CHARPER 6:
On the fourteenth night there came a knock at the door.
Elias had not heard a car. No one walked the moor in this weather.
He opened the door a crack.
A woman stood on the step. Mid-thirties, soaked through, dark hair plastered to her face. She carried no bag, no coat.
"May I come in?" she asked. Her voice was soft, familiar somehow. "It's pouring."
He should have refused. Instead he stepped aside.
She entered, dripping on the mat. Up close she was beautiful in a severe way—high cheekbones, eyes the colour of wet slate.
"I'm Sarah," she said. "I was… a friend of your aunt's."
He had never heard Lydia mention a Sarah.
She glanced around the hall, taking in the stacks of books, the dimness. "She left you the desk, I see."
"How do you know that?"
Sarah smiled faintly. "Lydia and I corresponded. She told me everything."
She walked past him into the study as though she knew the way. Stopped at the desk. Touched the inkwell with one finger.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" she murmured. "So dark."
Elias felt cold. "You shouldn't—"
"It's almost empty," she said. "That's good. Means it's nearly time."
She turned to him. "Do you know why she left it to you, Elias?"
He shook his head.
"Because you're a writer too. Unpublished, blocked for years, but still a writer. The ink smells those things. It chooses people who need stories more than they need life."
She picked up the pen.
"Don't," he said.
Sarah uncapped it. Dipped. The nib drank.
She wrote a single line on the open page.
Sarah Vale arrives on the twenty-third night.
Then she looked up and smiled fully for the first time.
"Vale," Elias whispered. "Like Miriam Vale."
"Great-great-granddaughter," she said. "The house keeps its bloodlines tidy."
She handed him the pen.
"Your story isn't finished yet. But it will be soon."