Moonlit Novella

Chapter One – Part One

How did she get to this point?

Ivy could no longer remember how long she had been drifting through this fog. Time, which was once measured by busy days and fulfilling hours, had now been lost to her, dissolving into the spaces between her racing thoughts.

Lily was gone.

She needed to accept that, but it was so hard.

She was searching for any way to avoid the inevitable; to accept that the vibrant woman she had grown up with was gone. Only now, she was starting to unravel a new path, one that veered away from the black and white. She had never believed in the intangible; in supernatural forces you couldn’t touch or name. But now, everything she once knew was slipping through her fingers, like water, like sand falling through an hourglass.

It had been only a few weeks since she arrived in Ashford Hollow. The weight of uncertainty had been overwhelming, suffocating her like the slow rise of floodwaters.

Her hometown had become a blur in her rearview mirror, a life completely unraveled. The thread of her existence lay scattered across the house she grew up in. That house was empty now, quiet—too full of memories. Her sister’s bright laughter had once echoed off the walls, but now there was only silence. The silence was so thick, it threatened to swallow her whole.

And the nights always stretched on and on.

It had been weeks. No, months. The exact measurement of time was lost on her. Either way, Lily was gone.

No explanation. No answers.

The police had searched; through the woods, the riverbanks, through alleyways where the ghosts of people long gone might linger. They found nothing. Not even a single clue to explain the disappearance. Only rumors and whispers of far-off scenarios had surfaced. None of it mattered. It didn’t help. If anything, it made matters worse. It exaggerated the never-ending spiral of thoughts.

The truth was, Ivy had been left with nothing but more questions. A chasm of grief stretched out so far in front of her, she could hardly see a path through it.

The breaking point had come late one of those eternal nights, when the air had turned so thick, she could hardly breathe.

She had been standing in the house she once knew—now a stranger: hollow, taunting. The rooms were too full of her sister, or rather, the lack thereof.

The ghost of Lily’s smile lingered in the kitchen, always just out of reach. Her soft footsteps had once trailed behind Ivy, always there. But now, everything was gone. Every corner of the house seemed to scream with her absence.

Suddenly, a solution drifted swiftly to the surface of her mind.

She couldn’t stay.

Not in this house. Not in this town. Not in the ghost of her former life.

This place was suffocating her. It was too much. The weight on her shoulders was unbearable.

The next thing she remembered was the late autumn wind whipping through her dark hair as she drove down the interstate. The remnants of her life sat on the seat beside her, sealed within a leather bag.

How long she had been driving was undiscernible, like the fleeting whispers that traveled along the outside breeze.

Then, she saw it.

A sign, half-swallowed by the creeping fog, emerged from the gloom.

ASHFORD HOLLOW.

The letters, worn and peeling, loomed ahead in the dim light. But something was wrong.

The moment she laid eyes on it, a tremor moved through her. Not fear, but something else. A tight pull low in her core, like an invisible thread winding around her bones, drawing her forward.

The road stretched ahead, curving into the mist like an open mouth. A gust of wind rattled the trees, sending brittle leaves skittering across the asphalt.

For a fleeting moment, Ivy thought she heard something beneath the rustling branches: a voice, faint and indistinct, carried on the wind.

Her pulse skipped.

She told herself it was nothing. The wind had a way of playing tricks.

But deep down, something whispered otherwise.

Somewhere in her bones, she felt it: she was crossing a threshold.

And whatever waited beyond it had been waiting for her for a long time.