Chapter One

Thunk .

Instantly awake, instantly alert, I rolled onto my shoulder and lifted my head from the pillow.

The crescent moon sunk towards the west, leaking white beams through the open curtains, and its peaceful silver-blue light transformed the bedroom into an ethereal place, serene and surreal. The walls, which in daylight were cream, appeared stark white under a lunar touch. Shadows cast by the furniture were the indigo of a vast ocean. In all directions, my eyes took in a placid palette that spoke of the calmest midnight hours, a time of restful, soothing dreams. The wicker chair in the corner wore a garland of my cast-off jeans, while the mirror on top of our oak dresser reflected a pool of darkness. From the door to the hall, to the en suite, to the shuttered closet, the moon illuminated a comfortable bedroom in sleepy repose.

Except for me-who, with every muscle tensed, had jerked awake. The noise, a hearty thump, had come from somewhere. My eyes flew across the darkness, scanning the indigo and white, to note the contents of our room. Yet I found everything untouched, in its place.

Even the quilt, which had rumpled to the bottom of the bed, was exactly where it should be after an hour's slumber. I sat upright to snag it and pull it back over us, casting a quick glance at the closet. Had a wooden hanger fallen inside? I absently wondered if I should rise, open the doors to check the contents, then carefully close them again. God forbid I leave them open. The thought coaxed a smile from me. Every night, Sophie insisted the closet be firmly shut. She couldn't sleep if the shuttered doors were open, she admitted with a foolish thirty-something grin, because she was scared of monsters peeking out.

I glanced down at her, curled next to me, and stifled the urge to touch her chestnut hair, to caress one palm across her porcelain cheek. Her eyes were gently shut, her breathing soft. She slept undisturbed.

Well, if the sound hadn't woken her, I wouldn't be the one to do it. I lay propped up on my elbows. As I listened to the rhythm of her strong heart, the moon crept a few more degrees through the sky. I was almost certain there'd been a low clunk.

A sound which had been too soft for human ears…but I was hardly human.

I lifted myself gingerly from the mattress. At the motion, Sophie stirred.

"Dan…?"

I pressed a kiss to her forehead. Her skin smelled of sweat, and lust, an earlier bout of sex. It roused a fire in my gut. "Go back to sleep," I said. But, I'll admit, I secretly hoped she'd wake again. I tucked the quilt around her.

She nestled with a little sigh, hands clasped under her chin. I brushed one palm over her hair, then found a pair of boxer shorts on the floor and pulled them on.

On bare soles, I prowled out of our room and across the upper landing, only to find the hall equally still. With my weight on the balls of my feet, I picked my way across the creaking wooden floorboards, choosing the silent ones with practised precision. When Sophie had invited me to live with her in the old farmhouse, the boards had squealed and protested under every movement I made, as if the building itself actively resisted a new man under its roof. But over the months I'd memorised the stable boards, those that held me. The house and I had made a truce. I belonged here now, more than any other place I'd ever known. With the stealth of a predator defending its lair, I crossed the upper level with all my senses alert.

Moonlight through frosted windows glinted off the bathroom fixtures, half-hidden amongst a small jungle of plants. Across the hall, the door to the spare room stood ajar. I pushed it aside. Inside were storage boxes, full of photo albums and winter clothes. In the far corner squatted an old cot used for guests, but nothing had toppled over. The noise had not come from here.

There was only one other room on this floor, and for a moment I paused outside its door. I held my ear to it. From within came the slow, rhythmic pattern of Madelaine's breathing, the restful patter of her heart, the rasping of her cotton nightgown as it shifted against the sheets. The gentle glow of her night light seeped under the crack of the door, and her brass alarm clock ticked, marking out the seconds until morning. There was no need to open the door and disturb her. The girl slept.

I looked back to my own half-opened door, where I could hear Sophie's feet kicking at the quilt. I relaxed my shoulders and crossed my arms, frowning at my own paranoia. Maybe the noise had been a figment of my imagination. God knows, it wouldn't have been the first time I'd dreamt of intruders. For the first few weeks of calling this house "my home," the frantic concern of losing it would bubble to the surface of my sleeping mind. I'd awaken with a bestial urge to rush outside, walk the perimeter of the fences, and mark the land as my own. Even Sophie-who was normally so accepting of my particular habits-was peeved that I'd choose to piss outside, rather than use the bathroom at the opposite end of the hall.

"You aren't...y'know....in my flower beds, are you?" she'd asked after discovering the nature of my nocturnal walks, "Because I don't always use gardening gloves, and that's just....just...Ewww!"

But eventually the fear had passed. I didn't wake in the middle of the night anymore, anxious that my happy life would slip away if I didn't mark my place. I had settled, and I was mostly contented, and safe.

So what had woken me tonight?

It had been a hearty noise to me, but the thump hadn't woken Soph. To her ears, it must have been distant and muffled, which means it hadn't come from a point upstairs. I left the threshold of Maddy's door and moved to the head of the stairs. I crouched there with one hand resting lightly on the top step.

I breathed deeply, eyes closed, and listened.

The air carried the scent of beeswax and pine cleaner, of ancient wooden beams and patched plaster, of cleanliness mingled with age. Just like Sophie cuddling into the quilts, the house shifted on her foundations as she settled into the damp September earth, and a muttering of crackles percolated through the walls. From the first floor, I heard high-pitched squeaks of mice and the scritch-scritch of their claws as they scurried in the kitchen. Tomorrow...hardware store ...traps , I thought absently, then focused again on my task. A sound. A smell. Anything out of the ordinary.

But I found nothing strange, only the random fragrances of home: Maddy's gum boots for the barn, sun-sweet hay, last night's dinner of roast beef. I took another sniff. Like my look around the bedroom, I found everything inside our home as it should be.

Perplexed, I rocked back on my heels. Maddy slept, Sophie slept. The two dogs were tied up outside and they'd issued no bark of alarm. The autumn night was as peaceful and calm as a heaven full of stars.

With a sigh I stood, gave my head a shake to clear my nose, and turned towards my bedroom door. I'm getting paranoid , I thought with a rueful chuckle. I'm going to end up like Uncle Andre, if I'm not caref-

Thunk.

I reeled back to the head of the stairs.

No longer sleep-muddled, I distinctly heard the heavy wooden clunk from the living room on the main floor. Only one action made a noise like that: someone testing the strength of a window frame, checking the lock with a sharp pull upward.

I swept down the stairwell with my shoulder pressed to the wall, every sense rekindled, hands clenched. The dark tide of black fur swept over my back and down my sides. With a growl low in my throat, clenching my curving teeth, I rushed silently towards the living room.

The embers in the woodstove still lent a delicious warmth to the cozy room, and their flickering glow illuminated the white walls, the brick hearth, the patterned Persian rug. Past the mismatched couches and low coffee table, three tall windows overlooked the sheep pasture and the barn. Sophie had drawn the gauzy white curtains before banking the fire and retiring upstairs. Through the thin fabric I clearly saw the shifting silhouette of a man crouched by the last window. He lurched upward, and again came the noise as he tested the latch on the last frame.

Copyright © 2006 K. Bannerman.