Chapter 1 – The Doll in the Dust
Part I: Blackwood Hall Sleeps
The house breathed like something sleeping.
Each groan of its beams, each shiver of its warped glass panes, each sigh of wind slipping beneath the doorframe—together they formed a rhythm Morrigan Blackwood had learned by heart. Her cane clicked once against the loose stone at the top of the stair, then again, softer, where the wood was still whole. She moved slowly, as always. Not because she wanted to, but because her spine allowed no other speed.
The cold this morning was sharper than usual, a needle-threaded sort of chill that crept beneath her dress and stitched itself into her bones. She adjusted the fraying shawl over her shoulders, not for warmth—nothing in Blackwood Hall was truly warm anymore—but for the ritual of it. Layers meant safety. If she wrapped herself tight enough, perhaps the house would forget she was there.
She passed the crooked window on the second-floor landing and paused. Outside, the crows were back.
They gathered along the wrought iron fence like grim judges, their beaks sharp and gleaming. Most stared into the trees, but one—larger than the rest, with a ragged patch missing from its wing—watched her directly. Its eyes were an oily grey, far too intelligent. She stared back until it blinked, then turned away, ruffling its feathers with what might have been disdain.
"Creep," she muttered. Her voice cracked. The sound startled her.
She hadn't spoken aloud in… she didn't know. Not since the day she'd broken another cup and tried to explain herself to the empty kitchen, only to realize she didn't need to explain anything. Not here. Not anymore.
She made her way to the ground floor, cane tapping a slow beat against the floorboards, the noise echoing through the parlor like a metronome for ghosts.
The parlor was where the cold liked to gather. It huddled in the corners like a beggar, pressed itself into the dusty drapes, hid behind the velvet armchair no one had sat in since her mother's death. The fireplace still held ash from the last fire she'd built—a month ago, maybe more—but the chimney was choked with something and had begun coughing smoke back into the room. She didn't risk it now.
The air smelled of dry wood, old fabric, and something faintly metallic beneath it all. Time.
On the far wall, a trio of portraits hung askew. They had always unsettled her. The first was a woman in mourning black, her mouth too small for her face, her eyes like ink spills. The second, a young man with a lazy sneer, a hand on a sword that had long rusted away in the hall upstairs. The third—blank. Or maybe just faded to nothing. Her mother used to say it was the most important of all.
"Some people can't be captured," she'd whispered once, brushing dust from the empty frame with trembling fingers. "They unravel."
Morrigan didn't dust it now. She didn't look at it if she could help it.
Today, she had chosen to clean. It wasn't a decision, not really—it was just something to do. Something to structure the slow ache of her hours. The parlor's rug was thick, old wool, once crimson but now the color of rusted wine. She hated touching it; the fringe always caught her skin like cobwebs. Still, she bent over—slowly, her breath caught in her throat—to pull it up. Beneath it, the floor was dark with dust and grime.
And then came the scratching.
It was soft. Uneven. As if a fingernail was dragging itself across the underside of the boards, pausing, then moving again. She froze, her hand halfway through adjusting the rug.
The wind? No. Not that.
Her cane slipped from where she'd leaned it and hit the stones of the hearth with a dull metallic clatter. She winced. The sound echoed like a scream in the otherwise still house.
The scratching stopped.
Her breath caught.
Then it started again—faster this time, a small, frantic scrabbling directly beneath her knees. The space under the floorboards was shallow, she knew that. Just enough for dust and rats. And yet, this didn't sound like any rat she'd ever heard.
She crawled backward, heartbeat kicking hard against her ribs, and reached for her cane. It wasn't far, but the sharp flare in her back made her hiss through her teeth. She had pushed herself too fast. Again. Always.
Still, she retrieved it. The weight of the wood in her hand steadied her, gave her something to grip besides panic.
She stared at the spot where the sound had come from. There was a visible gap between two of the old boards, the kind her mother used to caution her against walking barefoot over—"Blackwood teeth," she called them. Splinters sharp enough to bite.
Morrigan narrowed her eyes. Was that a draft?
She leaned forward, letting her fingers trace the lines between the planks, feeling along for the edges. The scratching had stopped again, but she knew—knew—it had been there. Her fingers found a seam slightly wider than the others. Her breath caught as she pressed.
The plank shifted.
Not by much. Just enough to reveal that it wasn't nailed down like the others.
Beneath the dust, a faint carving: a sigil, maybe. Or just a mark, like something scratched in haste.
Her heart thudded once, twice.
Then she lifted the board.