Moonlight in Her Garden

Prologue

Moonlight filtered through the window in silver threads, falling across her pillow. Her eyes shot open and she sat up straight. Her hand went to her chest to steady the pounding there. She looked around the room in a panic.

It was her room, but it felt wrong. She pushed herself from bed and looked out the open window.

The moon was brilliant. It cast the garden in a luminous silvery glow.

She looked down at herself, bathed in the same light, her hand still on her racing heart. Then she was moving, running to the garden.

She crossed the yard into the silent kingdom of moonlight. The moon washed the yard silver and cast deep black shadows at the edges. There was no wind. No sound.

The world felt shifted out of time. A chill ran through her body.

She looked up and saw a man.

If she had been awake, she would have screamed, but no sound left her. She took a step toward him, the same force in her chest pulling her forward. His head was bowed and he wore a wide-brimmed hat. She could not see his face under the confines of shadow.

Everything inside her demanded she stop, but she walked closer.

“Elise.”

Her eyes flew up to meet his, but caught only a glimpse beneath the hat.

He turned and moved towards the house.

Elise followed.

A hole gaped in the yard, blacker than shadow, as if the earth had split open before her. It hadn’t been there a moment ago.

The man stepped down into the hole, only a few inches below the surface, then another step, and another.

Stairs.

She knew it was a bad idea.

She took a step forward.

Then another.

The black stairway opened at her feet.

She took one step into the darkness.

Then another.

They descended and slowly she began to see again. Here, there was no silvery light of the moon, nor the blanketing blackness of the entrance. There was a dim, warm yellow reflecting off carved stone. She reached out and brushed the rough-cut stone.

She could feel again, and it was warm inside the cave.

There was a lamp set into a chiseled alcove. Then, another. Soon, she could see quite well. The lamps didn’t dance with a flame, they glowed somehow, sometimes brighter and sometimes growing faint.

After a time, she was unsure of how long, the walls gave way to an enormous cavern. The stairs hugged onto the side of the wall on the way down until they reached the cavern floor. In the distance, there was a deep pit that glowed bright orange.

The guide never spoke, he just kept moving on at a pace easy to match. Elise knew that by now the ruffle of her skirt was dirty. Her feet were filthy. She didn’t care. The path beneath her became a clear route.

Dozens of questions buzzed in her mind but they could not compete with the cave. She stared in awe at everything around her. The pathway was now ordered by sectioned stalls and stone-carved buildings.

There were people too. Tall people, their skin pale as ghosts with dark hair and large eyes. Others had lighter hair, but all of them had the same unnervingly large eyes. Something about the way their eyes lingered on her for just a fraction of a second dampened her wonder.

Some of the people had tails.

Elise stared. She knew it was impolite, but she stared anyway. She couldn’t help it. The ones with tails kept them close to their bodies. They also had tall, pointy ears, like a dog or a fox. Many of these people were in the cages. The caged boxes were just over half her height, forcing those inside to curl up.

One such occupant turned his head and peered out at her with his large dark eyes.