The wind howled all throughout the night, sending shivers down Anya’s spine, as if the cold had ripped through her thick shawl to claw at her skin. The shutters had all been shut and locked just as the sun was setting, a fact that made Anya’s heart twinge a little sadly. She had always watched the sunset with her siblings when she was younger, and though they were separated by miles of land, she still felt like she was back home when she watched the moon slowly rise in the sky. 

It was just another thing Alistair had taken from her, it seems. 

She had tried not to harbor a bitterness towards him, knowing that far more women in the world had been paired with far worse husbands. In truth, Alistair could not have been the worst man for her - he kept food on their table and their plantation well stocked, though she couldn’t help but feel a chilling cold whenever he walked into the same room as her, his shadow looming as if sucking every source of light from the room. 

She did not remember Alistair being like this when they first met. In truth, she could have loved him if she had been free to do so on her own terms. The Alistair she met was soft, with a bright smile that had often melted the worst of her moods. Anya was unsure of what had happened, but he had changed when they moved West. He had stopped smiling and often shut himself within his office for hours at a time. Instead of sleeping in their bedroom as they had done in their first home, he had taken to sleeping in the guest room - if he came home at all. She was unsure of where he went in the middle of the night, but it seemed that he snuck off more and more often, until eventually, she found herself alone more than not.

On this such night, Anya walked alone throughout the house despite having been told to rest hours ago. She had only seen Alistair once, and had only known of his arrival when she heard frantic papers rustling in his office. 

She had thought he had lost something important or perhaps was in need of a friend, so she had chosen to disobey his first order: never enter the office if he was within it. 

Anya knocked softly, though the door was creaking open the moment her knuckles brushed against the rough wood. He had been so rushed, it seemed, that he didn’t even shut the door fully, a fact that made Anya’s nerves prickle. Alistair was hovering over his desk, the lights so dim that they were nearly off, with only a dim candle on the windowsill - though it was too far away for him to have been able to see a thing on his desk. She brought her candle closer, though he flinched away when the yellow light shone on the stacks of papers.

He looked up at her, and though she couldn’t make out his face in the dim shadows, she knew he was full of a strange, nervous agitation that she had never seen before. “Just what are you doing?” He asked, his voice rough as if he were sick.

“I heard you searching for something,” she explained quietly, looking down at the shaking hand holding the candle. “So I thought I should come help-“

“It’s not needed,” he snapped. When her brows furrowed in hurt, Alistair sighed a little impatiently, though he seemed only frustrated with himself. “I mean no harm in my words. I’m not - I fear I’m not myself, lately.”

“Have you ever been yourself?” Anya challenged, a coldness seeping into her voice that reminded her more of him than anything. He was changing her, it seems, and not for the better. 

Alistair hesitated, and it was then that Anya realized what she had done - who she had insulted. She stumbled with her words, unsure of what to say, when he began to speak, his voice lower than a whisper. “You’ll need to retire early tonight. I hear there’ve been… frightening things out as of late.”

Hours later and Alistair was nowhere to be found, much to Anya’s frustration. She had meant to stay awake and follow him to his location, to finally discover just where - or who - he was sneaking off to. However, as she had laid down to appease his orders, she found that she had drifted off to sleep. 

She had awoken with a start, having not prepared at all to sleep, and having seemingly chosen the worst time to do so. Her candle had reduced to embers by the time she had awoken from her haze, and so she was throwing open her bedroom doors without her weapon, padding silently down the dark halls, wishing that Alistair had left at least one window open. 

She felt her way down the hall, stopping when she found the door to the office and carelessly cracking it open. She peered inside, and though she wasn’t surprised to find that he had disappeared, she still felt that same weight in her chest that she always felt. 

To her luck, he had doused the candle in the windowsill, and, after fumbling in his drawers for a match, she found herself safely engulfed in its warm light once again. 

Anya wished that she wasn’t afraid, but her heart pounded with every step she took towards the guest bedroom, feeling more like a rabbit walking into a trap than a member of the Boswell household. All too soon, she reached his door, though before she could open it, a loud crash from across the house made her yelp in surprise. 

Fearing that an intruder had broken into the house, she burst into his bedroom, knowing that he was far more suited to dealing with it than she was. However, the light of her candle shone only on an empty, unmade bed, its pillows cold with disuse. A searing anger ran through her, for of course she was married to a man who wouldn’t even be home for it to get ransacked. Knowing that she wouldn’t find a weapon in time to face whatever was occurring, Anya gripped her candlestick with a newfound determination, treading past the hall to face her intruder. 

She was in the kitchen by the time she heard another crash, to which she was shocked to find that someone had not broken into the house but into the cellar - the empty cellar, devoid of anything valuable save for some tools. Her nerves eased a little, thinking that perhaps it was merely a cat that had managed to get stuck inside the cellar. 

She padded with bare feet out of the house and into the cool breeze, for she wasn’t going to ignore an emergency to find her slippers. The cellar was only feet away from the end of the porch, and she was comforted to find that the full moon left a bright path for her, welcoming as always. 

For a moment, at least, she was yet again Anya Morels, running across the yard in her old, stained dress with not a care in the world nor a ring on her finger.

And then her path was coming to a stop in front of the cellar - unlocked, to her surprise - and she was again Mrs. Boswell, having to deal with another problem that Alistair didn’t notice. The chain holding the doors together were lying in a heap beside the door, and she briefly made a note to fix it before Alistair blamed a poor servant for the mistake. She nearly toppled over as she opened the heavy doors with her empty hand, and then she was peering down into the black nothingness below.

The stairs to the cellar were steep and unlit - always unlit, to her dismay. She had once expressed her concern for falling to Alistair, though he only responded with, “It matters not who can go in without tumbling. I can see just fine.”

He was wrong again, it seemed. Anya tried to shake her bitter thoughts away as she carefully stepped down, fearing that her life would end in a clumsy heap if she did not concentrate. Finally, she connected with the dirt flooring of the cellar, ice cold to her skin. Perhaps she was imagining it, but she thought she could see her breath in the frigid room. 

The cellar was so dark that she struggled to see a foot ahead of her - even with her candle. She was still at the base of the steps, though she could see little more than the narrow passage that led into the cellar.

Anya stood in an attempt to be fearless, holding her trembling voice still as she called out to the darkness and whatever was in it. “Hello?”

Someting shuffled from far within the cellar sharply, sounding as though it were nearly falling over. Fighting the urge to run and yet knowing that it was no person within the cellar, she walked inside. Her candle burned dimly, shining on an all-too familiar silhouette at the end of the cellar.

“Alistair?” She called out softly, weakly. He nearly blended in with the dark wall, though something about his silhouette burned a certain wrongness into her brain, making her nearly turn tail and run.

Alistair turned away, his legs trembling as he covered his face with his arm. “Get out at once!” He barked harshly. 

The raw anger of his voice should have made her jump, should have terrified her, yet Anya found that she was only angry. A strange ferocity overwhelmed her as she stepped closer, furrowing her brow as she said, “Come out at once! Why are you hiding like some sort of scoundrel?”

Alistair made a frustrated sound that could have been a growl, though his body cowered further from her as if petrified that she would approach him. “Dear, you do not have time to be so - so brash! This is a matter of your safety and you will listen to me before-“

“Before what?” Anya asked, more harsh than she could ever remember sounding. “You won’t hurt me - not if it risks your precious reputation you dandies care so much for. Just what are you doing down here, and without a light? Have you gone mad?”

She stepped closer, ever closer, half expecting for him to try to run for the stairs like he always did when she got too close. For months now, he was always six feet away, and now that gap was closing in on him. A cracking sound filled the air and she thought momentarily that it was thunder or a tree falling, though the sound was too close to be any such thing. 

She called his name, watching something unknown contort in a way that nothing should. Her words seemed to fall on deaf ears.

She was quaking with terror now, a wild instinct overwhelming her senses with the desire to run, though a more realistic part of her knew she was being ridiculous. She stepped closer, treading into a wet warmness that made her recoil in disgust.

“Alistair?” She asked once again, her voice barely a whisper now. 

The flame of her candle fell on black hair, and then he was looking towards her, the yellow of the flame reflecting on his eyes in such a way that they seemed to burn with that same fire. Shadows fell on his face strangely, frighteningly, contorting in ways that a human face should have never looked.

“Anya.”

Alistair stepped forward, though the stride was too long, too unnatural. The flame in his eyes did not disappear when she dropped the candle with a shrill scream.