The Forest Without a Moon

Chapter 1

The iron bodkin dragged through the dense boiled wool with a dry, fibrous hiss, resisting Nella’s thumb before popping through the underside of the hem. It was tedious work, the kind that demanded steady fingers and a slow, methodical breath, yet her fingers had long since lost their suppleness to the encroaching evening chill. Beneath her apron and the rough homespun of her bodice, the draft persisted—not an external current slipping beneath the warped pine lintel, but that familiar, drafty vacancy lodged directly behind her breastbone. It was an old ache, hollow and persistent, feeling less like flesh and more like an ill-cut garment tailored with too much seam allowance, an empty tuck where something vital and warm ought to have been stitched. She pulled the waxed linen thread taut, knotting the cord against the heavy gray nap, and paused to blow against her knuckles. Her breath formed a faint, hurried plume in the dim rushlight of her workroom, dissipating toward the low timber beams long before it could offer any real warmth to her skin.

A sudden gust rattled the small leaded panes of the casement, followed immediately by the heavy thump of boots kicking the crust of frozen mud from their soles against her threshold. The latch lifted without a preliminary knock, rattling sharply as the heavy oak door swung inward to admit a swirl of bitter winter air, sleet flakes, and Rowan Lancaster. He arrived carrying an armload of split fir logs, his broad shoulders dusted with white rime that had begun to glisten under the orange glow of the hearth. Even before he kicked the door shut with his heel, the room seemed to shrink around his presence, invaded by the thick, familiar scents of freshly cleaved timber, coal soot, and the furnace-like vitality that seemed to follow him through even the deadest chills of Somber Hollow.

"You sit here sewing in the dark as if tallow cost half a silver a pound, Nella," Rowan said, his deep voice carrying a rough, good-natured rumble that vibrated against the quiet of the cottage. He dropped the split fir into the hearth-box with a series of resonant, wooden clatters that scattered gray ashes across the slate floor. Straightening with a grunt, he brushed the bark chips and pitch from the sleeves of his heavy coat, his round, ruddy face flushed with the kind of hearty circulation Nella had only ever observed from a distance. "The wind is turning north-northwest off the high cliffs. By the time the third bell strikes after curfew, the lanes will be glazed over like grease on a griddle. You will freeze in this drafty coop if you don't build that fire up past a smolder."

Nella laid her needlework across her lap, smoothing the stiff gray wool over her knees with fingers that remained pale and bloodless. "The fir spits too many sparks on the wool, Rowan. If an ember lands on Master Garrow’s winter coat, I will have spent four days’ stitching just to pay for the charred nap." She offered him a modest, practiced smile—the thin, polite curve of her lips that she had learned years ago would satisfy most inquiries without inviting deeper inspection. "Besides, the rushlight is plenty bright enough for a blind hem. A seamstress learns to feel the warp and weft with her thumbs better than her eyes can follow it anyway."

Rowan let out a soft, exasperated puff of air through his mustache, stepping toward her low table with his heavy, sure-footed tread. He pulled off his thick oxhide mittens, stuffing them into his belt, and knelt beside her stool on one knee. His hands, broad and cross-hatched with small pale scars from decades of timber chisels, reached out and gently enveloped hers. The heat pouring off his skin was immediate and immense, like holding her palms over an iron stove, yet as his rough, calloused fingers pressed against the back of her hands, Nella felt that familiar, isolating dissonance. The warmth registered on the outer surface of her skin merely as dry friction against dead leather; it did not seep inward, it did not thaw the dull ache behind her ribs, and it failed completely to quicken the slow, heavy cadence of the pulse in her throat.

"Your hands are colder than creek stone pulled out of the ice," Rowan murmured, his voice softening into that awkward, clumsy gentleness that he only ever deployed when they were alone. He rubbed her knuckles between his thick palms, leaning in until she could smell the clean, sharp resin of fir wood and the lingering chimney smoke trapped in his woolen scarf. "My mother has the kettle on for cabbage and salted pork down at the joinery. She told me to bring you down before the watch bells start. You spend too many nights up here at the bend of the cliff road, listening to the trees groan. Come down to the hearth with us. The Solstice feast is only three days out, and my father is already tapping the elderberry cask."

"The coat must be finished before the morning bells, Rowan," she said, gently drawing her hands back from his grasp under the pretense of smoothing her skirt. She kept her tone measured and sweet, careful to avoid the edge of panic that always threatened to rise when anyone pressed too close to her solitude. Rowan had been courting her with dogged, honest sincerity for two seasons now, bringing split logs, repairing her loose roof shingles, and offering her a future anchored in the loud, hearth-lit certainty of a carpenter’s house. Yet whenever she looked at him, she saw the sheer, impassable chasm that separated them. He belonged entirely to the earth of Somber Hollow, rooted in its soil, warm with blood that surged with hearty, unquestioning life. When she looked inside herself, she found only that silent, yawning cavity—an hollow vessel waiting for a memory that never arrived. "Master Garrow leaves for the upper sheep camps at first light. If he has no coat, he has no work, and if I have no coin, I have no meal for the bins. Tell your mother I thank her kindly for the thought."

Rowan’s jaw set slightly, his brown eyes clouding with a flicker of wounded pride, but the stubborn affection remained intact. He stood up slowly, dusting his knees, his gaze lingering on the cold hearth and the single, low-burning tallow dip on the corner of the table. "You treat this village like an inn you’re only sleeping in until the roads open, Nella. But there are no roads out of the Hollow. You know that as well as any elder. The cliffs don't open up, and the ash canopy doesn't let the sun through just because you stare out the glass like you're waiting for a ship." He sighed, reaching out to clasp the mantelpiece, his shoulder muscles knotting beneath his wool jacket. "You have people here. You have me. You don't have to live like an orphan on the perimeter forever."

"I was an orphan when Delilah brought me in from the back room twelve winters ago, Rowan," Nella replied softly, her fingers finding the cold iron bodkin again, turning it end over end in her lap. "Habits acquired in a quiet room are hard to unpick. You know how I am."

"Aye," Rowan said, though the word sounded thick and heavy in his throat, carrying the faint, mournful trace of defeat. "I know how you are. Cold hands, quiet tongue, and eyes always tracking the shadows in the rafters." He glanced toward the heavy, iron-strapped door, then toward the small hearth-clock perched on her corner shelf, its brass pendulum swinging in a lazy, rhythmic tick that seemed slightly slower than it had an hour before. "I have five minutes before the curfew toll. If I get caught on the lane after the twelfth strike, Magistrate Blackwell will have me in the pillory before the dawn bell, neighbor or no."

Before he could reach for his mittens, the great bell in the central tower of Somber Hollow began its nightly vigil. The sound did not merely travel through the air; it fell like an anvil dropped into a pool of thick oil.

Clang.

The first strike reverberated through the cliff-faces that cradled the village, shaking the leaded glass of Nella’s casement until the panes rattled in their zinc frames. The iron bell was an ancient, massive thing, cast three centuries ago when the first settlers had walled themselves beneath the weeping ash grove, and its voice carried an unnatural, physical weight that settled directly into the marrow of the bone.

Clang.

Rowan paused, his hand hovering over the door handle. A strange, sudden hitch caught in his throat. He shook his head, his eyelids fluttering once, twice, with a sudden and unnatural heaviness. "The... the wind must have pulled round," he mumbled, his voice dropping an octave, thickening into a slurry of half-formed vowels. "My legs feel like... like lead weights in the bog."

Clang.

The fourth strike fell. Rowan took a single, clumsy step toward the threshold, but his boots seemed unable to find purchase on the smooth pine floor. Nella stood up, dropping the wool coat onto her stool, her eyes widening as she watched the color rapidly drain from his cheeks, replaced not by the pallor of sickness, but by a waxy, slack-jawed placidity. He swayed on his feet, his large frame tilting dangerously toward the hearth.

"Rowan?" Nella stepped forward, catching his heavy woolen forearm with both hands. His coat was warm, but his muscles had gone entirely loose, like tallow softening over a flame. "Rowan, lean against the settle. Don't fall into the ash."

Clang.

The sixth stroke vibrated through the floorboards, striking the soles of her shoes like a physical pulse. Rowan didn't fight her; he allowed her to guide his heavy weight backward onto the pine settle beneath the front window. His head rolled back against the timber wall with a dull thud. His breath came in deep, rattling, rhythmic cycles—the heavy, impenetrable respirations of a man plunged instantly into the deepest tiers of unconsciousness.