Chapter 1: The Echo Under the Bridge
The rain had a way of settling in Coldwater, as if it, too, remembered things that should have been forgotten. It brought with it the tang of sorrow and faded dreams, swirling through the silent streets and pooling beneath the old stone bridge on the edge of town. That was where the song began, or perhaps, where it ended.
Detective Violet Hastings paused beneath her umbrella, the fabric battered by the relentless drizzle. Her boots splashed through the puddles, scuffing the moss-covered stones as she approached the scene. A uniformed officer gestured silently to the figure huddled beneath the bridge’s low arch. The corpse, a man in his late forties, lay stretched out on the damp ground, one hand curled as if clinging to some invisible thread.
Hastings crouched, rain pooling around her. There was something odd about the way the body lay, the angle of the head turned towards the river, as if the man had been listening intently to something only he could hear. She noticed a small, battered music box lying open beside him. It played no melody now, the mechanism stilled by rain and time. But a single scrap of paper poked from beneath the man’s body, blurred ink almost illegible in the dim light.
She carefully extracted it, shielding it from the rain. The words, though smeared, were unmistakable: The melody of forgotten dreams will reveal the truth.
Chapter 2: The Lullaby’s Source
Back at the precinct, the music box rested on Hastings’s cluttered desk. The crime scene report named the victim as Thomas Elbridge, a music teacher who had lived alone since his wife’s disappearance three years prior. His apartment, when searched, yielded little—except for a stack of old sheet music, each page marked with annotations in a precise, almost obsessive hand.
Hastings spun the music box’s tiny key. A hesitant melody tinkled forth, haunting and incomplete, like a lullaby forgotten halfway through its telling. She let it play, watching the gears turn, searching for a pattern. The melody snagged at the edges of her memory, something she’d heard once as a child, drifting from an open window on summer nights. She scribbled the notes onto a pad, determined to find its source.
At the end of the tune, she noticed something hidden beneath the false bottom of the music box: another scrap of paper, folded small. Carefully, she unfolded it. On one side, a few bars of music penned in hurried strokes. On the other, a single name: L. Rowan.
Hastings’s pulse quickened. Lila Rowan had disappeared from Coldwater two decades earlier, her case never solved, her memory lingering in the town like the rain. Could Elbridge’s death be linked to her, after all these years?
Chapter 3: The Ghosts of Coldwater
The library archives smelled of dust and disuse, the air heavy with stories waiting to be unearthed. Hastings flipped through the yellowed files of missing persons, her lamp casting long shadows across the pages. Lila Rowan’s photograph stared up at her—a girl of fifteen, eyes bright with secrets, a lopsided smile frozen in time.
She traced the familiar lines of the face, recalling the rumors that had whispered through Coldwater in the summer of Lila’s disappearance. Some said she’d run away to the city. Others whispered of a lover, forbidden and wild. But there had been no answers, only the melody of rumors, persistent as the rain.
Hastings read through Elbridge’s life as well. A respected teacher, but solitary. His wife, Margaret, gone without a trace. Nothing in the records hinted at a connection to Lila—except the music. She compared the bars from the music box to the sheet music in Elbridge’s apartment. The same song, the same peculiar changes in tempo and key. A melody that had haunted Coldwater for as long as anyone could remember.
But what did it mean?
Chapter 4: A Visit to Old Friends
At dawn, Hastings drove to the edge of town, the rain finally exhausted. The Rowan house still stood, paint peeling, windows shuttered against the world. She knocked, the sound echoing down the empty street. The door opened a crack, revealing the wary eyes of Anna Rowan, Lila’s mother.
Hastings introduced herself, explaining her reason for coming. Anna’s face pinched tighter with every word, the lines of grief deeper than the years should allow.
Lila loved music, Anna said at last, voice thick with memory. She played piano every night, that same old tune—I can’t remember how it went now, but Thomas… he was her teacher, you know. He wrote it for her, a birthday present. She used to say it was the melody of her dreams.
Did you ever think Thomas and Lila—
No, Anna interrupted, shaking her head. He was kind to her, but she was just a child. After she vanished, he stopped teaching. His own wife disappeared later, and it broke him. I always thought the two were linked, but the police found nothing. Just grief, piled on grief.
Hastings thanked her and left, heart heavy. As she walked away, Anna called after her, voice almost lost on the morning breeze.
Sometimes, I think I hear her playing, late at night. The melody drifts through the house. Maybe you’ll find her, Detective. Maybe you’ll find them both.
Chapter 5: Echoes in the Attic
Back in her own apartment, Hastings played the music box again and again, the melody winding into her dreams. She scoured the sheet music for patterns, for clues. It was an obsession now—there was something hidden in the notes, something she could almost grasp.
In the attic, amid boxes of old case files, she found a forgotten folder. Inside were photographs from the original Lila Rowan investigation. Among them, a picture of a piano, its lacquered surface scratched with initials: L.R. + T.E.
Hastings blinked. She had always assumed Lila’s lover, if he existed, was a boy from school. But what if it was Thomas Elbridge? The initials matched. She checked the dates—the last recital Lila attended was the night she vanished. The program listed the songs played. The final piece: Forgotten Dreams, by T.E.
It was the same song. The same melody.
But who was the song written for? And what truth did it conceal?
Chapter 6: The Forgotten Letter
Rain fell again as Hastings made her way to the old Coldwater school. The music room was unchanged, dust motes drifting in sunbeams, the piano silent in the corner. She opened the bench. Inside lay a stack of faded letters, tied with a ribbon.
She untied the knot and unfolded the top letter. The handwriting was Lila’s—eager, looping, full of hope. She poured her heart onto the page, describing dreams of escape, of a world beyond Coldwater, of a music teacher who understood her better than anyone.
But there was something else—a fear that crept between the lines. She wrote of someone watching her, following her home. She didn’t name them, but the fear was palpable. In the final letter, the words trembled on the page:
If anything happens to me, the song will tell you who did it. Listen to the melody. It’s all there, hidden in the notes.
The melody of forgotten dreams.
Chapter 7: The Code Within the Song
Hastings returned to her desk and laid out the sheet music. She played the melody on a small keyboard, over and over, searching for patterns. At last, she noticed something—the notes spelled out letters, using the old technique of musical cryptography. E-G-A-D, C-A-B, and so on.
She wrote down the sequence, translating each group of notes into letters. The message emerged, halting and faint, like a voice from the past:
M.A.R.G.A.R.E.T.
Hastings stared at the name. Margaret Elbridge—Thomas’s wife. The victim of another disappearance, another forgotten dream. The message continued, the melody guiding her hand:
MARGARET KNOWS. MARGARET SAW.
She froze. The implication was chilling. Margaret had seen something—had known something—about Lila’s disappearance. And Thomas had hidden the truth in a song, hoping someone would one day hear it.
Chapter 8: Revelations in the Rain
Hastings tracked down the last person to have seen Margaret—her sister, Ellen Drayton, who lived on the outskirts of Coldwater. Ellen’s home was small and cluttered, but she welcomed Hastings inside, eyes wary.
I always thought Thomas was gentle, Ellen said, her fingers twisting a handkerchief. But Margaret, she was afraid. The night before she vanished, she came to me, frantic. She said she knew what happened to Lila. That Thomas was involved. She said she had proof, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was. The next morning, she was gone.
Did you ever find anything?
Ellen shook her head. Only a scrap of music, tucked into her jewelry box. I never understood what it meant. She retrieved it from a battered tin. Hastings studied it—it was part of the melody, the missing notes from the music box. On the back, Margaret had scrawled: The bridge. The water. The truth lies beneath.
Hastings thanked her and hurried back into the rain, heart pounding. The bridge—the place where Thomas’s body had been found. Was it coincidence, or a confession?
Chapter 9: Secrets Beneath the Stones
Night had fallen by the time Hastings reached the old stone bridge. The river, swollen by rain, rushed dark and cold beneath the arch. She shone her flashlight along the stones, searching for anything out of place. Her beam caught on something—a rusted tin box, wedged into a crevice just above the waterline.
She pried it free, hands numb. Inside was a folded letter, protected from the damp by layers of oilcloth. She opened it, recognizing Margaret’s handwriting.
If you are reading this, I am either dead or missing. I have kept silent for too long, but I cannot bear the weight anymore. Thomas loved Lila. She was a child, and he crossed a line. She came to me, terrified, the night she vanished. I tried to protect her, but he found us by the river. There was a struggle. She fell. The water took her. Thomas told me to forget, to keep the secret. When I threatened to go to the police, he made me disappear too. If you find the song, you will find the truth.
Hastings’s breath caught. The melody was a confession, a trail of breadcrumbs left for someone brave enough to follow it. She looked into the dark water, imagining the lives lost to its depths, the dreams washed away like so many forgotten melodies.
Chapter 10: The Melody Ends
The next morning, Hastings filed her report, enclosing the letters and the music. The coroner’s report confirmed what she already knew—Thomas Elbridge had died from an overdose, likely self-administered. A suicide of conscience, perhaps, or an escape from the truth he could no longer bear.
Coldwater finally knew the story behind its most haunting melody. The police dredged the river and found, at last, the remains of Lila Rowan, buried beneath years of silt and sorrow. Margaret’s fate was sealed as well—her body lay beside Lila’s, the two bound by tragedy and silence.
The town mourned, but there was relief too—a sense of release, as if some great weight had been lifted. Hastings attended the joint memorial, standing among the townsfolk as the church organ played the familiar, aching melody one last time. It no longer sounded like a lullaby. It was a requiem, a song for the forgotten, carried on the wind and rain.
As she walked home, Hastings hummed the tune, her mind at peace. The melody of forgotten dreams had revealed its truth at last, and Coldwater could finally begin to heal.