Once Upon a Dark October

Chapter One

F og escorted me home most evenings, a ghostly veil draped across the harbor, a frigid kiss goodnight. Mist glazed the cobblestones under my worn boots and mottled the tree-lined streets, dewy water shimmering with October reds and rusty oranges. The flames within the gaslit lamps had all but disappeared behind the sea’s dense nighttime shroud. Luminous yet hazy, the light held an eerie, gilded cast, an uncertainty, shapeless as levitating phantoms.

My chapped fingers curled underneath my cloak. Hour after hour of endless scrubbing and washing had left my skin chafed and pink. Every touch of the air felt raw, fragile enough to tear at the slightest whisper. I’d figured my hands would be sturdier from all the work by now, but the harbor’s changing seasons weren’t kind.

The wages were, at least.