Moonless

by Crystal Collier

  The chill in Alexia’s bones thickened.

  Sarah piped up. “We do not believe in fairytales, sir.”

  His response came as little more than a whisper. “Well maybe you ought to.”

  She went to retort, but Alexia cut her off. “A hundred years ago you say?”

  “Aye.”

  “Did anyone ever figure out what happened to the physician?”

  His face hardened. “Never.”

  “And his house?”

  “It stays locked up. On moonless nights a ghost light burns in the top tower. People say it’s the spirit of the doctor, warnin’ us o’ the danger.”

  “The one on the hill outside of town?”

  He nodded. “House of Stark. Haunted house of Stark.”

  She swallowed. Perhaps her specter had been a ghost after all, the benevolent doctor. Or perhaps he was the source of their curse—an avenging spirit—a monster by night, angel by day. That would explain his impossible luster.

  The owner rose as their rescuer dropped into a high-topped chair against the wall. The youth did indeed look appalling in the light, but not grossly so. His shoulders hung timidly. No doubt he’d been the victim of much bullying and more than a few beatings. Wide angular teeth bit his thin lower lip as uneven, deep-set eyes shifted over hollow cheeks. Thin brown hair shadowed his face, his figure a frail structure of bone. The only redeeming aspect he possessed was the healthy glow of bronzed skin—which seemed odd because Alexia had been certain before they entered his color was more ashen.

  She wondered how he managed to heft both of them up onto the horse. Studying him now, she found it difficult to imagine he could haul more than a pail of water.

  “It is impolite of us to occupy this table.” Sarah eyed the coarse wood. “I feel obliged to give this man and his aid some business, and I’m famished.” Her glare communicated clearly how put out she was at having missed dinner in favor of a haunted house and chase to the death. “Tavern master?”

  He looked up, startled.

  “What have you here to eat?” She nodded at Alexia. “Anything worthy of noble blood?”

  The men in their presence—apprehensive at first, eventually returned to their conversation, slowly drifting into sleep at their tables. In the early hours, Sarah fell asleep in her chair and Alexia found herself leaning next to the chimney. The lad who’d saved them sat nervously a few feet away.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Miles.”

  “Where do you come from, Miles?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “Is he your father?” She nodded at the barman.

  He shook his head. “Orphan, Miss.”

  “Please do not call me that.” She laughed. “Call me Alexia.”

  He lowered his head. “I couldn’t do that.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because you are a lady.”

  “And I asked you to address me thus, so address me thus, please?”

  “Yes, la-A-a-alexia.”

  She liked the sound of his voice. It didn’t reflect his appearance in the least—smooth, rich, soothing, confident. If she closed her eyes, an entirely different being sat next to her—one to challenge even the finest of society.

  “What were you doing clear out there when you found us?”

  “Running an errand.”

  “An errand for whom?”

  “My master.”

  She rubbed her itchy nose and cracked one eye. “On a moonless night? Who is this master? And what right has he to send you out when there is danger?”

  He shrugged.

  She crossed her arms. “And do you usually risk yourself to be obedient?”

  Another shrug—more timid than the last.

  “I am certainly glad you did tonight.”

  He smiled.

  She frowned. “Tell me, what do you know about these . . . things?”

  He glanced about. A declining conversation dinned in the opposite corner, as subdued as theirs, but other than that, the patrons had dropped into slumber.

  “Only a handful existed to begin with,” he said, “but their numbers grow.”

  “Did no one try to eradicate them?”

  “Hunt them?” His brows rose.

  She nodded.

  “Sure. But the things hunt back.”

  “You have lost loved ones?”

  His eyes grew distant.

  “I am sorry.”

  He leaned forward, voice quieting. “The only answer is to hide. If they can’t find you, they can’t hurt you.”

  She nodded.

  “And we don’t let pretty young women go running off at dusk.”

  That halted her. “Beg pardon?”

  “What were you doing out there?” He leaned closer, propping his chin on a fist.

  “How did you know I went running off at dusk?” She breathed. He looked away. “You followed me.”

  “No.”

  She swallowed. “Really? Then why were you out there tonight?”

  “Errands.” His shoulders hunched inward.

  She didn’t believe him, and she didn’t trust the guilt in his silence. She moved away from him, landing where her aunt snored.

  Miles huddled in his seat, head down. After several minutes he slipped from the chair and disappeared into the back. She waited for him to return, but he never did.

  23

  Ghosts

  Alexia squeezed her eyes opened. She occupied a dark room with antlered walls and several rough tables that smelled distinctly of man. Sarah slumbered opposite her.

  Last night came back: the town’s curse, a lucky rescue, a young man with secrets.

  She roused Sarah and prodded her out the door, away from the sanctum of dark stories.

  Too tired to travel, they resorted to an inn. The room they hired offered two quilt-draped beds, and Alexia wondered how many unwashed bodies had lain in them. Sarah returned easily to sleep, but Alexia sat pondering.

  A year this mystery had plagued her, and now—now when she had the proximity to the answers—her heart threatened to fail. She had two choices: Risk herself to see what she could learn and lay this mystery to rest. Or spend her existence wondering who he was, what happened to Bellezza, and what she herself was.

  Sobering.

  She debated an hour, but she had to know.

  Afraid for Sarah’s safety, she penned out a quick note about exploring the shops of the town. That would keep her aunt from immediate worry.

  Northbend, haunted House of Stark.

  Behind the overgrown yard and moss-ridden trees, the old house stretched ominously against the bright sky, exterior stucco faded from a once-beige to a spotted and decaying brown. The porched roof pointed steeply toward the heavens, wooden shingles dangling haphazardly over the edges. Glass filled the windows, though the majority of them were cracked. Five narrow stories apexed in a single chamber—the source of light last evening.

  All this was closed in by a brick wall and intimidating black gates. The gates pressed together under the weight of a caked-red chain as thick as her arm. She followed the length of chipped, burgundy brick, wary of onlookers. At the far west corner, decay provided steady footing to scale the wall—even for one dressed and as inexperienced as she.

  Ivy laced through the trees, creating a screen of obscurity as she slipped within the boundaries. White and yellow blossoms glared sullenly up through the waist-high grass.

  She shed her awkward pannier to navigate through the foliage. Its absence resulted in ample material that she fastened in a knot at her waist. Skirting the perimeter of the property, she cringed with every rustle of leaves or crunch of a twig. If the house possessed a back door or open window, that would be her entry . . . if she entered at all.

  She halted. Grayed walls splintered in the afternoon sun—a stable, the wood old, rotting. Several empty stalls leaned. One dividing wall had completely collapsed. An old carriage occupied the center, its axles on the ground and what r
emained of wheels in pieces to either side. Insects buzzed through the mess.

  A rock path, nearly lost in the growth, led up to the back of the house. With greater confidence from the neglect, she took it. Despite the ruin of this place, some physical entity had to be lighting a candle on moonless nights. But who? And why?

  She emerged from behind trees. Rear windows on the first level had been boarded over, several on the second floor as well, though a few held broken glass or no pane at all. What might have once been a patio stretched out before her in an overgrown cobbled square. A door waited at the top of three steps.

  She hurried forward through sparse waist-high grass.

  The handle twisted with a slight moan, and to her utter astonishment, the barrier swung inward noiselessly.

  She stood in the frame, trembling. The hinges had been oiled. And that was good, wasn’t it? That meant someone had passed this way recently, someone who likely had the answers she needed.

  She inhaled and stepped through.

  Dim light dappled the barren chamber and she sniffed a faint hint of nutmeg. A narrow stairwell waited directly in front of her, splintered and uninviting. To her right waited what she assumed was a barren kitchen. Stepping to her left, she discovered an archway leading into an empty room. Shelves textured the walls.

  Alexia shivered and progressed through the next door. Another chamber, this one lit by sunlight. The front of the house was much smaller, much more vertical than it appeared from the road. The window here had glass and made an attractive little alcove, but not one piece of furniture existed to warm in the afternoon rays. The walls were black, like charred wood but smooth—glossy—not covered in soot. The floorboards didn’t creak or give as she’d expect in a building of this age, and no cobwebs or dead crawlies hid in the corners.

  Someone had gone to great efforts to maintain the structure’s integrity.

  She stepped into a front hall with the same obsidian walls. A thick bolt rested across the entry. From the ceiling swayed an empty chandelier like several fishing hooks, and behind it another stairwell—not so tight or eerie as the back, but definitely darker.

  Across the way, she found another empty chamber with a similar windowed alcove. Toward the rear of the building hid a kitchen—or what should have been one. The only thing that identified it now was a brick smokestack on the inner wall.

  She circled back to the thin rail and perilous stairs, light from the back door outlining a narrow pathway up.

  Well, so far no evidence of anything malignant.

  Up she climbed, heart racing. The stair reminded her of another, one through which she first descended into this nightmare—the one through which she met Bellezza.

  Halting on the first landing, she squinted down an open hall. She shook her head. Too dark. She didn’t meet an entrance to the third floor, and on the fourth she reached to the end of the rail.

  A room yawned vacantly, a single spacious room—though not as large as the previous floors. Fissured light drizzled from a solitary large panel to the front, glass still intact. Images of a person crashing through and falling to their death left her shuddering.

  She turned.

  A ladder stood out against the blackened walls. She reached for it, realizing the front stairway didn’t reach this room. The only exit was the way she’d come.

  She grabbed the wood, wondering why she dared come here. Did she want to know who occupied this place last night? Would it not be better to live out her bizarre existence in safety?

  Up.

  Four walls each framed a large window, the space only large enough for the desk and chair sitting before her. Unlike the rest of the building, the walls presented a pleasant floral print. On the desk sat a single candle in a brass holder, burned completely out, and before it a stack of parchment, an inkwell, quill and wax.

  Someone had been here last night.

  She twirled, taking in a view of the entire valley. Wilhamshire crouched in the distance, and the woods lay beyond. A road wriggled between scattered homes and occasional distant farms from the opposite direction. As for the front gate, she’d have been blatantly apparent to anyone inhabiting this chamber last night.

  Clack!

  Her heart leapt into her throat. She whirled. The disturbance came from downstairs.

  Someone had been here last night. Yes, and someone was here today. She hadn’t checked the second or third floor!

  She leapt back down the ladder. A door shut. She halted.

  Where had that come from? The front? The back? Somewhere between?

  Muffled voices echoed up.

  She gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. What could she do? She had nowhere to hide and the nearest exit taunted her from three flights down. Back up the ladder!

  She crouched on the floor as the voices grew louder.

  “. . . almost . . . both taken . . .”

  “. . . an accident. I was sloppy.” Alexia recognized that masculine voice. Why did she recognize it?

  “Well it can’t happen again. He’d skewer you alive if he knew.” An older man, scratchy tenor.

  “I know. Lucky for me.”

  She swallowed. Skewer—like a ladle through the chest, or a gatepost?

  “Be more careful,” the unfamiliar arrival advised. “I like you.”

  “I had no idea she’d go running. I’m prepared this time.”

  She? Did he refer to her? Could this be one of the creatures who’d pursued them last night—or both? Did they come after her on his behest? Would these men be the tools of her demise?

  She swallowed dryly and peered through the opening. A torso brushed through her line of sight, too blurred to catch the details.

  “Are you?” the elder questioned. “And where is she now?”

  She covered her mouth to muffle the erratic breathing.

  “Does it matter?” the memorable baritone asked back. “It’s day.”

  “It always matters. You get back to that town and track her before something comes of your neglect.”

  Her fists tightened. She had to get out of here, but she couldn’t go back to town. She couldn’t ever go back.

  The second person started to retreat. “See you back on the farm, Lester.”

  “Not likely.” Lester groaned.

  “What? Why? What are you doing now?”

  “Watch duty. That banshee child. I tell you, that were a ripe mix. Ain’t been nothin’ but trouble since.”

  The second chuckled. “What man in his right mind would—?”

  “Fer all we know it were the other way around.”

  They both had a good laugh.

  “All right, lad, to your duty,” Lester dismissed.

  “Good luck, old man.”

  “Same to you.”

  The one departed, and Lester remained. He lingered so long she decided he’d left and she missed it. She leaned through the opening, but halted. He stood facing the window, watching his comrade’s departure. Scraggly gray hair trickled over his shoulders, thinner on top. A tuffled earthy vest hung over him, complemented by loose trousers and . . . bare feet?

  She tucked back into her hideout and waited. He eventually moved into the lower regions of the house. If she tried to run, would she come face to face with him? The heat of the lower levels wafted up and left her in perspiration. Light on the walls turned golden, then violet. What had the younger man said about nightfall? She had to get away. She had to warn Sarah!

  A voice carried through the floor. She heard it subtly first, but when she descended the ladder, it became clearer.

  A woman or girl? This was her chance. The stairs waited.

  Downward she fled—as silent as a ghost. Her skirt came undone. She slipped on the excess material and bumped into a wall. She froze.

  “. . . not ‘til you get out fer good behavior.” Lester’s voice carried through the wall.

  She exhaled in relief. She hadn’t been detected.

  “Behavior? I’ll show you behavior!”
A scream rattled through the wood.

  Alexia covered her ears. The shrillness drilled though her fingers and pricked into her ears. Like liquid it seeped into her head, filling it, drowning her in deadly poison. Her chest seized. Her knees slammed into the floor. Blackness crept over her vision. It shuddered wildly. A giant fist squeezed her heart. It contracted tighter.

  No!

  A migraine surged through her consciousness. Her dress weighed like stone on her and the air hummed stagnantly. It stubbornly wound into her lungs, requiring more force to draw inward than it ought.

  The scream that had seized her dimmed into the background, vibrating in a low-pitched murmur. Somehow she’d been freed. Her brain pulsed with agony, still blacking out her vision, but the tightness around her chest was gone.

  She struggled forward, trying to remember how much distance stood between her and the next drop. The drum of her pulse thundered in her ears. Slivers cut into her palm.

  A flash of agony ripped through her head, like someone had driven a spike into her brain.

  She gasped. Her hands slipped over a precipice. She tumbled forward.

  Down.

  Down.

  Like being suspended in molasses, she fell. The corner of a stair bit angrily into her shoulder. She screamed. Her headache died.

  The high pitched wail struck her ears like a hammer. Every muscle seized. Her heart constricted. A stair rammed her knee. Something nipped into her back. Another crushed her elbow, but this was nothing—nothing compared to the pain in her chest.

  Her arm caught on something, jerking her body around, yanking her full weight on the limb.