Prologue - The Letter
The letter arrived on the day the rain refused to stop.
Sophie Hartley stood at the kitchen window of her tiny apartment, watching water stream down the glass like tears racing each other to the ground. The city beyond was hidden beneath a curtain of gry, the buildings little more than shadows.
Her coffee had gone cold hours ago.
The painting on her easel remained unfinished.
And the ache in her chest, left behind by a failed relationship and too many unanswered questions, lingered like a bruise she couldn’t touch without feeling it.
A knock echoed through the apartment.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
She opened the door to find a courier holding a cream-coloured envelope.
“No sender,” he said.
Before she could ask anything else, he was gone.
The envelope felt strange in her hands.
Heavy.
Important.
As though it carried more than paper.
Sophie closed the door and stared at the elegant silver handwriting on the front.
Miss Sophie Hartley
Nothing else.
No address.
No return details.
Only her name.
A chill crept across her skin.
She hadn’t seen handwriting like this in years.
Not since she was sixteen.
Not since the letters had started arriving.
The anonymous letters.
The ones she had hidden from everyone.
The ones that always ended with the same sentence.
The moon remembers what the family forgot.
Her hands trembled as she carefully broke the seal.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
The familiar silver ink curled across the page.
The time has come.
Moonlit Manor is waiting.
The truth beneath the house must finally be uncovered.
You are not the only one searching.
Trust carefully.
Some inheritances are worth more than money.
Others are worth killing for.
Sophie’s breath caught.
At the bottom of the page, beneath the message, was a symbol she had seen countless times before.
A crescent moon wrapped around a key.
The same symbol carved into the back of an old family photograph.
The same symbol she once discovered scratched into the floorboards of her grandmother’s attic.
The same symbol that haunted her dreams.
A loud crack of thunder shook the apartment.
The lights flickered.
For a moment, Sophie thought she saw movement reflected in the dark window behind her.
A figure standing in the rain.
Watching.
She spun around.
Nothing.
Only empty street.
Only shadows.
Yet the feeling remained.
Someone knew about the letter.
Someone knew about Moonlit Manor.
And someone was waiting for her to return.
Far away, hidden beyond forests and forgotten roads, Moonlit Manor stood beneath the storm.
Its towers rose from the darkness like ancient sentinels.
Its windows glowed faintly against the rain.
Silent.
Patient.
Waiting.
The manor had guarded its secrets for nearly eighty years.
Now, the past was stirring.
And the first piece had finally been set in motion.
