Wille sat high up in her hidden tower, her knees tucked under her and a moth-eaten blanket pulled up over her head. Spread out before her were several open notebooks, filled with the tight neat lettering of a dead woman. Each letter was equal to the one next to it in width, and was joined together with neat curls. Every final word ended with a carefully-blotted flourish. She glanced at the notes she had made. Her own handwriting was an unkempt, but readable, pile of spindly twigs. She tried hard not to compare. After all, there was no way she would win against the dead.

Harriet’s life was before her. Every line, every dot, was the last remaining record of her hopes and dreams. She handled it with reverence, turning the pages slowly and attentively. Every movement a ritual, every revealed page a blessing. She began reading where the previous entries left off, a week before the author’s death.

I do not know what came over me. It was so out of character, I can only hope that Hazel looks on me with the same respect as before. I needed more gifts for the Nocturnes. How was I to know that she was in charge of collecting Abigail’s reports? I stood on the kitchen tiles, petrified, statue in the beam of her lamp. Arms filled with candied apples. I couldn’t tell her about my research, not yet anyway, so I had to come up with some story about how much I crave sweet things. Now she keeps bringing me sweets! And I have to eat them or she will see through my story and ask more questions. I worry so much about my teeth, but I worry even more about lying to my friend.

Wille scratched out a note with her pen. So, Harriet was stealing from the larder in order to bribe the Nocturnes. She turned the page.

I haven’t had a spare moment to walk through the gardens in so long, so I was overjoyed today when my research took me to the flowerbeds. Dahlias and vibrant purple crocuses! Not to mention our medicinal herbs; motherwort, meadowsweet, betony and clary sage. A wonderful autumn collection…

She skipped past the botanical reminisces, running her finger gently over the text, scanning with her fingertip until it found root in a promising sentence.

The gardener Madrigal, Rosie, led me to the entrance. The Nocturne oubliette is well-hidden among the laurels that mark the edge between garden and farmland. A liminal space, suitable for their pastoral role between the margins. It was a tight fit, but not too rough and I was able to make it down in one piece…

The entry trailed off, and no more information on the Nocturne sanctuary was given in the following days. Her final accounts were tedious in their detailed account of everyday life. No subterranean wanderings, no revelations. The final entry however was short but noteworthy.

The Orphan Moon is out tonight. It is time. If all goes well, I shall be back before dawn with proof.

Wille scribbled these exact words down, and tore them out of her notebook. Carefully, she placed it up against the plain brick wall and pushed an old nail into the grouting, loosened with age, to hold it in place.

Next to the pile of carpets in Harriet’s secret study, she had stuck up across the wall several of the notes and letters that she had come across during her study of Harriet’s belongings.

First, she found a letter from William Montagu about his time spent working at Palus Somni, from years before it became an abbey. The owner, a man called Aloysius Mallory, was mining for a new mineral he had discovered called pearl iron. A new nail, and a new scrap of paper lead on from this one with a small line of twine. Harriet was researching pearl iron before she died, and came across a surprising secret, one she could not even articulate in her diaries. The thread continued: She visited the Nocturnes for more information, presumably because they live in the catacombs and may have come across it before.

Then, she died.

She was going somewhere that night, and didn’t come home. The emotional enormity of the tragedy hit Wille full in the chest, crushing her back against the blankets - the blankets Harriet would have used. The place she would have sat, the candle she would have lit. She was inside someone else’s home, an outsider who could barely even touch the complexity and lividity of another being’s extinguished life. Her hands shook, and she wrapped them tightly around each other.

But there was another thought. A creeping doubt. If Harriet had gone somewhere, then perhaps it was possible she had indeed left the monastery grounds, and gotten herself attacked by the Gol outside. She had broken in here for nothing, all trails led to the Gol. There was no murderer, beyond whatever intent lay in the heart of those wicked beasts, and nothing suspicious after all. Harriet had opened the gates, and stepped outside. In her heart of hearts, Wille had not thought this possible.

Her body fell backwards into the bed of carpets, her hand flopping listlessly off the side. There was no point to any of this. Was this merely her response to grief, to try and find meaning in a meaningless world? Did all deaths need to have a reason, a purpose, for them to happen? Foolish, so foolish.

She picked up the final sheaf of unread papers and held them close above the flickering candle flame, prepared to let the curiosity end and to put Harriet’s cursed soul to rest. She would return in the morning, do her chores, and let life continue unimpeded by mystery. She turned her head to the side to watch the flame flicker, and the edges of the parchment began to blacken and curl.

It was a long moment before she snatched it back. She just couldn’t bring herself to sacrifice everything she knew so far only to stop now, never knowing the truth. At the very least, she could show it to Mother superior when she returned, there was no harm in that. There was only one way forward, one path by which she could justify the choices she had made so far: She was going to finish what Harriet started. Whatever it was, this pearl iron had cost her her life and she was not going to -could not - let that go to waste. She brought the letters closer to her face, and read on.

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[A letter from William Montagu, accountant and cambist, to his husband Jonathan Vesey. Undated and unfinished.]

Jonathan darling,

I write to you in great distress. Since my last letter the relationship between myself and Mallory has deteriorated considerably. He is outright refusing to see me, for neither work nor recreation. All of my calculations have ground to a halt. Though it is not just me, he is not speaking to anyone. Not even his own son can secure his attention, and he slams the door in the face of whatever servant who dares disturb him. I dare not ask him about my wages for fear of his rage, and I think therefore I shall be shortly rejoining you in the city at last.

Miss Mina is helping me pack my things, and is even baking me a winterberry pie to take back for you. The only thing I will miss about this desolate place is her cooking. We have grown rather close, the two of us, because, my darling, she has our very same affliction. That is, a penchant to covet the affection of our own dear sex. Her sweetheart is a flighty girl from the nearby village with hair like rye and a smile like strawberries. They are like cheese and chalk! Miss Mina is made of inky dark locks and a pallid, moonlight grin. She works the nightshift, as both the breakfast cook and the night watch and oftentimes when I wake up at night I hear her whistling to herself as she churns butter in the dark. I told her that she was like a nightjar, a beautiful creature who scorns the sun and keeps its rapturous song for the moon, but she only laughed and punched me harder than I would imagine possible with such spindly arms.

She has told me some interesting details about the locale. Did you know that this whole area used to be a lake? It was drained in medieval times to provide fresh water to the city after the river became polluted. It never recovered, and now the marsh reigns. It was called Stillbeam Waters, due to it having very little movement and thus being the perfect place for moon viewing. Miss Mina told me this conspiratorially, but local legend has it that when the lake was drained, something was found underneath. This discovery has not stood the test of time, but the natives believe that a small shrine was built over it, and then a larger temple over that, and then a church, and that church became the main chapel attached to the Palus Somni mansion. It is fascinating how rumours grow and spread and affect the decisions we humans choose to make.

Oh Jonathan, I miss you. I wish I could hear your voice, if only in writing. Have you not sent me even one letter? Is the postal service here really that dismal? I miss you, I miss you.

There is one other reason that I flee the mansion, beyond the frayed nerves of my host. I found out the destination of these shipments I have been logging. The mysterious carts of metal and mortar that Mallory buys and which promptly disappear. They are not heading to the mine or the quarry - but here, right beneath our feet! The madman is digging his own grave, and I shan’t let it become mine as well. He is tunnelling through the natural caves beneath these walls with a fervour all his own, and I have no doubt that he cares little for structural safety and more about his precious pearl iron. The effects of such an excavation are already showing, as beneath the northwesterly ramparts there is growing a crimson red lake as the spire sinks into the earth. The spring waters which I lauded so heavily before are now laced with a rusty pink and so I stick instead to preserved beverages to assuage my thirst.

There is no hiding it anymore. Many of the servants have packed and left, only Miss Mina and I remain. The workers he has hired to extract this ore cover their bodies entirely in rags, and come up to the surface soaked bloody red to the bone. There is one man, who if my eyes do not deceive me, has taken to eating the oozing substance! So feverent is he to thrust the ore down his gullet that his hands are raw from digging, and his teeth have cracked where he has attempted to grind down the rocks. Miss Mina and I have done what triage we can, and have bound his mouth closed to try and alleviate his habit, but it seems to be having some kind of reaction, perhaps an allergy of some kind. His skin has become doughy and soft, as though filled with fluid, and he has had a remarkable tenacity in regards to pain. He does not seem to feel it, even when part of his fingerbone was exposed from his wounds.

You wouldn’t believe this Jonathan but when I was bringing the bandage around his mouth, he bit me! A grown man, and he bit me! His teeth were so covered in gritty pearl iron that I could not tell which was my own blood and which was stone. Not only that, but they were so heavily mangled from his habit that one of them stuck into the flesh of my hand and was inadvertently extracted when I snatched it away. I have dressed the wound twice since but it shows no signs of healing, an infection perhaps but nothing for you to worry about. In a day or two I shall be back in the city and we will have the good doctor take a look. I love you.

[Letter from Jonathan Vesey to his husband, William Montagu. A note in Harriet’s writing is attached: Seal intact, presumably unopened until now. The presence of William Montagu’s letters at Palus Somni implies that they had not reached their intended destination, perhaps intercepted.]

William,

I have not heard from you in some months, I pray that everything is continuing smoothly in your new appointment? I must say, life is dreary without you around. The days are shorter yet the nights stretch into infinity. I feel like I spend half my waking hours in the dark, listening to the clocks ticking.

I know I have written some very long letters recently so I will keep this one short. I know you have only a month left to go before you are due to return but I am coming to visit. No more silence, no more voices into darkness. I am coming and you cannot stop me. I fear that something but have gone so terribly wrong that you have not responded to me, some terrible disease perhaps or an accident.

You would not leave me unanswered on purpose, I do not think. but after so long, the doubts, you know, the gnaw upon me. That is what I am - merely a discarded bone, fit only for dogs and graveyards. Oh, hear me! I am sorry my love, but I do get so terribly depressed not knowing.

I have packed and the carriage is waiting. I will send this as I leave. I will be with you shortly, dearest. Wait for me. I love you.

Yours in every blessing,

Jonathan

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