I felt the cool wind brush my cheek as I entered the building, an extreme rush of emotion hit me. It went from sadness to happiness to love to hatred, then to a feeling of numbness. It was like a whole life of emotion hit me in one second, I felt like throwing up. I took my bags, leaving the door open for my sister. I walked into the parlor and set them, down. I walked back into the hall way, there on the floor was a triangle, scratched brutally in the wood, like someone's nails.
"Marie!" I yelled, I looked toward the door, it was closed. "Marie. if this is a joke I swear I"ll," The front door opened and Marie stepped in.
"What? I heard you screaming my name from the car," She looked where the triangle is. "Uh, why are you staring at the ground?" She looked at me like I was crazy.
"They're is a triangle right there, scratched in the wood" I looked back down to see nothing.
"Jeez, you're loosing it." Marie walked into the parlor to drop off the rest of the bags.
"What was that?" I whispered to myself.
Antique store owner Liz brings home a Victorian taxidermy hound from auction, unwittingly unleashing dark forces on her wife and son.
*****
Nat Loman has finally married the love of her life, Liz, and is getting used to her role as stepmother to Liz's 5-year-old son, Liam. The Loman family runs a bustling antique business so they attend a sale where a striking, black taxidermied hound is up for auction. Liz picks it up for the business, but it ends up being stored in their home, where Nat notices strange things occurring. She quickly discovers the past residents had died violently. Then she hears from a friend about the myth of "the devil's dog", a hound that perches in the shadows, tearing families apart from the inside. Soon, people around the Lomans are dying, and Liz is changing, darkening. It's up to Nat to save the woman she loves from the darkness closing in, and to save Liam from danger no matter what she has to sacrifice.
[[Winner of the 2018 Wattys "Hidden Gems" category]]
[[word count: 60,000-70,000 words]]