The wind was rustling the leaves that surrounded the shadowy mansion across the street from where Lyssa Fox’s house lay. 

It had always looked abandoned and she never understood how anyone could live in such an awful place, and yet there were always hooded figures filing in and out at all odd hours of the day and night. She had been up endless nights studying it carefully, but it never seemed to fit a pattern. What if it is a monastery? she thought. Yes, yes, that would make sense. The darkness, the faceless people… And yet she had never even seen a glimpse of the one responsible, the Abbot.

Lyssa had long since decided that there was little possibility of her finding an answer to the endless questions filtering through her mind, and yet the secrecy of the mansion never ceased to amaze, or rather, to scare her. Every time she looked at the big castle-like house, an ominous feeling fell over her, like microscopic spiders crawling up and down her spine. Everything around it seemed to die and wither, like the now-yellowing grass that spread across the line, stopping just before the enormous cast-iron gate. Nothing about the house seemed right.

Lyssa pressed herself further against the bedroom window, as if she would somehow be able to see further if she did so. She had been watching this house for as long as she could remember, and yet everything always seemed to happen in the same way—with no noticeable pattern, and yet clearly with one goal in mind. She hadn’t any clue as to what the goal could possibly be but it was so painfully obvious for all those figures continuously emerging from the house.

It was a moment before she registered that something had changed in the way they were walking—something was off. She straightened, squinting, and… There. She could just barely see it, emerging from the house. A cluster of figures carrying what appeared to be some sort of coffin above their heads. A woman was leading them. She made Lyssa’s breath catch. She too was hooded, but based on the look of it, she was most certainly a woman. She seemed to be tall, taller than the majority of her followers and then she looked up. Her hood slipped off but she didn’t seem to notice.  She was so achingly familiar, with long pale hair, cascading down her robe and citrine eyes—something slammed outside her house. She jumped pulling back from the window so quickly she almost fell onto the bed behind her.

But there was no bed to fall back on. Instead, she slammed into something harder, but it wasn’t any type of wall because it was then steadying her and turning her around to face it. She was staring into the face of a man and, just like the girl outside, he looked painfully familiar, with golden-blonde hair and stormy grey eyes that she couldn’t help feeling were staring into, through her, not at all at her.

The man smiled at her, and it was anything but reassuring. “Hello, darling,” he said, his voice too light for having just broken into her house. Lyssa blinked, jumping back as if she had just realised that she should probably be more terrified in this kind of situation. The man’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why ever would I hurt you, Lyssa?”

Her heart was beating in her throat. “You… you know my name?”

“Of course I know your name. Come.” He sat down on the bed, patting the space beside her but she did not move. He gave up after a moment. “Let me tell you a secret…”