
A little taste of Emelyn Morley and the Candlewood Party, a spooky prequel short story to my first novel, which takes place when Emelyn was 12. The full story will be featured in Emelyn Morley and the Waking Dark: a Visual Companion, coming soon.

In two weeks Emelyn Elizabeth Morley would be thirteen years of age, though as she bore her tiny light ever farther from the house, there seemed nothing in the world of so small importance as birthdays, her own in particular, which would only ever be reached if she survived this excursion. She was dressed for the party in rose and white, a shimmery gown of her mother’s choosing, with her long red hair tied smartly back, and her mouth set bravely, one lip firmly between her teeth. The night swept grass was cool beneath her bare feet as she walked, very carefully, protecting the vulnerable candle.
Her goal drew near- a wide black pond, its surface fading into the dark, silent and still. Her light was but a meagre spark in the gloom, and when she peered back at the façade of Candlewood Manor, it looked to her more like a vast and ghostly mausoleum, its marble edifice promising room for a hundred generations of the Bermont family deceased. She saw the other children, those who’d dared her to the task, watching from the same second floor window, their faces pressed to the glass as they waited to see whether her courage would fail, or whether she would come indeed to the very edge of the water, to be snatched by the ankles, to be dragged down and devoured by Nag Nightingale, who surely lived in the black pond.
For her part Emelyn was not afraid of the dark, which she reminded herself as she crouched to gather up her hems, lest they get wet. Water hags, after all, were only fairy tales told by parents wanting to keep their children safe from deep water. But for all that, the nearing edge of the pond was not a little foreboding, and as she dipped her toes just in the chilly shallows, it seemed that every ripple warned of something stirring beneath. Her heart pounded, the candlelight quivered, and she took another step. The darkness at the far side seemed darker now in the centre, as though a tall shape had sprung up to watch, or perhaps a drenched and hooded hag waiting to leap upon her. . .
There was a shiver in the wind, and the candle went out. Emelyn gasped, meaning to step back, but the matted grass was slippery under her feet, and after tottering for balance she froze, clutching bunched up petticoats in one hand and the candle in the other. Neither could she afford to drop, lest her errand be discovered and the righteous wrath of her elders descend upon her return . . . that is if she ever returned at all.
Emelyn swallowed, waiting in prickly terror for she knew not what. And then, she was lifted . . . by a gentle grasp about her waist, by pale hands strong and cold, but dry. Her heart stopped, she held her breath, and as she was set down again a few yards from the pond, there came a soft voice at her ear, a woman’s voice.
“Please don’t go so near the edge, not until you can swim.”
Emelyn shuddered, not daring to look, until she could hold her breath no longer, and with a bursting exhale she spun about, finding no one. Setting out quickly back to the house she saw the children’s wide-eyed faces still pressed to the window, squinting into the darkness, with Alicia Bermont conspicuously absent . . . doubtless tattling already.
Emelyn slipped through the front door with a gasp. The parlour was lovely and bright, nothing like a mausoleum, with generous candelabra and a pair of China orange trees that had been moved into boxy cases flanking the door, that they might avoid the first frost. Hidden behind one of these she found her shoes, and quietly she tied them on, before dashing upstairs. She had only to reach the corner guest room, to fetch her stockings from under the pillow, to pull them on and reapply her shoes, that she might appear perfectly at her ease, ready to deny whatever charges Alicia Bermont laid against her. Alas, this sound strategy met its demise at the outset, in the form of her least favourite playfellow lying in wait. Urania Blinnley, taller than Emelyn though aged only ten, stood in all her blonde maypole glory blocking the door, arms crossed.
Startled with disappointment, Emelyn glared at her, catching her breath.
“Alicia thought Nag Nightingale got you,” Urania said, shrugging with pointed indifference.
“There’s nothing in the water, it’s only a pond,” Emelyn said, flush with secret pride to think of the very un-haglike hands, strangely familiar, that had lifted her like a feather to safety.
“Then why did you waggle your candle, did you drop it?” Urania asked, wrinkling her nose.
“Have you ever stepped in the pond? It’s slippery,” Emelyn said. “Or perhaps I saw something . . . but it was certainly no hag.”
“What? What did you see?”
There were footsteps approaching from the stairs, and with just time enough to shove Urania aside Emelyn opened the door and darted into the room. But the footsteps were too close, and without time to shut the door she threw herself down on the far side of the bed, rolling beneath it.
Someone entered, the door closed, and her mother’s unmistakeable heeled shoes clacked closer, stopping by the foot of the bed.
“Emelyn Elizabeth Morley,” she said with a sigh. “Do you know, I can scarcely take up a conversation, except to hear you described as the very prettiest, most elegant, charming and intelligent of girls. But your distracted behaviour threatens these good opinions!”
“I haven’t done anything!” Emelyn said loudly, speaking to the slats under the bed.
“Then why are you hiding?”
“I’m not hiding; I only wanted to show the Bermont girls their water hag is pure nonsense.”
“Out. Come out this very minute,” her mother said sternly.
The other children were discreetly summoned, and the gathering was soon joined, after polite excuses to her guests, by Mrs. Bermont herself, a hearty and bright eyed woman whom Emelyn greatly respected for her kindness and wit, though she was no port in the storm when Emelyn was in trouble.
“Wonderful, I see we have a quorum,” Mrs. Bermont said, looking over the children.
Made to stand in a humiliating queue by height, Emelyn was arranged in the centre, shorter than those on her right side: Urania Blinnley just next, then Andromeda and Alicia Bermont, who were eleven and thirteen, and finally Emelyn’s dark haired brother Deacon, being the tallest at seventeen, who stood sagging into his crutches at the end. To Emelyn’s left was her boon companion Margaret Mettles, shorter by a hair at age eleven, as well as Marigold and Chastity Bermont, seven and eight respectively, and a young cousin named Paul Psaltery, whom everyone called Paltry Psaltery. Emelyn’s middle sister Sarah, aged nine, was not summoned owing to her ignorance of the dare, nor were the very youngest children present- infant Manifred Eugene Bermont, and Emelyn’s little sister Isabelle, who being but five was the same age as their quiet cousin Tynan Fallworth, the pair of them too young to answer for an elder sneaking outside after nightfall.
“Very well,” Mrs. Morley said. “I should like anyone but Emelyn, to tell me precisely what happened.”
Alicia volunteered at once, recounting the group’s challenge for Emelyn after her sceptical dismissal of Nag Nightingale. Mrs. Bermont, and Mrs. Morley in turn, had only been alerted, so Alicia maintained, out of fear for Emelyn’s safety. “I wasn’t tattling,” she said.
“But something happened; Emelyn saw something,” Urania piped up. “She said she did.”
“I didn’t see anything,” Emelyn said quickly.
“I’ll wager she saw a lot of things, anyone might in the dark,” Deacon said. “No stars tonight.”
The story was settled, with Deacon steadfast in his sister’s defence as Emelyn nodded or shook her head, too wise to argue. The children were treated to every articulate warning, first about the dark, then the pond, though Emelyn paid little attention, finding herself increasingly aglow over her encounter by the water’s edge. Nothing like the horror her compatriots had promised, the woman in black who had lifted her to safety, seemed more akin to a dear friend, but one she knew only from dreams . . .
“Well, her skirts are dry, and her hair is presentable,” Mrs. Bermont observed. “I suppose the very worst was avoided.”
“That being she’s not drowned,” Deacon said. “Which, next to dry skirts, is something I suppose.”
“Thank you Deacon,” Mrs. Morley said.
The meeting was adjourned, the children filed out, and Emelyn was left alone with her mother, whereupon she was treated to a brief lecture for being caught with shoes over bare feet.
“You cannot be dressing and undressing higgledy-piggledy when you are a guest at Candlewood,” Mrs. Morley concluded.
“Yes Mama,” Emelyn replied, adding an obedient curtsy.
“You may Yes Mama all you like, but you are not to sneak out again, do you understand?”
“Yes Mama.”
TO BE CONTINUED...