Crescent (Old Version)

+ Part 42 +

There were a great many things that could be done under the cover of night. And, tonight, I was glad that it was my friend.

The guards were too distracted patrolling the upper levels to notice when I slipped through the dark of the stairwell. Getting to Jackaby's offices was easy enough now that the corridors were all shrouded in darkness. I was lucky that the servants had already hung the linens in the laundry room for the night by the time I snuck by.

The rest of the path down was just as it was every time. Frigid, muddy, and eerily quiet. With a satchel held in one hand and the skeleton keys dangling from the other, I felt my way along the walls. I didn't even need a flame to know once I'd reached the final stretch of the path. The stone walls became cracked and worn, and my breath became a cloud of mist in front of me.

My last few steps were slow, my hand still out in front of me. Until finally, my fist met wood. The door felt just as massive in the dark, and I felt down to the curling metal hardware of the lock.

My blood raced, despite myself.

Maybe it was knowing that at any moment, someone could find me out. Ceth could notice I was out of bed or Saren could come looking for the keys. I didn't let myself consider what would happen.

I found the same key Saren used everyday, and the key found home, and I turned it.

The door swung open on gnarled rusted hinges. Living darkness crept out.

Dangerous. Risky. Stupid. What I was doing was stupid, but somehow, I gathered the courage to continue inside. I felt sand beneath my feet, but even through my shoes, I felt that it was ice-cold. I pressed forward, waiting, listening patiently for any sound other than my own breath.

"Hello?" I called. The satchel felt like a ton of bricks in my and, but I reached down into it, feeling along the bottom for the food I'd taken from the kitchen after dinner earlier.

I remembered the witch's bony back beneath her robe. Her crinkled hands and her skin like paper over her bones. Guilt gnawed at me as I pulled the sliver of cheese out of the bag, holding it open to the air.

Ceth may have starved her... but I was the one using her hunger against her.

"Hello?" I said into the dark. "I have something for you." There was no one, nothing for a time. Part of me wandered whether Ceth had moved her- although killing her was probably more likely. But, then the door shut behind me. Like a snake coiling on its stomach, I felt something slither behind me.

Fear was a shackle around my throat, but I closed my eyes and inhaled when I heard her voice, a quiet rolling hiss. "There you are, pretty little thing." The sand beneath my feet seemed to tremble as a mass settled in the awaiting murkiness before me. "Have you brought me a gift?"

I swallowed as I remembered what I came here to do. "I seek answers."

Her voice was a low laugh, rattling against the corners of the room. "That you do."

"Where are you? How do I give-" The cheese that been in my hand disappeared, quickly followed by the scent of magic. As if she'd plucked it right out of my hand and carried it to wherever it was she waited. I heard the sound of her chewing, hungrily, taking in the food so fast I wondered if she'd had any at all since I'd last seen her.

I doubted it.

"What is it you wish to know, Perdita?"

I asked suddenly, "What is 'perdita?' What does it mean?"

The witch laughed again, the sound stronger than it had been before. "Such little time you have, and this is how you wish to spend it?"

No. NO. I wanted answers- needed them.