Seraphina
The wood was too close to my face.
The smell of old cedar wrapped around me before I even opened my eyes. Splintered timber. Dust. Damp fabric. Then the darkness. Not ordinary darkness. The kind that pressed against your face. The kind that breathed back.
I was seven .Curled inside the wardrobe drawer Mother called the lesson. There wasn't enough room to sit properly. My knees were folded against my chest until they ached. Every movement scraped my elbows against unfinished timber, tiny splinters pushing into my skin.
I remember knocking. At first politely. Calling out.
"Mama?"
Nothing. Then louder.
"I'm sorry."
Nothing. Hours passed. Or minutes. Time doesn't exist properly when there isn't any light.
I scratched at the door until my fingernails bent backwards.
I screamed until my throat tore itself raw.
My fingertips bled. I licked the blood because there wasn't any water.
Eventually I stopped crying. Eventually I stopped screaming.
Eventually… I started listening. The dark wasn't empty anymore. It whispered. Tiny voices. Not frightening. Not at first. They sounded...
Lonely.
Like me…
"Well," one of them sighed.
"She's staying."
Another answered.
"Guess we should keep her company."
That was the first time I heard Gerald. Or maybe Frank. Sometimes I can't remember which one arrived first. Maybe they both did. Maybe neither of them did. Maybe the dark simply needed someone to talk to.
The wardrobe door never opened from the inside. Mother opened it five days later. She said I had finally learned how to be quiet. She smiled.
I never smiled back.
Ping.
The sharp chime from my laptop ripped through the nightmare. I bolt upright in bed, dragging air into my lungs so fast it hurts. My nightshirt clung to my skin.
My hands were shaking. For one awful second, I couldn't remember where I was. Then I saw the rose curtains. The slanted ceiling. The old oak wardrobe. My cottage. Home.
"You're back," Frank murmured gently.
I hadn't even realised they were sitting on the windowsill. Gerald adjusted his tiny painted hat.
"You were making that noise again."
"What noise?"
"The one where you sound like someone drowning."
I swallowed.
"My nightmares aren't very polite."
"No," Gerald muttered.
"They're incredibly inconsiderate."
The laptop chimed again.
Editorial Reminder
Current Project: Joey Pendleton
Target: Chapter 9
I stared at the blinking cursor.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Some days words arrived like rain. Other days they stood behind locked doors. Today...
Today they were hiding.
"You've killed fifty-seven fictional people," Gerald said.
"I'm sure one more won't hurt."
Frank sighed dramatically.
"Technically sixty-two."
"I forgot the florist."
"You always forget the florist."
I rubbed both hands over my face.
"I don't think I can write today."
"You can," Frank said.
"You just don't want to feel there is a difference."
Gerald nodded.
"The keyboard is considerably less frightening than your own thoughts."
"Rude."
"...Accurate."
I laughed despite myself. A tiny laugh but enough. I pulled the keyboard onto my lap. The cursor blinked again. Waiting.
Always waiting.
Finally...
My fingers touched the keys.
JOEY
Serial killers are remarkably boring people.
They repeat themselves because routine comforts them. They use the same knot, they choose the same highway turnout, they select the same physical profile until their entire pathology looks like a poorly written procedural script. It’s an administrative failure.
I do not do that. Every crime scene deserves its own personality, its own specific layout that reflects the intent of the scene.
The cellar beneath the old orphanage on Route 4 didn't have concrete walls; it was built of rough, damp limestone that sweated in the humidity.
Sister Beatrice sat in the center of the floor, her heavy woollen habit pinned to the legs of the iron cot with thick copper wire.
The wire was structural. If you use rope, the fibers stretch when the adrenaline hits the muscular walls; copper stays rigid.
"You spent forty years telling the girls that the dark was a lesson. That eating nothing for days was how a young lady would be. That when laughing, smiling, finding even a dash of happiness was against the rules and would be punished. My only question is why, Beatrice?"
I whispered, turning the long-toothed bone saw over in my hands. The steel was dull in the candlelight, but the teeth were set at an alternating angle designed to clear the marrow from the track as it cut.
"You thought that if you locked the heavy wooden door, the state wouldn't notice how many small bruises were left on their collarbones. You relied on the quiet."
She tried to scream, but the heavy linen gag I’d stuffed into her mouth turned the sound into a low, wet rattle.
I didn't start with the throat. That’s a traveller’s mistake. You start with the fingers, the tiny, functional tools she used to turn the key in the lock every Tuesday night. I placed the saw over her pinky and pressed into the skin.
Then I started…
Back
and
Forth,
The resistance of the skin was remarkable.
It took exactly six tries to separate the skin from the living bone, the wet, tearing rasp of the tissue echoing loud against the limestone.
Another two tries to saw off her pinky. She thrashed, her chest heaving against the copper wire until the skin beneath her wrist split into raw, dark purple lines, her eyes wide and bloodshot under the flickering flame.
"That's one," I muttered, tossing the bloody finger into the iron bucket with a sharp thud.
I didn't rush. I wanted the pacing to feel inevitable. I picked up the small flame torch from the kit; I angled the torch toward her feet. The flame came alive with a sharp hiss, blue at its heart, as I began my work.
The screams that echoed off the walls didn't sound like a Sister. It sounded like an animal caught in a wire fence shredded, raw, and entirely broken.
I closed the laptop, the plastic folding shut with a crisp, hollow snap that echoed through the quiet kitchen. For a moment, I simply sat there with my hands resting on the lid, staring at my own reflection in the dark screen. Joey had finished speaking for today. She always knew when to stop.
Outside, morning had finally found its courage.
Golden light filtered through the towering pines, slipping between the branches in long, delicate ribbons that stretched across the wooden floorboards.
The fog that had hugged the valley all morning was beginning to retreat, dissolving into thin wisps that drifted lazily between the trees.
Somewhere beyond the vegetable patch, robins argued over absolutely nothing while a woodpecker announced itself with rhythmic determination.
The world had continued turning while I was busy murdering someone. Funny how nature never seems particularly bothered by death. I pushed back my chair and smiled to myself.
"I think we've had enough homicide for one morning."
"You say that every time," Gerald muttered.
"And yet..." Frank sighed dramatically.
"It never lasts."
I laughed softly, shaking my head as I reached for my old canvas gardening gloves hanging beside the back door.
The fingertips were stained with soil and rosemary oil, the fabric worn thin from years of kneeling in flowerbeds.
Writing always left me feeling... crowded.
Too many voices. Too many emotions that weren't mine.
Gardening was quieter. Plants never lied to you.
If a rose was dying, it wilted. If the rose was thirsty, it drooped.
People smiled while their roots were already rotting.
Flowers were much easier. The screen door squeaked as I stepped outside, the familiar scent of damp mountain earth wrapping itself around me like an old quilt.
Overnight rain had left the soil dark and soft beneath my boots, releasing that rich, earthy smell that always reminded me of beginnings instead of endings.
I knelt beside the herb bed, brushing loose strands of hair behind my ear before reaching for the rosemary bush. Its silver-green needles brushed against my wrist as I gently separated the healthy growth from the brittle stems that winter had claimed.
Snip.
Snip.
Snip.
The tiny scissors clicked rhythmically through the quiet morning.
"The spacing is wrong," Gerald announced from somewhere near the stone border surrounding the herbs. I didn't bother looking up.
"It isn't."
"It objectively is."
Frank let out an exhausted sigh.
"Must every conversation with you become an agricultural emergency?"
"It becomes an agricultural emergency when someone plants rosemary less than eighteen inches from the roses."
"They're seventeen."
"They're sixteen and three quarters."
"They're happy."
"They're suffocating."
I smiled despite myself.
"They're fine."
"They're thriving," Frank agreed.
"They're surviving despite your questionable horticultural choices," Gerald corrected.
I clipped another fragrant stem, rubbing the fresh rosemary gently between my gloved fingers. The oils coated the canvas immediately, filling the air with that sharp, clean scent that always reminded me of old kitchens and Sunday lunches.
"I like them close together."
"Of course you do," Gerald sighed.
"You like everything close together."
I tilted my head.
"I do."
"Books."
"Plants."
"Thoughts."
Frank chuckled.
Crime scenes are funny things.
Well... Not funny. Interesting. People think crime scenes begin with violence.
They don't. They begin with ordinary moments.
Someone boils water. Someone folds laundry.
Someone forgets to lock a window. Then one tiny decision nudges another, and suddenly an entire forensic team is standing where someone once made breakfast.
That's the fascinating part. Not the violence. The interruption. People also assume blood is the most interesting thing investigators find.