THE MOON'S PAST

Chapter One: The House on the Hill --- I was eighteen the first time I saw the house on the hill — not just in passing, not just as another relic of our small town’s endless whispers. I mean really saw it. The night I walked into that crumbling manor and met the boy with the blood-stained hands. It was almost midnight. The kind of hour when silence has a heartbeat, and the moon looks like it’s been crying behind the clouds. I shouldn’t have been out. Not after the phone call. Not after the police car parked in front of our house for the fourth time in two months. But I wasn’t good at staying put. I wasn’t good at pretending things were okay when everything inside me felt like glass slowly cracking. So I ran. I ran through the fields, through the empty stretch of road, until the town melted behind me, and only the hill remained. The one place I was always told never to go. The one place that still looked like a secret. They called it The Hollow House. No one lived there — supposedly. It had been abandoned for years. But people said they saw lights flicker in the windows sometimes, heard music playing when the town slept. I never believed in ghosts. I believed in worse things. The gates were open. That was the first strange thing. I didn’t hesitate. I don’t know why — maybe because everything else in my life felt so out of control, I wanted something to happen. Something that wasn’t a fight or another shouting match or a slammed door. I pushed past the iron, climbed the winding path, and stood before the door like I was waiting for it to open on its own. It didn’t. I knocked. Once. Then twice. Silence. Then, footsteps. And the door creaked open. He stood there. Barefoot. Shirtless. Bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow. Holding a lit candle like he’d stepped out of another world and hadn’t realized time moved on. And he looked at me like he knew me. “You’re late,” he said. --- His name was Lucien Vale. He didn’t go to our school. He didn’t even seem to know what year it was. But he knew things. He knew my name before I said it. He knew about my father’s arrest, even though it hadn’t made the papers. He knew about the dreams I used to have as a kid — the ones I never told anyone. He was weird. And reckless. And impossibly beautiful in a broken-glass kind of way. I should’ve turned around. I should’ve walked away. But I didn’t. I stayed. And that was the beginning of everything. --- I came back the next night. And the next. It became a thing — a secret that belonged to no one else but us. Lucien didn’t talk much about himself, but I learned to read the way he moved. The way he looked at the sky like he was waiting for something that never came. The way he flinched at loud sounds. The way he slept with a knife under his pillow. There were scars on his back. Some fresh. Some old. Like he had lived more lives than a boy should. He played piano like he was at war with it. He drew pictures of places that didn’t exist. He asked me what it felt like to fall in love, and I told him I didn’t know. That I’d never had the chance. That boys didn’t look at girls like me — quiet, messy-haired girls with too much sadness in their eyes. And he said: “I look at you.” --- The town kept whispering. About my dad. About my mother’s drinking. About the fact that I was always disappearing after dark. But I didn’t care. I stopped caring when I met him. Lucien became the only thing that made sense. The only part of my life that didn’t hurt. But the thing about secrets is — they rot when you keep them too long. And one night, he asked me: “Would you leave with me?” I didn’t hesitate. I said yes. And that was the first lie I told my mother. --- Chapter Two: Midnight Blood We were going to run away. He said he had a plan. He always had plans — drawn out in notebooks, written in codes, songs, and riddles. Lucien said we could take the train west. Find a town where no one knew us. Start over. I packed my bag. I left a note. I stole money from the kitchen drawer. And I went to the house on the hill one last time. But when I got there, he wasn’t waiting at the door. He wasn’t at the piano. He wasn’t anywhere. Until I went upstairs. And found blood smeared on the walls. --- They said I imagined him. When the police came, the house was empty. No furniture. No candles. No signs of life. Just dust and decay. They said it was abandoned. That no one had lived there for over thirty years. That Lucien Vale didn’t exist. But I knew better. I’d touched him. Kissed him. Bled for him. You don’t make up something like that. But they made me doubt it. The town. The therapist. My mother. I stopped speaking about it. I stopped speaking, period. And a week later, my mother sent me to a boarding school two states away. That was the end of the story. Or so I thought. --- Chapter Three: Four Years Later --- “Catalina Reyes?” the receptionist called. I stood. Smoothed my skirt. Forced a smile. “Right this way. Mr. Vale is ready for you.” My breath caught. I hadn’t heard that name in four years. Vale. But it couldn’t be. I followed her through the glass hallway, heart in my throat. And when the office door opened, I saw him. Lucien. In a suit. Hair slicked back. No scars. No candle. No blood. He stood behind the CEO’s desk like he’d never known anything but power. And he looked at me like he hadn’t seen me in a thousand years. Or like he’d never stopped watching. --- “Hello, Catalina,” he said, his voice low and unreadable. I couldn’t breathe. “You’re— You’re alive.” A smile curled his lips. “So are you.” My knees nearly gave out. “What is this? Some kind of joke? You disappeared. They said the house was abandoned. That you were never real.” He leaned forward, hands clasped on the desk. “I’m real. And I never left. I just... had to disappear. For your sake.” “For my sake?” I choked out. “You weren’t supposed to come back that night. You weren’t supposed to see what you saw.” “You were bleeding.” He nodded. “I was punished. For telling you too much.” “Punished by who?” But he didn’t answer that. Instead, he said, “I brought you here for a reason.” “I don’t even know what job I applied for. I thought it was just an internship.” He smiled again. Dark. Cold. “You’ll be staying with me, Catalina.” I froze. “What?” “It's already been arranged. You’ll live in the penthouse across from mine. Work under my supervision. You're mine now.” My lips parted. “You don’t own me.” His eyes darkened. “I don’t own you, Catalina. But I do protect what’s mine. And you walked into my house that night. You promised to run away with me. You kissed me. Bled for me.” He stood. Walked around the desk. And when he reached me, he brushed his fingers against my cheek like I was still made of glass. “I loved you. I love you,” he whispered. “But you weren’t ready then.” “And now?” I whispered back. His lips touched my ear. “Now, you’ll learn everything I couldn’t tell you.” --- To be continued