Crescent (Book 1)

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Days pass. I don't care to keep track of how many. I spend the daylight hours searching through old closets for cleaning supplies and bins to gather water with. I found clothes in a hope chest in the seafarer's room where I sleep, and I washed them in a bin in the garden out back. Old linens needed to be changed, the floors swept and hand-washed, the kitchen reorganized and inventoried. I've boarded up holes in the floorboards, swept glass away from the windows. On hotter days, a gentle breeze drifts through the house and kisses my neck.

On days when the lighthouse feels too small, I wander down to the sea that rages loudly against the shores at night. If I walk far enough along the cliffs, there's a small rocky trail that leads down to a beach at low tide. Bits of blue sea glass warm with me in the sun but a brutal wind often brushes sand up into the air.

There's no one around for miles and miles. In the opposite direction of the sea, docile creatures graze pastures beneath slow-moving clouds. They roam freely through broken boards in the fence- which I haven't convinced myself to care about yet.

I haven't been alone for the better part of a year now. I've almost forgotten what it feels like. I should feel sadness. Despair. Something. Anything. The longer I stay here, the more I don't feel at all. I should feel pain. The pain that my family felt. Or pain like that of a boy who watched me kill his father. But I feel none of it. Maybe that's the worst part: I feel nothing. Yet I'm the one who deserves to feel it all.

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A loud crash is what finally wakes me. I jolt out of bed and tumble to the floorboards in the dark when I hear the sound again.. Outside the half-shattered windows, a storm is raging. Thunder booms, and rain pours down, gushing in through the windows. Puddles of it waterlog the wooden desk by the wall, but when that booming sound resonates again, I shoot downstairs.

The sound carries me straight out of the lighthouse and into the rain. Droplets pound my skin, and I look in all directions for anything out of place. Only waves and rain batter the cliffside. At first, I think I imagined it, but then I hear it again. A plank of wood leading beneath the house jiggles with a crash. And again- the wood bending this time. Someone's in there.

My pulse picks up, and I realize I have nothing to defend myself with. Defenseless, hopeless- again. I wince as the sound cracks again. It's followed by a smaller sound, a bleat that's nearly impossible to hear over the sound of the rain. I curse myself as I tear the plank down just as the goat comes plowing out and spilling into the mud. I sigh as the goat skitters to its feet, tumbling back down the path it wandered in from. Somehow, the damn goat must've gotten stuck. I'll have to replace the hole in the morning.

I curse again. I don't remember there being any more nails to fix it. Why am I still here? I sink to the ground, mud sloshing around my knees and ankles. My hair sticks to my face and skin, too close, too wet, too sticky. My clothes are ruined and I'll have to spend an entire day rewashing them and hanging them to dry.

"I'll come when you call," Gabriel said. And though I have no reason to go back, I have no reason to stay. I have no reason to be here at all.

Moments later, he appears in a wave of mist. His long-sleeved shirt clings to him, and I realize the same of my hair and tunic. The rain bears down on us, but he doesn't seem to care. His eyes hurriedly look me over, and when he sees no sign of danger, the tension in his shoulders eases. Just slightly. He looks past me to the lighthouse, squinting against the rain. "You fixed it."

It looks like shit. The work I've done is practically useless now that it's all waterlogged to hell. But he smiles smally. It's like his gray eyes can see the dust-free shelves or the rearranged furniture through the walls. I don't feel like saying anything in response. The waves crash against the shore and even more rain dumps on us. He holds his palm out toward me. Just as I step toward him to be whisked away somewhere, he grips my hand, pulling me just steps closer to him.

"I want to be clear in what I'm asking of you. You hold an alliance in Ceth's court, but the things you see here, the people..." he watches me for any sign of hesitation. "Once we cross back into Glalas, there will be no going back."

I understand what he's asking me. I understand his doubt, but I can't ignore the twinge of pain in my chest. Trust. He's trusting me- however misplaced it might be. As he looks at me again, I know I trust him enough to keep his secrets- as he'd kept mine.

Foolish girl.