Claimed Under Bloodlight

Chapter 1 Miranda

MIRANDA

The Louisiana humidity doesn’t just sit on you; it assaults you. It’s a damp, suffocating blanket that smells of wet rot and ancient mud.

"Recalibrate," I mutter, tapping the glass face of the watch. "Focus on the mechanism."

I steer the rental sedan around a pothole that looks deep enough to swallow a tire whole.

Spanish moss hangs from the live oaks like grey, tattered shrouds, motionless in the dead air.

It is exactly ten days before Christmas.

In Chicago, the wind is probably stripping the skin off commuters’ faces right now. Here, the air is heavy enough to chew.

There isn’t a single festive decoration. No plastic reindeer, no wreaths, no blinking LEDs. Just the oppressive green-black of the swamp and the looming shadow of the iron gates ahead.

Belle Rêve. Beautiful Dream.

The iron gates are rusted open, welded into place by time and neglect.

As I drive through, the house rises out of the mist like a warning.

It’s a monstrosity of columns and wrap-around porches, the white paint peeling to reveal grey wood that looks like bruised flesh.

It’s gothic, imposing, and completely silent.

I kill the engine. The resulting silence is vacuum-sealed.

I shouldn't be here. The logical part of my brain—the part that understands gear ratios and mainspring tension—is screaming that this is something I can't control. But the emotional part, the jagged, lonely piece of me that spent twenty-six years in the foster system, overruled the logic.

It started with a Black Friday sale on DNA kits.

I’d spit in a tube, mailed it off, and expected nothing more than a breakdown of generic European percentages.

Instead, I got a ping. A match. A first cousin, once removed.

Then came the letter from a lawyer in St. Jude’s Parish, claiming I was the last of the Duval line eligible for an inheritance.

I didn't come for the money. I came because when you’ve spent your whole life as a spare part in someone else’s machine, the promise of a blueprint—a family—is impossible to ignore.

I grab my bag from the passenger seat. The leather strap digs into my shoulder as I walk up the steps. The wood groans under my boots, a low, protesting creak that sounds too much like a growl.

I reach for the knocker—a heavy brass lion’s head, tarnished black—but the door swings open before I make contact.

The woman standing in the foyer looks like she stepped out of a daguerreotype. She’s tall, painfully thin, wearing a high-collared dress that went out of style before the telephone was invented. Her skin is the color of parchment, translucent enough that I look for veins but find none.

"Miranda," she says. It’s not a question. Her voice is dry, like leaves skittering on pavement.

"Matilde?" I try to smile, but my facial muscles feel tight. "I’m... hi. It’s good to finally meet you."

I step forward, half-raising my arms. A hug? A handshake? That’s what families do, right? They embrace. They cry. They talk about whose nose I have.

Matilde doesn't move. She doesn't blink. Her eyes are dark, swallowing the dim light of the hallway. She looks me up and down, her gaze feeling less like a welcome and more like an appraisal. She’s checking for defects.

"You are early," she says softly. "The Solstice is not for ten days."

"The lawyer said to come as soon as I could," I explain, lowering my arms. I feel foolish. "And I wanted to beat the holiday rush. It’s ten days until Christmas."

"We do not celebrate the Christian holiday here," she says, her tone clipping the sentence short. "We observe the Longest Night."

She steps back, allowing me entry.

I cross the threshold, and the temperature drops twenty degrees instantly.

The humidity vanishes, replaced by a sterile, preserved chill.

The air inside Belle Rêve doesn't smell like the swamp.

It smells of dried roses, beeswax, and something sharp and chemical—like the formaldehyde I used in high school biology.

"Your room is prepared," Matilde says, turning her back on me. She moves with an eerie, gliding grace, her skirt not rustling despite the heavy fabric. "Dinner is at sundown. We observe the old traditions here. Do not be late for the toast."

"Is anyone else here?" I ask, following her towards a sweeping staircase that disappears into shadow. "The lawyer mentioned other cousins?"

"The family gathers when the sun bleeds out of the sky," she says, evasive. She pauses at the landing, looking down at me. Her neck is long, elegant, and unnervingly stiff. "You have the look of your mother. The bone structure. It is... satisfactory."

Satisfactory. Not beautiful. Not beloved. Satisfactory. Like a replacement cog that fits the machine well enough to function.

She leads me down a corridor lined with gas lamps that hiss softly, casting flickering, jaundiced light against the velvet wallpaper. She opens the last door on the left.

"Refresh yourself," she commands. "We will await you in the dining hall."

She closes the door before I can say thank you.

I’m alone.

I exhale a sharp breath that rattles in my chest. My hands are trembling. I clasp them together, forcing the tremors to stop. Regulate. Stabilize.

I turn to inspect the room, and the air jams in my throat.

It’s a museum exhibit of a Victorian nightmare.

The four-poster bed is draped in heavy, suffocating lace.

But it’s the shelves that make my skin crawl.

They line the walls, floor to ceiling, filled with porcelain dolls.

Hundreds of them. Their painted faces are cracked with age, their glass eyes staring blankly into the center of the room.

I feel watched.

My anxiety spikes, a red line on a pressure gauge. I need to fix something. I need order.

I drop my bag and move to the rug. It’s slightly askew, not parallel to the floorboards. I kick it into alignment. Better. I move to the desk, straightening a stack of yellowed paper. Then I see the clock on the mantelpiece—a French distinct black marble piece, mid-19th century. It’s silent.

The silence is wrong. A room this dead needs a heartbeat.

I pull my set of winding keys from my pocket—I never travel without them—and find the arbor size that fits. I insert the key. The tactile resistance of the mainspring winding tight sends a wave of relief through me. The tension is stored energy. It makes sense.

Click. Click. Click.

I nudge the pendulum. The clock begins to tick. A steady, rhythmic pulse.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

I match my breathing to the beat. In for two ticks. Hold for two. Out for two. The frantic grinding in my head slows down. The dolls are just ceramic and paint. The cold is just poor insulation. Matilde is just an eccentric old woman who doesn't know how to interact with a stranger.

I turn toward the bed to unpack, and that’s when I see it.

Laid out on the brooding floral quilt is a dress. It’s a deep, violent shade of crimson silk, the color of oxygenated blood. It’s beautiful, objectively, but the sight of it makes the hair on the back of my arms stand up.

I walk over and touch the fabric. It’s cool and slippery. I hold it up against me.

It’s my size. Not just "roughly" my size. It’s tailored. The waist is nipped in exactly where I’m narrowest. The bust is precise. The length is cut for my height.

"That doesn't track," I whisper to the empty room.

I never sent them my measurements. I’ve never met these people. Even if they looked at photos from my social media, you can't tailor a garment to this level of precision from a pixelated JPEG. It suggests a level of observation that goes beyond genealogy research. It suggests surveillance.

A chill that has absolutely nothing to do with the air conditioning wraps around my ribs. Why bring me here? Why the cryptic welcome? Why a dress that looks like it’s been waiting for me for decades?

I need air. Real air, not this recycled, rose-scented preservation fluid they’re pumping through the vents.

I toss the dress back onto the bed, unable to look at it, and cross the room to the tall sash window. The view outside is swallowed by the early winter dusk, the Spanish moss turning into jagged silhouettes against a bruising purple sky.

I undo the latch and shove upward on the frame.

It doesn't budge.

I grunt, putting my weight into it. Old houses swell in the humidity; wood warps. It’s simple physics. I jam the heels of my hands under the sash and push again, straining until my shoulders burn.

Nothing. It feels solid, like part of the wall.

I lean closer, squinting through the grime-streaked glass to see where it’s stuck.

My blood goes cold.

It’s not painted shut. It’s not warped.

Thick, square-headed iron nails have been driven through the frame from the outside. They are rusted, bitten deep into the wood. This isn't a recent repair to keep a draft out. These nails have been here for years.

I back away from the window, my heart slamming a frantic, uneven rhythm against my ribs. I look toward the door, then back at the window, then at the dolls staring at me with their dead, glassy eyes.

This isn't a guest room.

Guest rooms have egress. Guest rooms have ventilation.

A room with nails driven through the window frame isn't designed to keep the weather out. It’s designed to keep something in.