10/01/1911

  Maddox was gone. The farmhouse felt it. The walls, the floor, and the very air itself bore the weight of his absence. It wasn't just quieter. It was emptier. The space he had occupied, the space he had filled so completely with his presence, had hollowed out, leaving something brittle and stretched too thin.

  Lea sat at the kitchen table, her fingers curled loosely around a porcelain teacup, the liquid inside long since cold. The ceramic was cool against her palm, but she didn't move. Wasn't drinking. Didn't think. Couldn't. Outside, the fog had lifted, as if the night had never happened. As if Maddox had never stood there, smiling like an idiot, surrendering, as if he hadn't just unraveled everything they'd built. Lea exhaled slowly.

  She had run with Maddox for twelve years. Twelve years of slipping in and out of cities, trading stolen goods, making deals, and keeping their perfect, flawless system alive. And now, for the first time since she was sixteen, she had no plan. Nothing to fall back on. No safety net. Just the vast, crushing silence of an empty house and the weight of what had been lost.

  The floorboards above her groaned.

  Lea had always been a survivor, but even she couldn't deny the toll the past few weeks had taken on her. The day Maddox had disappeared had felt like the end of everything. She couldn't remember exactly how she'd made it through the first few days without him - without his sharp wit, his easy laugh, his ability to keep her from spiraling out of control. But she had. The days had turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and soon it had begun to drag on with a relentless, suffocating rhythm.

  In those weeks, she had become increasingly isolated, keeping only the two girls as a tether to the past. She couldn't bring herself to set them free.

  The basement had become their world, a dark, airless space where time refused to move forward. She had locked the doors behind them, not out of malice at first, but simply because she didn't know what else to do. They were her responsibility, and without Maddox, she had no idea how to let them go.

  Money had always been tight, but with Maddox gone, it had become impossible. The whispers of the cult they had once served had faded away, leaving nothing but the ghost of something rotten. Lea had no idea what had become of the members of the cult - whether they had disappeared like Maddox or simply moved on to greener pastures. Either way, the people who once came knocking for forbidden goods and twisted pleasures had stopped coming.

  The basement, once filled with low murmurs and the pungent scent of incense, had fallen silent. The girls had grown restless, their eyes hollow from too many days in the dark. Lea feared what they would become if she didn't act soon. But the thought of taking another child, of dragging another into this nightmare, was unthinkable. Maddox's absence had left a void she couldn't fill, and the world beyond her basement had moved on without her.

  She had sold almost everything furniture, jewelry, and heirlooms. The house had been stripped to the bare walls, the lingering smell of decay clinging to the air like an unwanted memory. It had been enough to survive. But now even that was running out. The walls felt closer. The house is smaller. But the thought of stepping back into the world, of facing what she had become in Maddox's absence - it was unbearable. The cult, the children, the deals, Maddox's disappearance - it all seemed like a distant fever dream, a story she had been trapped in for far too long. There was nothing left. Nothing but the basement. Nothing but the girls. Nothing but the gnawing emptiness in her chest.

  She lifted her eyes. The cellar door had been unlocked since dawn. She had been waiting. And now they were coming.

  Slow, hesitant footsteps.

  Sandra emerged first - small, pale, her tangled curls falling over tired eyes. The hem of her dress was damp, clinging to her legs. But her gaze was sharp. Too sharp. She was still a child, but only just. Gemini followed.

  Lea hadn't decided if she hated her yet. The girl moved as if she belonged here as if she had always belonged here. Bare feet, silent on the wooden floor. She stretched, raised her arms above her head, and rolled her shoulders with a lazy, effortless ease. Then she smiled. As if she wanted to say something. Lea stood before she could.

  "Put the shoes on."

  Sandra blinked. "What?"

  Lea reached for her coat, fastening the buttons with sharp, precise movements. "We're leaving."

  Sandra's fingers curled into the fabric of her dress. "Where?" Lea's jaw tightened. "Home." Sandra and Gemini exchanged glances. Lea saw it. Ignored it. Sandra licked her lips, hesitantly. "I thought this was your home."

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  Lea's fingers twitched. Her eyes flicked to the empty chair at the head of the table. Maddox's chair. She forced herself to look away.

  "Not anymore."

  Sandra hesitated, but then - she nodded.

  Gemini just smiled. "Well, then. Let's go, shall we?" She turned and walked to the door without waiting for permission.

  Lea watched her go. The girl's bare footprints left damp, muddy marks on the wooden floor. A trail that led right out of the house.

  And Lea, for the first time, did not stop her.

  The three of them walked in silence.

  The wagon was gone. Maddox had taken the horses. Or maybe the buyers had. Lea hadn't asked. Didn't care. She didn't need wheels to get back to Black Hollow. Just time.

  And time was all she had now.

  Sandra walked beside her, small but steady, bare feet kicking up damp earth. She hadn't spoken since they left the farmhouse, but her shoulders were tense. She was waiting.

  Gemini trailed behind, humming to herself, her fingers skimming the tops of the wild grass that lined the roadside. The melody was old, something that no longer belonged to this world. Lea didn't tell her to stop.

  The wind shifted, rippling through the trees. The road stretched on, lined with towering pines, their shadows too long for this time of day. Sandra was the first to notice it. She slowed down and peered up through the branches.

  Her voice was small. "It's the wrong color."

  Lea looked up. Her breath caught.

  The sky had changed.

  It should have been blue. Or at least gray, with remnants of fog still clinging to the horizon. But it wasn't.

  The sky was red. As if it were bleeding. And the sun, hazy and distant, was no longer golden. It was drowned in rust. Sandra exhaled slowly. "This is not normal." Lea didn't answer. Because she already knew.

  She had seen strange things. Had stood in back alleys with men who whispered in tongues she didn't understand. Handed goods to buyers who never blinked. But this? This was something older. Sandra turned to her. "What does it mean?" Lea inhaled. Evenly. Measured. "It means we keep going." Sandra hesitated, then nodded.

  Gemini laughed. Deep and soft. As if she already knew how this story would end. Lea ignored her. She took Sandra's hand, warm and small in her own, and stepped forward. Towards Black Hollow. Towards home. Even though she already knew that there was no home for her anymore.

  Lea kept a steady pace, her steps deliberate, each one measured against the damp, unyielding ground. The weight of Sandra's small hand in her grip was the only warmth in the otherwise cold silence of their surroundings. Sandra did not question the silence. She didn't hesitate, didn't falter. She simply followed, matching Lea's movements, as if afraid that falling out of sync would invite something watching in the trees to notice them.

  Gemini lingered behind them, her presence more of an echo than a companion. Her soft, haunting hum wafted through the still air, a melody older than the road beneath their feet, older than the city ahead. The sound should have been carried by the wind, should have drifted into the darkened woods - but there was no wind. The trees stood still, frozen. The world was listening. Waiting.

  Lea did not notice, but Sandra did. She felt the shift, the unnatural silence stretching too long, pressing in too close. Her wide eyes darted from the sky to the trees, and then to the endless road ahead. Everything looked the same. But nothing was.

  Sandra broke first, her voice a fragile whisper in the heavy silence. "Why is it so quiet?"

  Gemini's footsteps slowed. The humming stopped. Lea's grip on Sandra's hand tightened.

  Gemini sighed, long and sweet, then murmured in a voice that barely disturbed the air around them. "Because they're listening."

  Sandra shivered. "Who?"

  Gemini exhaled, tilting her head in the thoughtful, detached way she always did. "Not who."

  Sandra's breath caught. Lea stopped walking and turned. Gemini smiled at her with amusement, not with mockery, but with quiet patience. As if she understood something Lea didn't. Lea studied her.

  Her dress, still damp from the cellar floor, clung to her body in dark waves. Her hair, heavy with moisture, was curled at the ends, resting against her skin like ink strokes on parchment. Her feet, bare and pale, made no mark in the dirt. None.

  Lea's pulse skipped.

  Gemini's humming resumed. Not the same eerie melody as before. Something softer, almost joyous. Then, in a whisper that barely brushed the space between them, she asked, "Do you feel it?"

  Lea exhaled slowly. Evenly. Measured. Then, without another word, she turned and walked on. Because she did.

  And she did not want to know what would happen if she said yes.

  The road led her back to the city, but Black Hollow was not the same.

  It should have been familiar - the same sagging rooftops, the same leaning gas lamps casting their faint glow, the same cobblestone streets that had led Lea here years ago when she and Maddox had first disappeared from the world. And yet, everything felt different now.

  Not abandoned. Not empty. Just wrong.

  The streets held their silence too tightly as if the sound itself had been stripped away. The windows were dark, but there was something else, something unseen, pressing against Lea's the undeniable weight of eyes. Watching.

  Sandra moved closer to Lea's side, her small fingers gripping tightly. "Where is everyone?" Lea didn't answer. Because she didn't know. Gemini, however, let out a slow, satisfied breath. "Gone," she murmured. Sandra's head snapped towards her. "Gone where?"

  Gemini didn't answer, but Lea heard it anyway. Not where. When.

  Her pulse quickened. She had never believed in omens or curses, and had always dismissed whispered superstitions as nothing more than stories. She believed in power. And something had drained the power from this town. Sandra swallowed hard. "Lea?" Lea scanned the streets, the rooftops, the thick fog that curled around the edges of the city, rolling like a living thing, swallowing the streets beyond.

  Sandra squeezed her hand. "We shouldn't be here." Lea exhaled. Evenly. Controlled. "I know." Then a sound. Soft. Small. A bell. The old church bell. Sandra inhaled sharply. "Who's ringing it?" No one. It hadn't rung in years. And yet it rang. Slowly. Hollow. Like a warning.

  Gemini did not look surprised. And in that moment, under the blood moon, with the church bell ringing for no one. Lea finally understood. They had arrived.