Seraphina
The sun did not so much rise over Blackridge as it bled through the fog, a pale, diluted grey that seeped across the floorboards of my bedroom. The world outside was perfectly still. No wind stirred the trees. No birds broke the heavy morning hush.
I sat wrapped in a thick wool blanket, my legs tucked beneath me on the window seat, a mug of coffee with a dash of cinnamon resting between my palms. The steam rose in thin, lazy curls, warming my face against the draft that always found its way through the old glass pane.
On my lap lay the manuscript. It was thick, a stack of heavy white paper held together by a single black binder clip, the top sheet blank except for the working title typed in a small, stark font in the dead center of the page.
The Keeper.
I wasn't reading it because I enjoyed murder. I was reading it because I was editing it.
People often forget that fiction requires a meticulous sort of maintenance.
A story is a garden; if you don't tend to the soil, if you don't trim the dead leaves from the dialogue, the narrative chokes on its own weeds.
As an author, my job wasn't just to invent the shadows, it was to ensure they fell across the page with absolute precision.
I dipped my pen into the red ink, my fingers steady as I traced a line through an unnecessary adjective in the third paragraph.
The ink was the exact colour of dried rowan berries.
I turned the page.
JOEY
Darkness settled over the abandoned building like a second skin, swallowing the long, empty corridors until only fragments remained.
The roof groaned softly beneath the weight of years, rainwater dripping somewhere deep within the walls.
A handful of rusted light fixtures buzzed weakly overhead, one flickering just enough to throw broken shadows across the cracked concrete floor before dying again.
The air smelled of damp timber, mildew, rust, and decades of forgotten dust.
Somewhere beyond the room, hidden behind a crumbling wall, an old grandfather clock stubbornly refused to die.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Every measured beat echoed through the empty building, swallowed by peeling wallpaper and hollow hallways before returning as a faint whisper. Time hadn't abandoned this place. It had simply slowed down.
The leather restraints creaked as he tested them, panic setting in one movement at a time. His wrists and ankles were secured to the corners of a solid wooden table anchored firmly to the floor. No amount of struggling would move it.
The air smelled of damp stone, old timber, and mildew.
Dust drifted through the thin beam of light, disappearing whenever the failing bulb flickered overhead.
An old workbench stood against the far wall, cluttered with forgotten odds and ends gathered over decades—gardening gloves stiff with age, coils of frayed rope, cracked flowerpots, rusted pruning tools, jars of bent nails, chipped hand towels and a dented watering can that had long since lost its purpose.
Nothing was arranged. Everything looked abandoned.
I brushed a fingertip across the workbench, leaving a clean line through the dust. Behind me, leather creaked. The silence didn't last.
A restrained movement disturbed the stillness, followed by the scrape of wood against concrete. I turned slowly toward the figure waiting in the gloom.
"You know… as a librarian you are very loud. Has anyone ever told you how noisy you are?"
His breath hitched. He tried to speak, but the heavy burlap bag over his head muffled the sound into a wet, desperate plea. I walked forward and ripped the bag away, letting the flickering bulb blind him for a moment.
"Who are you? Let me go! I don’t fucking have money... I'm just a librarian, Arthur Pendleton! Let me go."
I laughed, the sound cold and sharp against the concrete walls. I didn't care about his money or his fucking shitty title. I cared about the archives. I cared about the shadows he cast over the children who just wanted to find a book in peace.
"Well, yes I know who you are Arthur," I grinned.
I dragged a metal table closer, the legs screeching like a dying animal.
“Do you want to hear a story, Arthur?”
Not waiting for his answer, I continue.
“So, this story begins with a woman walking into the town's library, just looking for a book to read. So, she walked to the back of the library where the horror books were and suddenly the woman heard a whimper. The woman turned to look around in search of this sound. This whimper. So, the woman walked and just around the far corner of the library where it should always be fucking safe place a man was doing something very fucking wrong to a child. To a sweet innocent child. Do you know where this is going, Arthur?”
As I spoke, the air in the room grew heavy. His face went as white as a sheet as the realization finally slammed into him. He tried to scream, but the sound caught in his throat.
"See Arthur, I don’t fucking like monsters who turn a sanctuary into a hunting ground.
I don’t like grown men being somewhere they should not be.
What I hate Arthur, is that it wasn’t the fucking first or fucking last time since I saw what you did.
Five children in the week I couldn’t get to you.
Fucking Five Arthur." I whispered, leaning in so close he could feel the chill in the room.
"And I don’t like you using your hands for harm when you were supposed to protect them. "
I reached for the garden shears touching the tip. Dull, that's good. Grabbing the shears I stepped closer. His breathing changed. Sometimes fear arrived long before pain ever could. He started trashing against the binds.
“You know what they do with weeds, Arthur?”
Angling the sharp end down, I stabbed him in his dick. A sickening crunch as the shears made contact with his groin.
The screams echoed around the abandoned house as I did it again.
And again.
And again.
The paper whispered beneath my fingertips as I slid the binder clip back into place.
Silence reclaimed the kitchen.
It settled over the cottage with familiar ease, replacing the cold, clinical cadence of the manuscript with the comforting creak of old timber and the quiet hiss of cooling coffee.
I rested the pages carefully on the table, aligning the stack with the grain of the wood until every edge sat perfectly square.
Better.
I stretched, rolling the stiffness from my shoulders.
A series of soft clicks echoed through the still room, followed by the satisfied sigh that always escaped me after a productive editing session.
There was something deeply satisfying about finding the rhythm of a chapter removing the unnecessary, tightening the dialogue, coaxing the story into becoming exactly what it wanted to be.
"You smiled," Gerald observed from the mantelpiece.
I reached for my mug.
"Three times," Frank added from the windowsill, his painted expression fixed in its usual disapproval.
Gerald tilted his head. "Over one chapter."
"It was the dialogue," I replied, taking a thoughtful sip. The coffee had cooled just enough for the cinnamon to become more noticeable.
"The pacing dragged in the middle. It flows much better now."
"Of course," Frank sighed dramatically.
"The pacing."
“I've stopped asking if she's alright " Gerald said with the weary certainty of someone delivering a weather forecast.
"At this point, I'm simply here to witness history."
The blanket slipped from my shoulders, pooling onto the chair in a heavy heap as I crossed the kitchen for my gardening gloves.
Outside, the morning carried that familiar mountain chill that lingered long after sunrise.
The garden blurred into the tree line as though the forest had quietly decided to reclaim it.
Pine needles carpeted the earth beneath the hydrangeas, while stubborn weeds threaded themselves confidently between stones and flowerbeds alike.
I knelt in the damp soil. Cold earth crumbled beneath my fingers.
Pull.
Shake.
Toss.
Pressure changes everything. People assume pain begins with the wound. They are wrong. Pain begins with anticipation.
One dandelion after another surrendered, their long white roots emerging from the ground with surprising reluctance.
Miss the taproot, and they'd return within days as though nothing had happened.
Gardening teaches patience. My hands continued working through the flowerbed with practiced ease.
You can't rush growth. You can't force roots.
Everything takes hold in its own time. I brushed loose soil from my glove.
People aren't so different. The thought drifted into the cool morning air without explanation. A robin landed on the fence post, watching me with quick, curious eyes before darting away again. I smiled.
I looked toward the kitchen window, catching only my reflection in the glass.
The breeze stirred the birch leaves overhead, filling the silence with their soft whisper.
Most people are terrified of silence. They rush to fill it because they think empty spaces are lonely.
My fingers returned to the soil, gently teasing a knot of ivy free from the base of the porch.
They never stop to consider that silence isn't empty at all.
The birds were fully awake now, their songs carrying through the thinning fog as morning slowly unfolded around the cottage.
You're very quiet today. Good. I prefer it when you listen. Most people talk too much when they're nervous. They fill the space with noise because they think the quiet is an empty room. They don't realize the quiet is full of eyes. It’s watching them.
I pulled off the gardening gloves and stood up, shaking the loose soil from my palms.