Rachel Caine - Cold Moon

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2024-11-24 0 0 56.57KB 5 页 5.9玖币

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COLD MOON

an original short story by RachelCaine

Outside my window, the moon rides a tide of mist. It is the color of pearl, that moon, full and lustrous,

nestled in the gauzy breath of the sea.

That moon knows my name.

Some days I woke to the sound of my mother screaming, but not that day. I stayed very still in my bed

and listened to the chirping of birds in the world beyond the window. Dust motes circled, lazy and

golden, and I waited for the sound of doors slamming, footsteps creaking, voices murmuring. I wanted to

throw off the clinging warmth of the covers, clatter downstairs, bother Cook for a hot pastry fresh from

the oven, but there was no smell of food in that quiet, waiting house.

The sun crept slowly over the floor like a cat stalking a mouse.

Don’t be a baby, I told myself at length.They’ll all be waiting for you. Mother will be so annoyed.

It was the thought of Mother that at last drove me from the bed. I dressed carefully, a clean white dress

with a wide blue ribbon, short rolled stockings, a pair of shiny black shoes.

The sound of my footsteps on the wood was like a stranger knocking.

The hall remained shadowed, no windows to let in the sun, but as I descended the stairs I saw that the

curtains in the drawing room were open. The day spilled like satin over a hunchbacked chair and a long

scarlet divan. Father was usually there, but today the door was open and the room deserted. I paused

there, breathing in the comforting smell of his tobacco and old leather boots, and then continued down

the hall.

Someone had picked fresh roses from the garden; they lay haphazardly on the hall table, one precarious

on the edge, another fallen in a burst of red. The smell clung to me as I turned toward the dining room,

where breakfast should have been waiting. In all the time I could remember, breakfast hadalways been

upon the sideboard in silver trays, the edges fogged with steam.

It was empty and waiting, and smelled of nothing but dust.

In the hall, a grandfather clock ticked away minutes and, as I counted my breaths, chimedeight o’clock.

I did not want to push open the swinging door to the kitchen. I wanted to run back up the heavy curving

stairs to my room, throw myself beneath the coverlets, cry for someone to come reassure me. Papa

would come. Even Mama.

I am too old to be a baby, I told myself. I would go forward and I would push open the kitchen door,

walk into silence, and see what was to be seen. I would do that.

And so I did.

That is the last I remember of that morning; the heavy wood cool under my palms, the sigh the door gave

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Rachel Caine - Cold Moon

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