The White Sheep's Disguise ✓

Chapter 1

Through all the years I've lived at Gudgeon Docks, I've heard many terrors. The squawks of white gulls picking through the carcasses of a rotting fish, the wails of a lonely child besieged with an empty stomach, the shatter of glass that could lead to many frights. The stillness that followed lulled me back into sleep every night, but there is no mistaking the nauseating squelch of a blade slicing through thin flesh.

My eyes fly open, my body turning ice cold. I hold my breath and wait for confirmation that the sound was nothing more than my dreams playing a trick on my sanity. Nothing. Silence. I nestle myself deeper within the tattered blanket pulled tight and wrinkled in my fists resting underneath my chin. When my eyes close, I hear it a second time. And the scream that follows.

I throw the blanket back and rush to the other side of the room, careful to avoid the creaking floorboards that usually alert my parents to one of my late-night escapes. When they don't catch me, I sit on the rooftop and stare out at the stars painting illuminate freckles against the black sky. The docks always had the best view, the thatched buildings bow their heads and the ocean, endless and dangerous, reflects night's wonders.

My toe jams into the side of my brother's bed and I hiss through my teeth. Finding his shoulder, I shake hard, and Castiel, never one for having to wake during the middle of the night during any circumstance, groans. Like me, he keeps the blanket and pillows tucked tight against his body like a barrier from the rest of the room. Even in late summer, the chill somehow finds its way in and envelopes us both.

"Go away, Marie," he mutters. "I don't desire any late-night adventures. Too much...." His voice trails off, and in the dark, his head stuffs itself farther into the pillow.

"Castiel," I plead. I shake his shoulder again, in tune with the sound of someone else dying at the hands of whatever terror is nearing our house. Someone's sobs carry through the cracked window in our bedroom and this is the only occurrence I've ever wanted to board it up and have one of those glass windows that doesn't open at all. What a shame—my parents had to purchase a cottage with working windows. The highest of class at the docks. "Castiel, there's someone outside."

He turns to face me, honey brown eyes squinting. They've always held their thin shape over the years and a constant droop of sadness in the outer corner. "We've been over this, Marie. There isn't enough money for everyone to have home-cooked meals. Some have to search through the trash—our trash included."

"This is different." I find his arm underneath the heap of blankets and pillows and tug, but my brother doesn't budge. He isn't older than I am, we share a difference of three years, but chopping wood for a living bequeaths him more strength than cleaning fish at the docks does. My specialty. "I heard someone—"

A scream ruptures through the streets too close and Castiel's eyes fly open. He's up from his bed in a second, nearly knocking me over and sending blankets flying against the wall. A pillow thumps to the floor and he nearly trips on it, not before slamming his hand against the window frame to restore balance.

The tufts of his dark brown hair reflect even darker in the moonlight basking against his face, the only light allowed in the room, and he runs a hand through the knots hoping to fix what sleep ruined. "What do you see?" I ask. My hands wring together without my doing.

"Someone is out there," he whispers so even I can hardly hear him. "They're...lighting the village on fire."

I hardly believe the words that leave his lips. To answer my own question, I shove myself in front of my brother and peek out through the lace curtain framing our window. Towering peaks of flame rise from two streets over, the smoke a beacon for travelers that the docks are no longer safe to visit. I clamp a hand over my mouth to stifle the scream; Gudgeon Docks won't recover from this. Not now and not ever.