That drove me back inside. Snagging one on my way through the kitchen, I reluctantly picked up my suitcase from the hallway and trudged upstairs, stuffing the brownie into my mouth. The second-to-last step let out a hideous creak, something it had been doing for as long as I could remember. Mags had painted the hallway and landing last year in a very pale sage that probably would have looked great in a minimalist house, but veered more towards looking decades old and faded in this tiny, ancient cottage. Not that I told her that.
My room was exactly how I’d left it except for being spotlessly clean, telling me Mags had been in to change the sheets already in preparation for me coming home. I grinned and left my suitcase on the floor while I opened the window, trying to chase out some of the stuffy air. Then I flopped down onto the bed, groaning at the familiar sag of the too-old mattress. It should have been uncomfortable as hell, but I’d slept on it for so many years that I could already feel myself drifting off. The train journey home had been long and uncomfortable, and included changing tube lines twice when I had to pass through London. The tube in the summer was its own kind of hell.
My room was at the back of the house, and I could still hear the rustle of the aspen trees in the woods. A child squealed with laughter in the distance. The air coming in through the window smelled faintly of grass and the lavender Mags grew in big pots in the garden.
I dropped into sleep almost instantly.
The room was dark when I was jerked awake by the insistent buzzing of my phone. Sucking in a bleary breath, I lifted my head. I’d passed out cold on my front, splayed across my bed. I really had been tired.
My phone was still vibrating in my pocket, and when I rolled onto my back and pulled it out, squinting in the too-bright light of the screen, I realised why. Texts were coming in from friends, all eager to be the first to say happy birthday when the clock ticked over to midnight.
I grinned tiredly, but only had the energy to reply to my dad, who had sent a text saying he’d forced himself to stay up so he could say it at midnight, and now he was going to sleep in his uncomfortable hotel room bed.
Sitting up, I wiped my face before reaching over and flicking on my bedside lamp. Warm orange light filled the room, illuminating the windows, showing nothing but darkness beyond them. As I got up and stepped closer to shut the curtains, I could just make out the outline of the woods.
My mouth was dry, stomach rumbling insistently with hunger. All I’d eaten since that morning was one of Mags’ brownies. I made my way downstairs, turning on the lamp on the landing and another in the hallway by the front door before heading into the kitchen.
“Shit,” I muttered, realising I’d left the back door open earlier. I shivered in the cool night air that had filled the kitchen, crossing the room to shut it. At least we were more likely to get a fox or badger wander in out here than we were another person.
Flicking on the kitchen light, I poured myself a glass of water. The fridge hummed in the silence as I stood at the sink, gazing absently out into the dark garden as I gulped my drink. Although, it was more like staring at my own hazy reflection than the outside. Tired hazel eyes looked back at me beneath plain light-brown hair.
I made myself a ham and cheese sandwich, and after pulling on Dad’s ancient parka, I went into the garden to eat it. I was wide awake now—the weird kind of awake that happened when you woke up in the night and were too active to go back to sleep. I sat cross-legged on the same chair as earlier, flicking idly through my phone, replying to people’s birthday messages as I ate.
I jumped when a huge black moth landed on my illuminated phone screen. It was massive—a giant version of the ones I always saw in my room back at uni. So big it blocked almost the entire screen, and I could feel the whisper-soft flutter of its wing on the back of my thumb where it was poised over the home button. The light was beneath it, impeding my view, but it didn’t look like it had any markings. Its wings were solid black—jet black—and as it shifted slightly it left behind a faint trail of black dust on the screen.
I didn’t move. It wasn’t that I was freaked out by moths, but… this one was huge. I didn’t want to hurt it by flicking it away, and I was pretty sure you shouldn’t touch their wings. But it wasn’t moving. In fact, it spun on the screen, and I felt its fuzzy feelers on my thumb a split second before the phone locked itself and the screen went dark, making me jump.
The moth was still there. I could have sworn I felt tiny legs climb onto my thumb. I jumped again when it fluttered up into the air and away, its black outline visible against the slightly paler night’s sky.
I chuckled. Weird, but aside from the window behind me, this was the only light source around. Made sense the moth would be drawn to it. I wondered what kind it was, though. I didn’t think we evenhadmoths that big in this country.
Unlocking my phone, I quickly googled ‘black moth’ and was taken to the Wikipedia page for theAscalapha odorata, which was commonly known as the black witch moth. But that was found in the southern US and central America, and besides, the photo showed a moth with brown and white markings. This one had been pure black, without a single pattern on its wings.
I locked my phone again and set it down to finish my sandwich. I’d ask Mags when she and Dad got home. She’d probably seen them before if they were around here. She’d know what kind it was.
I’d always liked sitting in the garden at night when I was home. It was peaceful. Dead quiet, and the dark didn’t bother me. But then I thought about that moth again. A black moth. And I’d seen a blackbird earlier, just after I’d gotten home.
I blinked, memories of black cats and giant stag beetles and crows with beady eyes watching me all converging in a rush. The back of my neck prickled, and suddenly the darkness didn’t seem so peaceful and relaxing anymore.
Picking up my phone and plate, I kept my head down as I slipped back inside, locking the door behind me, the black iron latch feeling cool against my fingers. Instinctively, my eyes darted to the window and over the wrought iron handles, something in me calming at the sight of them.
Hesitantly, I stood in front of the sink and stared, trying to peer past my reflection to outside. It felt like someone was out there. Watching me. Stepping back, not taking my eyes off the window, I reached back and blindly felt for the light switch.
As the room plunged into darkness, I held my breath, half of me terrified I’d see a horrible, grinning face looming at the window.
But there was nothing.
The garden was still in the faint moonlight. Not even a fox or owl out there.
I exhaled. I’d spent too long in uni halls or house shares, with people always around and making noise, and never any true silence. I was just freaking myself out.
I still double checked that I’d definitely locked the back door, doing the same with the front before I headed back up to bed. I slipped under the covers and reached out to turn off the bedside lamp, pausing when I realised the moth had left a tiny smudge of black dust on my thumb.
I rubbed it off and forced myself to push the stupid moth from my mind. It was just an insect. A moth that had been attracted to the light of my phone. That was all.
But as I closed my eyes after the room plunged into darkness, all I could see were big black eyes staring at me.