Last week, I shared that when I’m working on a book, I need to craft a world I can cozy up and live in for a year.
Sometimes I do that through sketches. I’m not much of a 2D artist (sculpting is more my thing—specifically teeny tiny food), but as long as I capture the basics, the sketch does the trick.
In between the first and second drafts of The Magician and the Labyrinth of Yesterdays, I needed a visual for the setting, Harrowfell Hall. It wasn’t purely for atmosphere; it was also a practical way to map the space, so I could track where characters were wandering as they solved the mystery of the haunting (while engaging in romantic shenanigans, of course).
Well, one afternoon, I left the sketch beside the couch and drifted into a nap. That’s when I had the dream…
Harrowfell rose against a midnight sky, the moon sliced in two by ragged clouds.
A wavering light glimmered beyond the castle, a lantern’s glow at the jagged mouth of a cave. A shadow bent, then resolved into the figure of a man. Eddie Russo, wiry as a whipcord. He stooped to lift a wooden crate, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows despite the night’s chill.
The crate shifted with the musical clink of bottles as he carried it inside, joining his two companions. They worked in the half-dark, voices low and laughter muffled, stacking crates against the cave’s curving wall.
Levi “Lucky” Callahan, his chestnut hair a damp mop, dragged a crate across the floor. His boot clipped a box.
“Watch yourself, Lucky,” Eddie muttered—too late. A bottle tipped and rolled free, glass rattling over the dirt until it spun to a stop deeper in the tunnel, unbroken.
“See? Lucky.” Levi grinned, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. “I’ll fetch it.”
“Nah, I’ve got it,” said Tom Brennan, brushing dust from his trousers with a mechanic’s hands, grease ground into his nails. He stepped into the passage, lantern glow chasing him a few paces before the dark swallowed him whole.
Levi and Eddie bent back to their work, stacking crates, the scrape of wood echoing off stone. A moment passed, then another. No footsteps, no joke from the shadows.
Silence stretched.
“Tom?” Levi called.
Nothing.
“Quit foolin’,” Levi tried, but his voice didn’t carry far.
No answer.
“Aw, c’mon, Tom,” Eddie whined, freeing a cigarette tucked behind his ear, stabbing it between his lips. “Time’s money, and we’re short on both.”
They waited, knowing he’d step back into the glow with that lopsided grin. Only razzin’. But the moment stretched thin, expectation feathering into hope, hope into something sharper.
The black throat of the passage swelled, no longer empty but watchful, waiting.
Levi and Eddie exchanged looks, Eddie’s unlit cigarette dangling limply. Levi raised the lantern, its glow trembling against damp-streaked stone. His knees felt too loose, unreliable, as he took a step toward the tunnel.
Behind him, he sensed Eddie hesitate—the faint scrape of his shoe as though he might hang back. But then he followed, maybe to avoid being left behind as Levi carried off the only lantern.
The tunnel narrowed, heavy with soil and stone. Water dripped in the dark, too loud for Levi’s liking, though it was probably better than silence. Levi thought of calling Tom’s name again, the sound clawing at his throat. He couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Just tonight. He folded the thought tight. His last run, and he’d have Claire and Annie on the Friday train.
Another step. The lantern light licked over rough-hewn walls, deeper shadows yawning between them. The crates, their easy laughter, seemed a lifetime away. He prayed his luck hadn’t worn thin.
That’s when he saw it—a dark shine smeared across stone, an iron tang wrinkling his nose. Drag marks gouged the dirt, trailing right into an inky black hole.
Levi froze, his palms slick on the lantern’s handle. For a coward’s heartbeat, he thought of turning back.
A low rustling in the dark, like Claire’s stiff, pretty skirts when she rose laughing to dance with him. Then a hiss.
Chased by a surge of bile, a strangled sound rose from his throat. Shame might have followed, if fear hadn’t gutted him first, his bowels turning to water. His gaze dropped to a wet, torn lump glistening on the ground. A clotted snarl of hair.
Behind him, Eddie gave a raw heave before staggering sideways, retching in the dark. The scrape of his boots scuffed against stone as he stumbled back the way they’d come.
Levi knew he should stay, should have called out for Tom—oh Jesus, what did it do to him?—should have done something, anything but run like a fucking coward. But terror had left his legs sacks of sand and he had to make them move, no room for courage at all. He was afraid. God help him, he was so afraid.
He threw a glance over his shoulder, nearly stumbled, the lantern jerking wild in his grip. Lucky. Something shifted in the dark, fast as a rattler’s strike. The hiss swelled, filling his ears, and Levi had never run so fast in all his 21 years.
The tunnel stretched endless, walls streaking past, the cave mouth an oval of moon—always there, never nearer, like a dream that traps you in place.
The hiss rose again, so much closer, and for one foolish instant it reminded him of the radiator, ticking and sighing on winter nights, Claire humming in the kitchen, Annie’s soft babbling from her crib.
But that was a sound of home—dear god, will I ever get out of here?
The tunnel widened, Levi stumbling toward the opening—so close—and then, in the lantern’s swing, he saw it: a clotted arc of blood, sprayed across carefully stacked crates. He lurched, the lantern smashing against a jag of rock, glass bursting, the flame doused.
Gravel nipped his palms as he lunged to his feet, and then—air. Glorious, glorious air. Blood thundering in his ears, the hot swell of relief was almost enough to make him retch.
The night was still, impossibly still, just the hammering of his boots on the packed-dirt drive, not even the crickets daring to sing. And there, up ahead, the shadowed bulk of the truck loomed, wooden stake-sides like a fence in the dark. Just a few paces more.
The relief washed through his belly—then pain. White-hot, searing down his spine like liquid fire. Levi’s knees buckled.
Somehow he was staring at the glittering sky.
So much pain, warmth flooding his back all sticky and hot, even as his feet, his hands, everything fell cold, the stars snuffed out, one by one by one.
I jolted awake, the Harrowfell sketch where I’d left it, my legs tangled in the threadbare afghan. The dream murmured under my skin.
Or was it just a dream?
