quiet hours after my shift, when I sit here in my study on Cherrywood Street, the smell of old paper and leather a small comfort. Why was I spared?
My relationship with Yn was not a secret, not really. People saw us together. They saw Dr. Mayhew and the lovely writer who used to be a nurse. They saw us at the diner, at the bookstore, walking hand-in-hand by the river. They saw the public face of it. Kind, sweet, a perfect match. But they didn’t see what happened behind closed doors. They didn’t see the intimacy that went far beyond holding hands.
She was the most extraordinary person I have ever known. Yes, she was kind and gentle, but beneath that was a mind that was constantly working, calculating, fitting pieces together. She saw the world with a clarity that was both terrifying and beautiful. She would sit on the rug in front of my fireplace, her long dark hair fanned out around her, her hazel eyes fixed on me, and she would simply listen. And I, in the safety of those moments, told her everything.
I told her about my estranged brother, the gambling addiction that tore our family apart, a secret I’ve never told another living soul. I told her about the mistake I made during my residency, a misdiagnosis that nearly cost a patient their life and still gives me nightmares. I confessed my deepest fears—of failing my patients, of ending up alone, of not being the good, gentle man everyone thinks I am. I laid my soul bare for her, every flaw and every scar. She had enough ammunition in her arsenal of my confessions to ruin my reputation, to cast suspicion on my professional capabilities, to make my life here untenable.
And she used none of it.
In her journal, this published book of secrets that detonated in the heart of our town, I am not mentioned. Not once. I am an anomaly, an island of innocence in an ocean of guilt. Me, and Merritt Tyron, an actual innocent. The town looks at me now with a strange mix of respect and pity. Respect for being one of the ‘good ones,’ and pity for my connection to the woman who caused all this chaos, the woman who vanished the night her book was released.
They think I’m heartbroken because she left. They think I’m reeling, just like them. And in a way, I am. I’m hurt. A part of me, a selfish, arrogant part, is wounded that our intimacy apparently didn't warrant a mention. Was what we had not as profound as the hypocrisy of the Gables or the darkness of the cult? Did my secrets not measure up? It’s a foolish, vain thought, but it lingers.
But the confusion is the larger part. Why protect me? Yn was a force of nature, a purveyor of what she saw as righteous, necessary truth. She believed these secrets were a cancer, and she was the surgeon excising the tumor, no matter how painful the operation. So why was I exempt from her scalpel? Was it love? Did she love me enough to shield me from the very fire she was setting? Or was it something else? Something more calculating? Perhaps leaving one ‘good man’ standing made the guilt of the others seem all the more stark. Perhaps I was a control subject in her grand, devastating experiment.
The truth is, I don’t know. And I can never ask her.
Because—and this is the secret I hold, the one that presses down on my chest every single day—I know where she is.
June 9 – 10:45 p.m. – St. Matthews Ward 4
The night shift is a strange lullaby. The corridors of St. Matthews are always half‑lit, the fluorescent lights flickering like old bulbs that are about to give out. Tonight, I walked past the pediatric wing and caught a glimpse of a shadow—Sally Mallard, blinking away tears as she handed a child’s mother a discharge form.
Sally and James Mallard—my nurse colleague and the town’s beloved priest—have been a married pair for eleven years. Their marriage was the sort of thing that seemed part of the town’s scenery: the couple who always had a “good morning” at the front desk, the priest who would stop by the cafeteria for a quick toast of coffee. That morning, however, the air between them crackled with something far more volatile.
“James,” Sally said, voice trembling but fierce, “the congregation will notice when you step into a courtroom without a prayer book.” She was holding a folder—her hands splayed like a nervous fidget. “You can’t just… you can’t just—”
James—priest, confidante, my friend—stared at her with a mix of shame and raw anger. “Sally, I told you. The church has called for an investigation. My advisor thinks it’s best if we… if we separate for now. It’s about the… you know… the allegations.”
I could not hear the rest. The term “allegations” in Pitmedden is now a synonym for “public execution.” I watched them leave the ward together, the silence between them an impenetrable wall. I am a surgeon; I see that wall and think of the ways I can cut through it. But here, my scalpel is useless.
June 10 – 02:13 a.m. – My Study
I left the hospital early. There’s a strange comfort in being at home when the town is in chaos. I have the house to myself, to think, to bear witness without the prying eyes of the community.
The first thing that struck me today was Sister Megan Duvall. Sister Megan, the young nun who had offered to comfort the grieving families after the hurricane two years ago, now sat alone in the chapel’s back pew, her eyes glued to the stained glass. A faint gasp escaped the congregation when I saw her. She was… shunned.
Later in the hallway, I overheard Father O’Leary whisper, “She’s not of us anymore.” The whisper carried over a chandelier’s glass like a breath of winter. I recall how Megan once tended to my own mother’s final hours with a tenderness that made me think nuns could be more than a habit. Now, her secret affair with James Mallard—something Yn put on paper in that final entry—made her a pariah.
I’ve covered patients’s backs for years, but never the backs of a sister’s reputation. I am beginning to understand that the burden of knowledge is a weight that doesn’t lift, no matter how many lives you pull back from the brink.
June 11 – 09:38 a.m. – Gable Residence, Front Porch
Martha Gable—her hair like a storm‑cloud, her eyes a milky blue—was the town’s quiet saint. She sat three chairs away from the church, the sun filtering through her lace curtains. I visited her once a month to check her blood pressure, to bring her the seniors’ medication list, to hear stories of her youth before it got “tricky.”
Now, I see her standing on the porch, head bowed, her hands clenched around a chipped teacup. Her granddaughter, Kimber—at twenty‑one, a bright crown of auburn curls—stood a short distance away, her green eyes full of reticence and fear.
The town learned that week that Martha, the woman who never missed mass, had been an abusive, controlling force in Kimber’s life. The journal’s pages described a hidden basement where Kimber’s cries once echoed, the bruises that were hidden by sweaters and scarves. On a small screen in my clinic, a headline blared: “Martha Gable Arrested for Child Abuse.”
When I left that house, the wind seemed to whisper something about old sins resurfacing, like the tide that once threatened to swallow the fishing dock. I walked back to my car thinking about how we call people “good” for years, how that designation is often nothing more than a convenient label.
June 12 – 04:57 p.m. – St. Matthews Operating Room
Carter Murphy—my colleague, a surgeon with a calm demeanor and a mind of steel—has been my professional rock. The OR is a sanctuary where the world outside collapses into a sterile blue glow. Yet today, his hands shook.
He confessed, over a coffee break, that his family’s name has been linked, in Yn’s journal, to a cult that operated under the thin veil of community service. A cult that recruited so many—Jacob Bennet, the town’s amiable shopkeeper, an unassuming man with a crew cut; Angie Tae, the nun who always seemed to be the “to‑go” for confessions; even my own, Dr. Charlie Mayhew, being named in passing for my “unquestioning” loyalty to the hospital’s hierarchy.
He looked at me with eyes that shouted, “I’m not the only one.” I wanted to reassure him, to tell him that we are all people, that no one is pure, but the words got caught in my throat like a piece of bark.
The OR’s lights dimmed, the beeping monitors became a metronome to my thoughts. I thought about the cult’s purpose. Their leader, a man called “The Shepherd,” never existed—only a rumor, a myth, a figure that fed on the town’s fear. Yet, if the journal is true, that myth was real enough to drag a dozen innocent lives into its dark fold.
June 13 – 11:02 p.m. – The Old Church “St. Matthew’s Ruins”
I walked tonight to the old, abandoned wing of St. Matthew’s. The side of the church that the townsfolk avoided—because the pews there have remained empty since Sister Megan’s expulsion, since James’ courtroom appearances, since the faithful have begun to question why God might let the Church be so flawed.
The shadows were deep, the air thick with incense’s lingering perfume. I crouched behind a stone column and whispered my thoughts to the empty room, as if confessing to an unseen altar.
Why am I the only one not mentioned? I asked the silence. Why do the pages bleed with everyone’s secrets, but mine remain blank?
The wind howled a response, rattling the stained‑glass windows. A glint of metal caught my eye—a tiny silver pendant, a delicate chain with a faint heart-shaped locket. It was small enough to be missed, hidden perhaps in a seam of the stone or a fold of a curtain.
I reached for it, my fingers trembling. The locket was warm, as if it had been close to a pulse. I opened it gently, and inside lay a single strand of dark hair—serpentine, slicked back, unmistakably matching Yn’s. Alongside it, a small scrap of paper with a single inked word: “Trust.”
I felt the weight of the locket in my palm like a promise, or perhaps a warning. My heart hammered against my ribs, echoing the rhythmic beeps of the heart monitors back at the hospital. The necklace was more than a trinket; it was a clue, a reminder of a bond that defied the public exposure.
I slipped the locket into the pocket of my coat, my mind racing. This was the first tangible proof that Yn was still, in some manner, near.
I am the one who drove her to the train station in the dead of night, her manuscript already delivered to the publisher, set to explode like a timed bomb. I remember the look in her eyes under the dim station lights. Not triumph, not malice. Just a profound, bone-deep sadness. A weariness.
“They need to see themselves, Charlie,” she had whispered, her hand cold in mine. “All of them. Otherwise, the rot just spreads.”
“And what about you, Yn?” I asked, my voice thick. “What about us?”
“There is no ‘us’ in Pitmedden anymore,” she’d said, and the finality in her voice was absolute. “I’ve made myself a ghost. You have to let me go. For your own sake. Promise me you won’t come looking. Promise me you won’t say a word.”
And I, devoted and loving and foolish, promised. I watched her board the train, a small figure swallowed by the darkness, taking the heart of me with her. I came back to a town that would wake up in a few hours to its own immolation, and I have played my part ever since. The concerned doctor. The jilted lover. The good man.
My performance is flawless. Professional, firm, understanding. I listen to Sally’s rants, I offer a comforting, non-committal word to Kimber, I nod grimly when the investigation into Lois’s death is discussed. I am a pillar of stability in the chaos she created. It is the role she assigned me, and I will play it to perfection. It is the only way I can keep my promise. It is the only thing of her I have left.
June 14 – 07:12 a.m. – My Kitchen (again)
I find myself back where I started, the kitchen table strewn with the remnants of last night’s coffee, the ink of my pen still drying. I am a man of medicine—trained to observe, diagnose, treat. Yet, these past days have forced me into the role of a detective, a confidant, a keeper of secrets that the town does not want to know.
The following is a chronological list of observations, a clinical record of Pitmedden’s condition post‑Yn:
Social Fabric: The once‑tight community has frayed. Dinner parties once held at the Gable residence are now canceled. The Mallard household is a no‑go zone. The town’s coffee shop sees half the usual customers. Some families have moved out, citing “stress.” Others stay, but their smiles are coatings.
Religious Institutions: St. Matthew’s pews are half empty. Sister Megan’s banishment has caused whispers among the other sisters; even the high priest, Father O’Leary, is rumored to be re‑evaluating his vows. Angie's involvement with the cult has caused the order to enforce stricter oversight.
Medical Community: The hospital staff is on edge. Our board meetings are now filled with defensive statements, “We have no knowledge of any cult activities.” Yet the undercurrent is palpable; we all know something isn’t being said. Carter’s performance has slipped; his once‑steady hands now betray a tremor. He shared a story of his mother’s involvement with a charitable group that turned out to be a front for the cult. He looks at me with dread, as if fearing that I, too, might be a part of it.
Law Enforcement: The death of Detective Lois Tyron remains unresolved. The town’s police force, once efficient, now appears to be under a cloud. Her daughter, Merritt—now a twenty‑something, studying criminal justice—has been the only one to keep her mother’s memory alive. She visits the precinct daily, asking questions that make the chief uneasy.
Personal Impact: My relationship with Yn, now a memory of stolen kisses in the hospital’s green garden and whispered arguments over medical ethics, is my only source of honest intimacy. She wanted to expose, she wanted to set the town free. She also wanted us to be safe. I know where she is—her last known location was the abandoned cabin by Willow Creek, a place she called “the refuge.” I have never told anyone. Not because I doubt her motives, but because I fear the result would be… more blood, more fractures.
The Necklace: Found in the church, the pendant confirms that Yn left a physical token for me. The word “Trust” is ambiguous—trust in me, trust in the process, trust in something larger. The hair is a literal piece of her, a reminder that whatever she did, she did not intend to simply vanish. The necklace may be a plea for me to protect someone else, perhaps Merritt, or perhaps the town itself.
I have reminded myself, repeatedly, that I am a doctor. My oath is to “do no harm.” Yet the definition of “harm” expands when the disease is not purely physiological. The contagion now is scandal, suspicion, fear.
June 15 – 12:40 p.m. – The Willow Creek Cabin
I went today. Not because I wanted to see a ghost, but because I needed to*—*to understand what I was walking into. The cabin is a weather‑worn structure, vines crawling up its siding, the roof missing a shingle here and there, an old porch that creaks under weight.
Inside, the smell of damp wood and moss. The floorboards groan as I step. On a table, a half‑empty water bottle, a notebook—its leather cover cracked. I pick it up and open the first page. Scrawled, in cramped cursive: “If you read this, I am gone. It is not what you think.” A line down, “You must protect the ones you love.”
The rest of the pages are blank, except for a single, densely written paragraph:
The town is a living organism. Its arteries are the roads, its veins are the families, its heart is the church. When a tumor grows, you must cut, but careful not to cut the heart itself. The people you love—Sally, James, Megan, even those you despise—are part of that heart. You cannot be the scalpel that severs a living being without breaking your own.
I close the notebook. My mind spins. Yn*—*the woman I loved, the woman who made me question the very notion of truth—*has left me a moral puzzle. She wants me to protect, but who? The town? The individuals? And by protecting, does she mean silence? Or does she mean action?
I step back onto the porch. The creek low‑crescent glints in the afternoon sun, the water rippling like the surface of a lake after a stone is thrown. I think of the locket in my pocket, its heavy, quiet promise. I think of Merritt Tyron, who posts flyers at the library asking “Who killed my mother?” She’s still looking for answers I do not have.
I realize I am at a crossroads. The physician in me wants a diagnosis; the husband of a woman who disappeared wants closure; the citizen of this town wants peace.
June 16 – 09:00 a.m. – My Study (again)
I haven’t slept well. Between the night’s thoughts and the early morning, the house feels too quiet. I am writing this entry for a reason other than recording facts: I need to speak to someone. The act of externalizing my thoughts makes them less like a cluster of nerves and more like a narrative I can examine.
Dear Journal,
When I first met Yn, she was a nurse, a wanderer with a notebook always tucked into her cardigan. She would stand at the nurses’ station and ask “Did you know the heart can lie?” and we’d argue over the meaning for hours. She taught me that caring for a body is not the same as caring for a soul.
*Now—*I pause, the word feels heavy—now the town’s souls are exposed. The secrets that were once hidden are now bruises we can’t ignore. The doctor’s duty is to heal, but can we heal something that is not physical?
I keep looking at the locket. The hair inside is a reminder that she is still here, in a way—her presence in the very fabric of this place. “Trust.” Trust me. Trust the process. Trust whatever fate has for us.
I have a decision to make. I could go to the police with everything I know—the cult, the journal, the people involved. I could also go to Merritt, tell her her mother’s death wasn’t an accident but the result of a deeper rot. Or I could keep this to myself, protect the fragile peace, and pray that these wounds will eventually scar over.
I’m terrified of being the one who pulls a thread that unravels everything—or of being the one who refuses to pull it, leaving the town shackled in fear. I have to remember my oath: “Do no harm.” If I expose the cult fully, I may cause a cascade of suicides, arrests, families torn apart. If I stay silent, more people will continue to be harmed by those who think they are untouchable.
For now, I will talk to the only person who has a clear line: Merritt Tyron. She is young, determined, and has no stake in the current power structures except her mother’s memory. If she wants justice, she needs allies. I will give her a piece of the puzzle, enough to keep her safe, but not enough to ruin the town entirely.
I will keep the locket close. Maybe someday, when the dust settles, I’ll understand why Yn left me this. Maybe she saw that I was the only person she trusted enough to bear this weight.
– Charlie
June 18 – 02:30 p.m. – The Gable Garden
Merritt arrived at the Gable house with a small satchel of papers. She is tall, with a determined set to her shoulders that reminds me of my mother when she prepared for surgery. She came under the pretense of delivering herbs for her “grandmother’s tea”—a polite fiction that works in a town where everyone’s a little embarrassed about their own rumors.
We sat on the porch swing, the creak of its chains mixing with the distant hum of the town’s main road. I slid the locket, open, onto the wooden armrest. She looked at it, her hazel eyes widening. “Is that—?”
“It’s Yn’s,” I said, voice low. “She left it for me. It has a… a hair. It’s a reminder she’s still here, in some sense.”
Merritt’s eyes flicked to the hair, then back to me. “And you… you know where she is?”
The truth is a heavy stone in my mouth. I could not speak. I nodded slowly, “In the cabin near Willow Creek. She’s… she’s not dead. She’s… missing.”
Merritt’s hand trembled, but she clutched the locket instead. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
My answer came out unfiltered. “Because I’m afraid. Because it would bring more pain.”
She looked away, the wind tugging at her hair. “My mother died because someone wanted to keep a secret. I don’t want that to happen again. But I can’t just keep a secret forever.”
We agreed on a plan—tiny, cautious, but a start. I would give her a copy of the journal pages that involved her mother’s death, the part that incriminated the cult. She would go to the new district attorney, a woman known for her no‑nonsense approach, and request a re‑opening of the case.
The conversation ended with a promise. Merritt would bring a photo of the locket to the attorney—a symbol of a secret that should no longer be hidden.
I go home later that evening and find myself somewhat dissolute.
My hand trembles slightly as I write this. I close the journal and push back from my desk. The house is silent. Too silent. I walk from the study into my bedroom, the moonlight casting long shadows across the floor. I need to change out of my work clothes, to wash the sterile scent of the hospital away.
I pull open the top dresser drawer to get a fresh shirt. My fingers brush against something small, cool, and metallic tucked away in the corner beneath a stack of undershirts. I pause, my heart giving a painful lurch. I know what it is before I even look.
Slowly, I draw it out. It lies in the palm of my hand, catching the moonlight. It’s her necklace. A simple, delicate silver chain, with a small, circular charm. A compass rose. She told me she wore it to remind herself to always find her own true north, not the one society dictated. She’d taken it off that last night, at my house, before we left for the station. She must have forgotten it in her haste. Or perhaps, she left it on purpose. A final, secret message just for me.
I curl my fingers around it, the sharp points of the compass pressing into my palm. The cool metal feels like an anchor. In this town of shattered trust and exposed lies, I am the keeper of the final, most important secret of all. She spared me. She left me here, untouched by the flames, to stand as a quiet testament to… something. Love? A different kind of truth?
I don’t know. But holding this small piece of her, I feel a strange sense of peace settle over my confusion. It isn’t about being innocent. It’s about being chosen. She trusted me to be her silence. And as I watch the ruins of Pitmedden smolder around me, I know, with a weary and unshakable resolution, that it is a trust I will never betray.
