(FREE TO READ) Bad Moon

chapter 25; Imani

When the chrysalis hit his lungs, it wasn't quite as painful as Jaylin imagined it would be. It felt like the bronchitis he'd caught Freshman year, or the first time he'd switched from light cigarettes. He wheezed when he breathed, his chest ached and burned. But for the past week and a half, the most Jaylin had done was sleep.

Quentin waited on him like an on-call nurse, rushing herbal tea and medicines to the sofa where he nested during the day.

He slept downstairs instead, where the kitchen was close and he wouldn't risk a tumble down the staircase. And every night, one of the younger maids would creep from her quarters to see how he was doing.

There were three, Jaylin noted, that stayed here on a nightly basis. He seldom saw them around the house; instead these maids spent their time in the vast garden, collecting the produce and clipping all the little dying bits from the otherwise flourishing plants.

Of the three, there was one that came to check on him every night—the youngest of the woman, the soft and ashen looking girl with deep rings under her eyes. She told him that the Sigvards had taken her in off of the streets and treated her well in exchange for her help around the house. She reminded him of Olivia—the way her skin paled so porcelain and her eyes contrasted so dark and deeply troubled.

She was sweet though, sure to leave Jaylin a new glass of water each time his depleted, even when he wasn't thirsty. He'd heard her name called a few times. Lillabeth. She was the only maid that crept from her quarters in the dead of night to watch over the house and every living thing in it. He wondered if maybe she might be an insomniac, or maybe the whir of the willow tree kept her awake, the same way it had deprived him of sleep his first nights here. But Lillabeth didn't talk about herself much. She mostly just listened.

There was a peculiarity about her. The way she roamed the house like an apparition, appeared when she was needed and then so quickly, disappeared like she was only ever a trick of the eye. She was a strange thing, but Jaylin liked her company.

Then came the second night that Quentin disappeared. The night he didn't return home until four into the morning.

Jaylin fell asleep on the sofa that night, but the persistent crooning of an owl had purred him awake. Quentin walked through the door with liquor in his step, but Jaylin didn't greet him. He feigned sleep, eyes clamped shut while he listened in on the shuffle of Quentin's keys and the way his heels dragged as he walked. He held his breath and heeded as the inebriated man carried himself up the stairs, down the hall and out of earshot, where the heavy doors of his study closed together with a ghoulish echo.

And from them drifted that song. The one he'd heard Quentin play once before. But this time, it was an even sadder imitation of itself. Every note dragged out longer than the next, each played in the wrong key—like a rusty old wind up music box, the gears turned by a slow hand.

You are my sunshine... My only sunshine.

When the chords pulsed through the walls of the Sigvard manor, Jaylin's body was consumed with them. He wasn't sure why, but it felt like every slip of the key, every staggering note was there for a reason. Like those were the bits of Quentin that had gone missing. The pieces that were needed to finish the puzzle. Those part were Anna.

Lillabeth left her room shortly after that, like Quentin's song was summoning her all along. Jaylin watched her creep along the living room walls, blowing out each of Lisa's candles. Then, like always, she plucked up Jaylin's empty glass from the end table. Before she could leave to fill it, Jaylin asked her about Quentin's song, why he played it.

For a moment, Lillabeth had looked like she wanted to tell him. But instead she tapped her fingernails against the glass and smiled. "He used to play it so beautifully."