It was well past midnight. You leaned over and blew gently on the flame of the tallow candle by your bed. The light went out and the warm fatty smoke rose into the room. Your eyes adjusted, irises dilating, and you could make out Orion in the stars outside your window.
It had been a week since you moved out. Three boys from the staff of the Camelot household carried your heavy furniture into room down the hall. You called the town locksmith to install a heavy iron lock on the door of your new room. The others had done the same, leaving the original quarters for more secluded, more secure, rooms. You met each morning in the dining hall, where fresh coffee was brought in on wooden trays, and where, secretly, you dipped a thin strip of expensive paper purchased from the town alchemist into the brown liquid to check for poison. Each morning, finding none, you drew the hot brew into your mouth and savored its bitter flavor.
Now, well past midnight, you lay alone and pondered, watching the somber twinkling of the stars.
Something roused you from your thoughts. You heard something, like fabric rustling, outside. You leapt stealthily from your bed. The cold air covered your legs in little bumps, making the hair stand on end. You reached back for your blanket and threw it over yourself, and then leaned your head slowly out the window, pressing your forearms on the windowsill.
Below, in the dim light of the quarter-moon, you saw a dark shape moving. It was doing something, directly underneath your window. You squinted, trying to make out the outlines of the shape. Suddenly, something flashed the same color as the moon, cold, reflected, and calculated. You reeled, pulling back into your room, pressing your back against the wall beside the window. You pulled the blanket close around your body, holding your breath, feeling your heart racing. Your mind played the flash over and over: dark form moving; rustling fabric; cold flash. What was it? Dark form. Fabric. Flash. Your heart pounded. You pressed the back of your head against the cool stones. Dark. Fabric. Flash.
It was a pair of eyes, glowing.
To be continued.
