Yvaine felt desolate.

She sat on the windowsill of her bedroom, with the diary of Paisley Rose laid open upon her thigh. A thoughtful frown had appeared in between her eyes, as she wondered what could be the answer that would solve the mystery of Wilhelmina Andras's disappearance. She sought the final connection desperately.

A good six days had passed since her eventful conversation with Vesna Rose. The three of them had divided the task of finding the final clue, with Yvaine focusing on the riddle they had found in the diary while Oleander had thought of seeking external sources and thus had gone out of the town. He was to return the next day.

Amberly on the other hand had taken the job of researching the archives for any information they might have missed earlier. But all these to no avail. They had not yet found anything productive.

Lost in thoughts, Yvaine's sight drifted to the open diary. She picked it up and read the riddle out loud.

"You who read this must know of the tragedy,
And have thus begun your quest to uncover the truth,
Take heed to my words,
Trust not what says the world,
That which seems most unlikely search there o dear reader,
For gold is often found in tombs, and carrions in boxes of gold,
Look beneath, look underneath and you shall find the truth."

Again, she was stuck. She was unable to unravel what the riddle wanted to say. Groaning in defeat, Yvaine rested her head on her knee and closed her eyes. Perhaps she was too stressed and thus was unable to dissect the riddle. If she rested and gave more time to it, then she would be able to understand it better.

The afternoon of her father's funeral played out in her mind. Yvaine got transported to that bygone day, the day she bid her father goodbye forever. She remembered how hot the day was to the point of boiling down the skin of all those who were there. The cemetery was rather a lonely place with a handful of trees, no grass and scanty graves. Yvaine remembered how nauseated she felt from crying and from that black dress she had worn for the funeral, that they had to delay the event.

However, no one had predicted the rains that followed the heatwave. Midway through the funeral, it had begun to rain furiously, drenching them all wet. At that moment the barren graveyard seemed to glow with life with the trees swirling their heads in tune with the raindrops, the marble headstones glistening in the shower, the way her father's coffin shone as if it was made of gold...

Yvaine sprang up in her position, the diary of Paisley Rose slipping down to the ground. The penultimate line in the riddle buzzed in her head: For gold is often found in tombs and carrions in boxes of gold. Could the final clue be in a graveyard? Jumping down she picked up her phone from the bedside table and dialled Amberly. After a few minutes, the call was answered.

"Hello? Is this Miss Agan?" Amberly's voice floated from the speakers.

"Yes, Miss Wood. Can you help me with something?" Yvaine asked.

"Yeah, sure. What do you want me to do?"

"Do you know where the Andras brothers had been buried?"

"Oh, sure I do! So-" she paused for a while. "--the brothers, Jonathan and Johansson Andras, both had been entombed in the mausoleum in the old graveyard near the town hospital. It is not used anymore, neither is it supervised."

"Wonderful. Meet me there at three p.m sharp?" Yvaine cut off the call. She quickly rushed to her wardrobe and put on jeans and a shirt. Shoving her phone into the pant pocket she rushed downstairs, wearing a triumphant grin. She was close to solving the mystery. She could feel it in her bones.

***

Yvaine was standing by the crumbling iron gates of the old graveyard, when Amberly arrived, sweating and panting.

"What happened to you, Miss Wood?" Yvaine asked concernedly. She eyed Amberly from top to bottom and looked behind her to ensure that she had not been chased by anyone.

"I broke my heels on my way here," Amberly said, clutching her chest. "I had to walk all the way back to my house to get a new pair and then ran here because I was running late." She explained.

"It is alright. Now let us go into the mausoleum."

"By the way, what are we doing there Miss Agan?"

"I plan to search the coffins of Jonathan and Johansson Andras." Yvaine said. 

"You are going to do what?" Amberly's face turned white with horror. "Why do we need to do that?"

"Because I think the key to solving the mystery lies there," Yvaine said. "You may not accompany me if you feel uncomfortable, Miss Wood. I understand that such places can cause much unease." She said concernedly.

"No, it is not that. I was just shocked." Amberly sighed. "Let us go."

The rest of their journey from the gate to the mausoleum happened in silence. None of the girls spoke to each other, each worried about the consequences of their actions. The gloomy atmosphere of the graveyard did not help at all.

It was evident from the enormity of the graveyard that it once was a truly impressive place, with neatly lined trees, lush grass and beautiful flowers set all around the graves. But now, after years of neglect and abandonment, it resembled an overgrown forest.

The trees had grown snarled roots, weeds grew rampant and the grass grew so tall that Yvaine and Amberly had to wade through them. Green algae and moss had grown a thick layer over the headstones and the statues of the mourning angels present there.

The mausoleum at one end of the graveyard seemed to be untouched by its surroundings. It was made of smooth white marble and was shaped like an urn. It looked like it was about to collapse at any moment, with all the cracks and crevices upon its walls. However, the ground around it was clean and no algal growth could be noticed on it. It still held its head high in glory, albeit in a glory that was crumbling.

"Jonathan and Johansson Andras were the last to be interred in this graveyard," Amberly spoke, as they neared the door of the mausoleum. "After that, the graveyard was closed down due to the high rate of maintenance is required and the new one was constructed. I had been reading about this in the old newspapers in the archives."

"That must be it. This place is too large to be maintained," Yvaine nodded in acquiescence. "But I wonder if that entrance is blocked or not. We will be in big trouble if it is." The duo stopped in front of the door.

Yvaine, taking the first step, gave the door a hefty push. Luckily the door was not jammed, for it opened instantly realising years of dust that made Yvaine cough.

"Come on in, Miss Wood. We have free passage." Saying this she entered, followed closely by Amberly whose heart rate increased at the thoughts of spiders in the mausoleum. She felt relieved seeing that although cobwebs were hanging from the ceiling, there were no spiders.

The interior of the mausoleum was as big as Yvaine's bedroom in the chateâu. Like its exterior, the interior was white as well with two coffins kept upon marble pedestals in the middle. The coffins were made of dark walnut wood which looked pleasing despite the layers of dust that had settled upon it.

"This must be the coffin of Jonathan Andras," Yvaine said, moving towards the coffin on her right. With the back of her hand, she wiped away the dust, revealing the engravings which spelt the name of its owner.

"Well, what do we do now?" Amberly asked, looking here and there uncomfortably. Sweat had formed on her forehead.

"Ah, yes. Come here and give me a hand to lift up the lid of this coffin," Yvaine put a strand of her hair behind her ear. "We start with Jonathan Andras and if we find nothing we move onto the coffin of Johansson Andras."

Nodding, Amberly came to her. They spoke not a word as they worked, for both wanted to be out of this place as fast as possible. But unlike the door, the lid of the coffin was much harder to lift. After half an hour of pushing by the two girls, the lid gave away with a great impact. Corpse dust blew out directly into their faces along with the noxious smell of decomposition, rank and sickly sweet.

"Guh, disgusting!" Amberly sat down on the ground on her knees, holding her nose to prevent herself from sniffing in the scent.

"Well, at least the coffin's open." Yvaine coughed in response. She wiped away the dust on her face before trudging again to the now open coffin.

"Miss Agan, please don't ask me to come over." Amberly groaned. She was lying prostrate on the ground, recovering from the attack of the dust and smell of the coffin.

"No problem. Stay where you are Miss Wood. I will do the inspection." Yvaine answered, staring fixedly at the coffin.

The body of Jonathan Andras was reduced to a skeleton, dressed in a fine black coat and a white shirt. Various dried flowers were stuffed into the little space within the coffin, one of which had fallen into the right eye socket of Jonathan's skeleton.

Yvaine hesitated for a while. Her hands trembled as she put them on the corpse. She felt the cold roundness of the skull and moved on to the ribs, shivering when she felt the fractures upon them. He was stabbed to death and whoever stabbed him had poured all their rage on him, she thought.

She was about to shove her hands into the sides of the coffin in search of that hypothetical final clue when her eyes fell upon the slightly awkward positioning of the skeleton's right hand. Moving closer she noticed that it appeared to be that Jonathan Andras was holding something tightly at the moment of his death.

Through the little space within the fingers of the corpse, Yvaine put her hands to feel what was inside. She gasped as she realised the familiar coarseness of paper. Pointing her fingers like a tweezer, she pulled it out.

"Phew! Now, what is this?" She mumbled to herself, unfolding the paper. Neat print-like handwriting lined the page, angled towards the left side. Yvaine's eyes dilated upon reading it.

It was a confession.