The Gates

The carriage stops at the base of the mountain, and the driver won't go any further.

"This is as close as I get," he says, not meeting my eyes. His hands are white-knuckled on the reins. "The path's clear enough. Half a mile to the gates."

I gather my single bag, everything I own now, which isn't much, and step out onto the rocky ground. The air is colder here than it was in the valley. Thinner. It tastes like stone and something else. Something old.

"Thank you," I say, because my mother raised me with manners even if my father raised me with debts.

He doesn't respond. The carriage is already turning before my feet touch the path.

I watch him go, dust rising behind the wheels, and I don't let myself feel anything about it. Feeling is a luxury I surrendered three days ago when I signed my name on the contract. Viola Lombardi, traded for her father's gambling debts. One year of service in exchange for my family's freedom.

Service. That's what they called it.

I know what I am. I know what happens to the women who come here.

The path winds upward through dead trees. Not dying, dead. Black bark, bare branches, no sign of green anywhere. The sun is setting behind the mountain, casting long shadows that seem to move when I'm not looking directly at them.

I keep walking.

My siblings' faces swim in my memory. Milo, fourteen and trying so hard to be brave when I left. Sera, eleven and crying so hard she couldn't breathe. Little Pietro, only eight, not understanding why his big sister had to go away.

They'll have food now. A roof that doesn't leak. Clothes without patches. The debt collector promised that much, at least, as long as I held up my end of the bargain.

One year. One year of my life for theirs.

It's a good trade.

I repeat that to myself with every step. Good trade. Good trade. Good trade.

The gates appear through the mist without warning, massive iron things twice my height, twisted into patterns I can't quite focus on. Every time I try to trace the shapes, my eyes slide away like they're coated in oil. Some kind of enchantment, maybe. Or maybe my mind just doesn't want to know what's carved there.

I stop. Stare.

The gates are closed. There's no one here to receive me, no servants waiting with lanterns. Just the iron and the mist and the gathering dark.

"Hello?" My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "I'm Viola Lombardi. I'm here for..."

For what? To die? To serve? To be consumed by whatever monster lives in this place?

"I'm here," I finish lamely.

Silence. The mist curls around my ankles like curious fingers.

Then, from somewhere beyond the gates, deep in the castle I can barely see through the fog, a roar.

Not a human sound. Not an animal sound either, not really. Something in between. Something worse. It rattles the gates, makes the dead trees shiver, sends birds I didn't know were there exploding into the darkening sky.

My blood goes cold. Every instinct I have screams at me to run, to follow that carriage down the mountain, to disappear into the night and never look back.

I don't move.

Pietro needs new shoes. Sera needs medicine for her lungs. Milo needs a future that doesn't involve begging on street corners.

I don't move.

The roar fades. The silence that follows is somehow worse, heavy and waiting, like the pause between lightning and thunder.

The gates swing open.

No one touched them. No mechanism clicked. They just... open, slow and soundless, revealing a path of white stone leading into the mist.

I adjust the strap of my bag on my shoulder. Take a breath. Walk through.

The gates close behind me the moment I'm past the threshold. I don't look back. Looking back is for people who have something to return to.

The path leads through dead gardens. I catch glimpses of what they might have been once, fountains now silent, hedges now skeletal, flower beds now filled with blackened earth. Everything is dead. Everything has been dead for a long time.

And yet.

I stop. Stare at a single bloom, a rose, crimson red, growing from a crack in the stone path. Alive. Vibrant. Impossible.

I don't touch it. Something tells me that would be a very bad idea.

The castle emerges from the mist like something out of a nightmare. Towers spiraling into the dark sky, windows like empty eyes, stone so black it seems to absorb what little light remains. It's beautiful in the way that poison is beautiful, compelling and deadly.

The front doors are already open.

Of course they are.

I climb the steps, thirteen of them, I count them without meaning to, and step inside.

The entrance hall is vast. High ceilings that disappear into darkness. A chandelier that might once have held a hundred candles, now unlit. Dust motes floating in the air, visible in the thin shafts of dying light that make it through the high windows.

And shadows. So many shadows, clustering in corners, pooling along the walls, darker than any natural darkness should be.

I feel watched. I am watched, I'm certain of it, but I can't see anyone.

"Hello?" My voice echoes off stone. "I'm Viola Lombardi. The debt collector sent me. I'm here for my year of..."

"You're earlier than expected."

I spin. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, from the shadows themselves.

"That's either courage or foolishness."

A figure steps out of the darkness at the far end of the hall. A man, I think. Tall. Broad shoulders. Moving with a kind of predatory grace that makes my skin prickle. He stays at the edge of the light, and I can't make out his features.

"Which is it?" He sounds curious. Almost gentle, which is the last thing I expected from a monster in a dead castle.

I straighten my spine. "Does it matter?"

A pause. When he speaks again, there's something that might be approval in his voice. "No. I suppose it doesn't."

He moves closer, but not close enough to see clearly. I catch impressions, dark hair, pale skin, something wrong with the proportions of his hands. Something that glitters when it catches the light.

"I am Jasper Ferraro," he says. "Lord of this castle, such as it is. And you are my... guest."

The word sits strange in the air. We both know I'm not a guest. Guests can leave.

"You'll have comfortable quarters," he continues. "Food and clothing will be provided. Books, if you want them. Music. Anything you request, within reason."

I didn't expect that either. "And in return?"

"Only your presence. Your... company. For one year."

"And at the end of that year?"

Silence. The shadows seem to deepen around him.

"Let's not discuss endings," he says finally. "Not yet."

Which tells me everything I need to know about what happens at the end of my year.

"One rule," he says, and his voice has changed. Sharper now. Urgent. "The only rule that matters."

"Tell me."

"Stay in your room after dark." He's gripping something, the back of a chair, I think, his strange hands wrapped around the wood. "No matter what you hear. No matter what you think you hear. Do you understand?"

The roar. Whatever made that sound. That's what comes after dark.

"I understand."

"You must stay inside. Lock your door. Don't open it. Not for any reason."

"I said I understand."

Another pause. Something in the quality of the shadows shifts, and I catch a glimpse of his face, handsome, haunted, eyes that look like they haven't known peace in years. Then the light changes and he's in darkness again.

"Welcome to Ferraro Castle, Viola Lombardi." He's backing away now, retreating into the shadows he seems to belong to. "A servant will show you to your room. I hope you'll find it comfortable."

"Wait..."

But he's gone. The shadows have swallowed him whole, and I'm alone in the entrance hall with the dust and the dark.

A door opens to my left. A woman stands there, older, grey-haired, face carefully blank. She doesn't meet my eyes any more than the carriage driver did.

"This way, miss."

I follow her because there's nothing else to do. Through corridors lined with covered paintings. Past doors that look like they haven't been opened in years. Up a staircase that creaks beneath our feet.

She opens a door at the end of a long hallway. Inside: a bedroom that might be nice if it weren't coated in dust and shadow. A four-poster bed with faded hangings. A window overlooking the dead gardens. A fireplace with cold ashes.

"Dinner will be brought at seven," the woman says. "The master asks that you stay in your room after sunset."

"What happens after sunset?"

She's already walking away. The door closes behind her with a click that sounds like finality.

I set my bag on the bed. Look around at my new prison. Cross to the window and look out at the gardens, the path, the gates in the distance.

Beyond them, the world keeps turning. My siblings are safe. My father is probably already at another card table, spending the freedom I bought him.

Good trade, I tell myself.

The last of the sunlight disappears behind the mountain.

And from somewhere deep in the castle, so deep the stone itself seems to tremble, another roar splits the silence.

Followed by the sound of chains.

Followed by screaming.

I back away from the window. My hands are shaking, and I can't make them stop. Every horror story I've ever heard about this place, every whispered rumor, every warning, they're all true. They're all true and I'm here now and I have a year of this ahead of me.

If I survive a year.

I sink onto the edge of the bed. Close my eyes. Listen to the screaming fade into silence, then nothing, then something worse than silence.

A voice, barely recognizable as the man who greeted me. Hoarse. Broken. Pleading.

"Please. Not her. Not yet."

The words drift through the stone like smoke. Like they're meant for me.

I don't sleep that night. I don't think anyone in this castle does.