Esme woke in a fit of panic, convinced that the infection had worsened overnight. She gingerly lifted her blankets to inspect her leg. A quick glance was enough to reassure her that the keeper’s cure had worked. The wound was still healing. She heaved a sigh of relief.
The house had slept in, too. A spider had found its way into the room and spun a web overnight. Quiet filled the corners. Outside, rain still fell, soft and steady, pattering on the roof above.
In the bedside drawer lay her mother’s necklace, entangled with her own. Esme took them out and teased the two apart. The chain she had found in the chamber was black and pitted, the once-shiny letter ‘A’ corroded from its years in the dank chamber. The dirt-encrusted pearl hung, forlornly, a few links above it.
She wanted to put a
