Who, Exactly, Is in the Box
Correction: The subject, Nathaniel Althorp, is not deceased.
The voice was not human.
It was cold, clinical, like a machine reading a stock ticker, and it echoed not in the hallowed silence of the Althorp family’s private chapel, but directly inside Cora’s skull.
And somehow, impossibly, everyone else heard it too.
The air, thick with the cloying, sweet scent of lilies and old money, froze.
The priest, his hand raised mid-benediction over the polished mahogany casket, paused, his mouth agape.
The mourners, a curated collection of New England’s elite, turned as one, their polite grief masks cracking.
Their eyes, a hundred pairs of them, landed on Cora.
She stood numbly in the front pew, a ghost in a black dress.
She had not spoken.
She had not even thought it that loudly.
It was just a flicker, a desperate, childish wish against the crushing finality of the eulogies.
*It can’t be real. Dad can’t really be dead.*
And then the voice had answered.
Cora’s gaze shot to her mother, Eleonora.
She was a marble statue of dignified sorrow, her face veiled in black lace.
But beneath the veil, Cora saw it.
Not shock.
Not confusion.
It was fear.
Pure, ice-white terror.
A fear that had nothing to do with grief.
At the same moment, the voice in her head, now the voice in the room, spoke again.
It was as dispassionate as a coroner’s report.
As for the casket, valued at over one million dollars… think of it less as a final resting place, and more as a… departure gift.
§01
The silence that followed was a physical thing, a heavy blanket smothering the sound of a hundred held breaths.
Departure gift?
The phrase hung in the air, grotesque and nonsensical.
Cora’s mind raced, trying to make sense of the senseless.
The Oracle System, the thing that had just hijacked her consciousness and turned it into a public broadcast, offered a chilling clarification.
【The velvet-lined case you saw your mother place inside the casket, containing the legendary 'Star of Marlowe' diamond suite… was not a token of eternal love.】
【It was a severance package.】
【A wedding gift, to be precise.】
【For your father and his mistress, Zara Petty.】
A collective gasp rippled through the chapel.
It was a sound of pure, unadulterated scandal.
Every eye swung from Cora to the regal, now trembling, figure of Eleonora Althorp.
Cora felt the floor tilt beneath her feet.
The ‘Star of Marlowe.’
A mythical set from a defunct Parisian jeweler, whispered about in auction houses but never seen.
Her mother had presented it at the private viewing, her voice choked with emotion, saying it was the one thing Nathaniel had cherished most, a symbol of their undying bond that must be buried with him.
It was a lie.
All of it was a lie.
The Oracle System’s voice, devoid of mercy, continued its clinical dissection of their family’s hollow core.
【Eleonora Althorp brokered a deal. She would help Nathaniel fake his death, provide him with a priceless, untraceable asset for his new life, and in return…】
【She and her son, Spencer, would inherit the entirety of the Althorp estate, free and clear.】
【A quiet life, she called it. An exchange for her silence.】
Cora stared at her mother, who was now clutching her chest, her knuckles white.
The carefully constructed mask of the grieving widow was shattering, revealing the frantic, cornered strategist beneath.
And Spencer.
Her brother.
He stood beside their mother, his face, which had been a mask of filial piety, was now pale with rage and confusion.
He took a step forward, his voice a furious bellow that broke the spell.
"Cora! What is this? What sick game are you playing?"
He was marching towards her, his fists clenched.
"He's our father! Have you gone insane?"
Cora flinched, bracing for the inevitable blow.
She had been his punching bag her entire life, the quiet, disposable daughter, always secondary to the heir.
But before he could reach her, another voice cut through the tension.
It was the Oracle System again, its tone holding the faintest trace of what might be called digital curiosity.
【An interesting choice of words.】
【'Our' father.】
【That assumes a shared bloodline.】
§02
Spencer froze mid-stride.
The accusation, so alien and precise, hung in the sanctified air like a poison dart.
"What… what did you just say?" he stammered, his fury momentarily eclipsed by a dawning, horrifying confusion.
Cora’s own blood ran cold.
She looked from Spencer’s face—so handsome, so celebrated, the golden boy of the Althorp dynasty—to her mother’s.
Eleonora’s terror had morphed into something else.
A desperate, pleading denial.
"Stop this," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Whoever is doing this, please, stop."
But the Oracle System had no mercy.
It was a machine built to state facts.
【Fact: Spencer Althorp does not share Nathaniel Althorp's DNA.】
【His biological father is a man named Rafferty.】
【Eleonora Althorp’s first love, whom she reconnected with twenty-six years ago, shortly after discovering Nathaniel's first major infidelity.】
A low murmur of disbelief and excitement snaked through the pews.
The funeral of Nathaniel Althorp had just become the social event of the century.
Spencer stood as if struck by lightning, his body rigid, his eyes wide and vacant.
He slowly turned to Eleonora.
"Mom?" he breathed, the word a question, an accusation, a plea.
【The arrangement was, in its own way, a masterpiece of maternal revenge,】 the Oracle System continued, its narration relentless.
【Eleonora ensured Nathaniel’s legacy, his name, his entire fortune, would be passed not to his own blood, but to the son of the man he had been replaced by in her heart.】
【She would make him raise his rival's son as his own. And he would love him. He would praise him. He would make him his heir.】
【A truly exquisite betrayal.】
The word ‘betrayal’ seemed to break the spell.
Spencer stumbled back, collapsing into the front pew, his face a mask of utter devastation.
"No… no, it’s not true…" he mumbled, shaking his head like a dazed boxer.
The room erupted into a cacophony of hushed, frantic whispers.
"My God, a bastard?"
"Eleonora? I never would have believed it…"
"This is better than Shakespeare."
Amidst the chaos, one figure remained still.
The matriarch.
Augusta Althorp, who had been sitting in stone-faced silence, slowly rose to her feet.
She was a frail woman, but she held her ornate, ebony-and-silver dragon-headed cane like a scepter of power.
Her gaze, cold and sharp, ignored her crumbling daughter-in-law and her shattered grandson.
It fixed solely on Cora.
"Keep talking," Augusta commanded, her voice a dry rustle of ancient authority.
§03
Cora could not speak.
Her throat was a desert.
This was not happening.
It was a nightmare painted in stained glass and smelling of lilies.
【The host is currently experiencing a physiological state of shock,】 the Oracle System announced with chilling detachment. 【But the most critical data point has yet to be revealed.】
Augusta’s knuckles whitened on her cane.
"Then reveal it," she snapped.
The entire chapel held its breath once more.
What could possibly be more scandalous than a faked death, a secret lover, and an illegitimate heir?
The Oracle System paused, as if for dramatic effect.
【Let us review the established facts.】
【One: The man this funeral is for is not dead.】
【Two: The designated heir is not an Althorp.】
【This leads to the final, unavoidable question.】
A dreadful silence descended, thick and suffocating.
Every person in the room, from the priest to the ushers, felt the same horrific thought coalesce in their minds.
Their eyes, wide with a new kind of fear, slowly drifted towards the million-dollar mahogany casket at the front of the room.
The Oracle System delivered the punchline with surgical precision.
【If Nathaniel Althorp is sunbathing in the Maldives… and his heir is a fraud…】
【Then who, exactly, is in the box?】
§04
Utter, profound silence.
It was the silence of a tomb.
The question echoed in the vast, vaulted space of the chapel, no longer a matter of scandal, but of pure, chilling horror.
If the body in that ornate casket was not Nathaniel Althorp, then a funeral had become a crime scene.
The last vestiges of color drained from Eleonora's face.
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