4338.210 · July 29, 2018 AD
The Manor Loads Slowly
Karl's desk empty. Claiborne's courtyard whisper still echoing. Sarah searches the database for Louise Jeffries. No results. Kain Jeffries. Nothing. Too clean. She tries the internet instead. Jeffries Manor explodes across her screen—articles, heritage listings, ghost-hunter forums. Adam Panchak's investigative piece loads with agonizing slowness. A gothic photograph renders line by line. A headline about vanishing. Sarah reads about William Jeffries disappearing in 1821. About Rita Larkin's asylum diary describing rainbow gates. About two centuries of disappeared people bearing the same surname she's investigating now.
The database returns nothing. Louise Jeffries—no results. Kain Jeffries—no results. Too clean. Either they never existed in Tasmania's systems or someone scrubbed them out deliberately.
Sarah tries the internet. Jeffries Manor explodes across her screen—dozens of links cascading down. Adam Panchak's investigative piece stands out immediately. Senior journalist. Awards for exposés. When Adam writes about something, it's been thoroughly researched.
The article loads with agonizing slowness. A black-and-white photograph unfurls line by line—Jeffries Manor rising like a gothic spectre. Victorian architecture. Empty windows like eyes. Overgrown lawn. A building too proud to collapse but too haunted to live in comfortably.
The headline: "Jeffries Manor: Legacy, Land, and the Vanishing of William Jeffries."
William Jeffries—convict-turned-landowner, built the manor in 1817. Disappeared without warning in 1821. Left behind wife, infant son, accumulated property, carefully constructed new identity. Just vanished.
Then Rita Larkin—self-proclaimed medium who arrived in 1841 claiming visions had summoned her. Spent weeks on the property before commitment to asylum in 1842. Her diary described William being pulled through a "hole in the sky." A rainbow gate in the orchard. Where air buzzed and dogs refused to go.
In 1844, Larkin vanished from a locked asylum room. Window latched from inside. Door locked from outside. No explanation.
Sarah realizes Louise isn't just wealthy. She's married to Thomas Jeffries—current patriarch, great-great-great-grandson of William Jr. The Jeffries name isn't just old money. It's old blood soaked into Tasmanian soil. Politics, land, legacy, influence stretching back two centuries.
Two centuries of disappeared people. All connected to this family. All bearing variations of the same surname Sarah's investigating now.
The cursor blinks. Sarah feels watched. Not investigating recent disappearances—unearthing something buried alive centuries ago.
