The Invitation

Three days passed, and I told myself I had already forgotten about it.

I hadn't. I thought about it while I ground bitter root into powder. I thought about it while I labelled bottles I could have labelled with my eyes closed. I thought about it lying awake, listening to rain find new places to leak through our roof.

On the fourth morning, I found myself staring at the notice board again.

The parchment was gone.

Someone had taken it down.

I stood there longer than I should have, feeling strangely disappointed.

A laugh escaped me quietly.

What had I expected?

That a manor hidden beyond the forest would somehow notice a village girl who spent her days sorting herbs and cleaning bottles?

I shook my head and turned away.

Whatever strange hope had taken root in my chest, I forced it back down.

I pushed open the wooden door, the familiar scent of dried herbs and old parchment greeting me as it always did.

"You're early," Mrs. Hawthorn remarked from behind the counter.

I glanced up.

She was arranging bottles along the shelves, her grey hair pinned neatly away from her face.

"Couldn't sleep."

She hummed as though she didn't believe me.

Before I could say anything else, a sudden knock echoed through the apothecary.

Standing in the doorway is a man dressed in black.

Not noble.

Not military.

Simply...

Immaculate.

His coat is perfectly tailored.

His gloves spotless despite the muddy roads.

He carries a sealed envelope.

He doesn't browse.

He walks directly to Eleanor.

"Miss Eleanor Whitemore?"

Mrs. Hawthorn actually looks surprised.

"Yes..."

The stranger bows his head slightly.

"A letter for you."

He places the envelope into her hands.

Then leaves.

Without another word.

The Letter

The red wax seal.

Exactly like the notice. My fingers weren't entirely steady as I broke the seal.

"Miss Eleanor Whitemore,

Your application has been received and your presence is requested at Moonveil Manor.

A carriage shall arrive at your village at sunrise three days hence.

Upon arrival, the terms of your service shall be discussed.

We await you.

— The Steward of Moonveil Manor"

I read it once. Then again, as though the words might rearrange themselves into something less real.

I quickly folded the letter and slid it into my apron pocket. Mrs. Hawthorn glanced at me from behind the counter.

"Well?"

I blinked. "Well what?"

"The letter."

I looked down at my pocket.

"Oh."

She raised an eyebrow.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

Mrs. Hawthorn studied my face for a moment before sighing.

"Whatever it says, it seems to have left you speechless."

I gave a small, nervous laugh.

"It's nothing."

She looked unconvinced, but she didn't press and returned to arranging the bottles.

Suddenly, a small piece of paper felt heavier than anything I had ever carried.

I waited until after supper to tell my parents, when the bowls sat empty and Father had leaned back in his chair with the particular stillness that meant he was, briefly, at ease.

I laid the letter on the table between us.

Mother read it first. I watched the colour drain slowly from her face, watched her set it down as though it had grown heavier in her hands.

"No," she said simply.

"Mother—"

"No, Eleanor." Quieter the second time, which frightened me more than if she'd shouted. "You don't understand what that place is."

Father hadn't spoken. He was still looking at the letter, his jaw tight.

"There are things money doesn't fix," Mother said.

"Like what?" The words came out sharper than I intended.

"Like losing you," she said, and her voice broke on the last word, and I hated myself a little for putting it there.

The room went silent except for the rain, steady against the window — the same rain that had been falling the night of my dream.

Father finally spoke, his voice low and rough. "No one who's gone to that manor has come back the same, Eleanor. Some don't come back at all."

"Those are stories," I said. "Old Mrs. Hawthorn's stories."

"Not all of them," he said, and something in the way he said it told me he wasn't speaking only of rumours he'd heard secondhand.

I wanted to argue further. I wanted to lay out every reason again, like coins on the table, until their weight outmatched his fear. But I looked at my father's face — worn, frightened in a way I had rarely seen — and understood this wasn't an argument I would win with reason alone.

So I said nothing more that night.

The days that followed settled into an uneasy rhythm.

No one mentioned the letter again.

Mother busied herself with mending clothes that didn't need mending. Father spent longer than usual in the fields, returning home only after dusk with tired eyes and muddy boots. Even Mrs. Hawthorn seemed to sense something had changed, though she never asked.

And all the while, the folded letter remained hidden beneath my mattress.

Every night, I took it out.

Every night, I read the same words.

Your presence is requested at Moonveil Manor.

For the first time in my life, someone beyond our little village had asked for me by name.

I should have been afraid.

Instead, I found myself wondering what waited beyond Blackwood Forest.

I tried to convince myself that I could ignore it.

That I could stay.

Life would continue much as it always had. I would rise before dawn, help Mrs. Hawthorn in the apothecary, return home, and watch another season slip quietly into the next.

There was comfort in that thought.

But there was something else.

Regret.

I realized I wasn't afraid of Moonveil.

I was afraid of spending the rest of my life wondering what might have been.

The answer came so quietly that it surprised me.

I had already decided.

I simply hadn't admitted it to myself.

Before sunrise on the third day, I lit a single candle.

The house was silent.

Mother and Father were still asleep.

I packed only what I owned that would fit into a small satchel: couple dresses, a wool cloak, my worn notebook, a small bundle of dried herbs Mrs. Hawthorn insisted could cure almost anything, and the silver locket Mother had given me on my sixteenth birthday.

At the very end, I sat at the kitchen table with a sheet of parchment before me.

The candlelight trembled as I dipped my pen into ink.

I hesitated.

Then I began to write.

Not because I wanted to leave.

But because if I stayed, I feared I would lose something far more difficult to recover than home.

My chance to choose my own future......