Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Celeste
The raven feather is too perfect to be accidental.
I stand at my bedroom window, staring at the black plume resting on the exterior sill like an offering.
The morning sun catches its iridescent surface, revealing hidden purples and blues in what seemed like pure darkness.
It's positioned exactly in the center, parallel to the window frame, untouched by the wind that's been rattling the panes all night.
Someone placed this here.
Someone who climbed up to a second-story window in the middle of the night, in December, to leave me a feather.
I should be terrified, should be calling for my father, showing him evidence of a stalker.
Instead, I'm opening the window, letting the cold mountain air flood my childhood bedroom as I reach for it.
The feather is soft between my fingers, larger than I expected.
Ravens are bigger than crows—I researched that for my third book.
They're also more intelligent, capable of problem-solving, of remembering faces for years.
They bring gifts to people who feed them.
They hold grudges.
And they even mourn their dead.
I set it on my desk, right next to my laptop, where I can see it while I write.
My phone buzzes with a text from Juliette:
How's the writing going? Mountains working their magic?
I almost tell her about the feather, then stop.
How would that sound? "Someone left me a gift in the middle of the night, and instead of being scared, I'm inspired"?
She'd think I've lost it. Or worse, she'd tell my father.
Actually making progress. You were right about this place clearing my head.
Her response comes within seconds:
Told you! My brother swears by mountain air for creativity. Have you run into him yet? Cain Lockwood?
My pulse quickens.
Right.
Juliette's mysterious brother who lives up here.
The hermit Dad mentioned last night, the one who plays violin at odd hours and decorates with deer skulls.
The one Dad suspects might be the killer.
Not yet. Dad mentioned him though.
She texts me back within a few moments:
He's odd but harmless. Brilliant, actually. Just prefers trees to people. If you see him in town, say hi. He knows your work.
I stare at that last line.
Her brother has read my books.
The reclusive mountain man who might be a serial killer is familiar with my writing about dark, dangerous men who do terrible things for love.
The cursor blinks on my blank page, and suddenly, I'm writing:
The gift appeared in the night, left by hands she'd never seen on a windowsill that required dedication to reach. Not a threat—threats were crude, obvious. This was something else. A calling card. An invitation. The kind of thing a predator leaves to let prey know it's been chosen.
But prey implied she would run, and she had no intention of running.
She touched the feather, black as ink, soft as secrets whispered in darkness. Whoever left this understood something fundamental: fear and fascination were not opposites but dance partners, moving together in rhythm as old as time itself.
The words flow like water, like blood, like everything I've been missing for months.
I write about a woman finding gifts, each more intimate than the last.
A feather. A book of poetry with certain lines underscored.
A photograph of herself taken from a distance, beautiful rather than threatening.
A man who courts through observing her, who knows her routines better than she does.
I write about the heroine's response—not fear but curiosity.
Not revulsion but recognition.
She doesn't call the police.
She doesn't install new locks. She waits for the next gift with the patience of someone who understands she's part of something larger than conventional romance, darker than typical courtship.
Three hours pass in what feels like minutes.
When I finally surface, I have fifteen pages—more than I've written in the last month combined.
And they're good.
Dark and sensual and terrifying in all the right ways.
The kind of pages that would make Richard at Vesper House forgive all my missed deadlines.
My stomach growls, reminding me I've been surviving on purely coffee and inspiration.
Dad left a note saying he's at the station, won't be back until dinner.
The protection detail is presumably still outside, though I haven't seen the sedan all morning.
Maybe they're trying to be more discreet after I waved at them yesterday.
I need supplies anyway—coffee, wine, something besides Dad's pathetic bachelor grocery selections.
And maybe, if I happen to run into Juliette's brother in town, I can thank him for the inadvertent inspiration.
I throw on clothes without much thought—jeans, black sweater, the leather jacket that costs too much for upstate but makes me feel like myself.
The feather catches my eye as I'm leaving.
After a moment, I tuck it into my jacket pocket.
A talisman, maybe.
Or evidence, if I ever decide to be sensible about this.
The drive into town takes fifteen minutes on roads that are more ice than asphalt.
Downtown—if you can call three blocks of shops "downtown"—hasn't changed since I left for college.
Murphy's General Store, the Book Nook, Stella's Café, and a handful of other businesses clinging to life even though we have a Walmart two towns over.
I park in front of Stella's, desperate for coffee that doesn't come from Dad's ancient Mr. Coffee machine that should’ve been replaced ten years ago.
The bell above the door announces my arrival, and every head in the place turns.
Small towns have their own form of surveillance, more effective than any camera system.
"Celeste Sterling!" Stella herself emerges from behind the counter, arms wide for a hug I can't avoid. "Heard you were home. Your father must be thrilled."
"He's something," I say, extracting myself from her embrace that smells like cinnamon and gossip.
"Terrible business with those poor women," she continues, lowering her voice to a theatrical whisper. "Your father must be beside himself. Working all hours, I hear."
"He's handling it."
"Well, you just be careful. Pretty girl like you, all alone in that house while he's working—" She trails off suggestively, clearly fishing for information about whether I'm actually alone.
The café is exactly as I remember—mismatched chairs, local art on the walls, a wood-burning stove in the corner that makes everything too warm.
And in the back corner, reading a book, sits someone who definitely wasn't here when I left.
He's... not what I expected.
When Dad said "hermit," I pictured someone grizzled, unkempt, possibly muttering to themselves.
This man looks like he stepped out of a different story entirely.
Dark hair that's a bit too long but intentionally so.
Strong jaw, clean shaven.
Wearing a black sweater that probably costs more than most people here make in a week.
He's completely absorbed in his book—Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, I notice.
"That's the Lockwood boy," Stella whispers, following my gaze. "Well, not a boy anymore, I suppose. Keeps to himself mostly, but comes in every Tuesday for coffee. Orders it black, reads for exactly one hour, then leaves. Like clockwork."
Lockwood. This is Cain. Juliette's brother.
As if sensing my attention, he looks up.
His eyes are pale grey, like winter sky before snow.
They hold mine for a moment that stretches too long, and something passes between us—recognition, though we've never met.
He nods, just slightly, then returns to his book.
I order my coffee—oat milk latte, which Stella makes with visible judgment—and debate my options.
I could leave, pretend I never saw him.
Or I could do what any normal person would do when encountering their editor's brother in a small town.
"Cain?"
He looks up again, and this time there's something that might be amusement in those pale eyes.
"You must be Celeste." His voice is deeper than expected, cultured. Nothing like the mountain accent most locals have. "Juliette mentioned you might be coming home."
"She mentioned you too." I gesture to the empty chair across from him. "Mind if I sit? Feels weird knowing we have someone in common but never meeting."
"Please." He marks his page carefully before closing the book.
His movements are precise, controlled.
Everything about him seems deliberate, from the way he sets down the book to how he shifts his chair to accommodate my presence. "I should probably apologize for the violin. I know it carries at night. Your father has complained more than once."
"I actually liked it. Bach, right? “The Partita”?"
His eyebrows rise slightly. "You know classical music?"
"I know a little about a lot of things. Occupational hazard of being a writer." I take a sip of my coffee, studying him over the rim.
Up close, I can see small scars on his hands, the kind you get from years of working with them.
One runs across his knuckles, silver against his skin.
Another curves around his thumb. "Juliette says you read my books."
"Guilty as charged." He leans back in his chair, completely at ease despite the admission. "She sent me an advance copy of the first one, trying to prove that modern fiction could be as complex as the classics. I was ... surprised."
"Bad surprised or good surprised?"
"Complicated surprised." He picks up his coffee, and I notice how large his hands are, how carefully they handle the delicate cup. "You write about darkness with unusual honesty. Most people romanticize it or demonize it. You do neither."
"Maybe because I don't think darkness is inherently good or evil. It just is. Like nature."
"Like nature," he repeats, and something flickers across his face too quickly to read. "Is that why you came back? Looking for inspiration in natural darkness?"
The question feels loaded, but I can't say why. "Something like that. The city was too ... sanitized. Everything there is manufactured, even the danger."
"And you prefer authentic danger?"
The way he says it makes heat crawl up my neck. "I prefer authentic everything."