Darkness. The ragged edge of a curtain flapped in the frigid wind. Shutters clattered. Wind streamed in through the shattered windows, out through the broken door.
A child's bed, empty; the sheets in disarray. A woman, kneeling, sobbing, broken. Turning her head to the ceiling, she cried out, "Not him! Please, not him! Take me! Take me!"
Tears streaming down her face, she rose and ran through the doorway, oblivious to the splinters knifing into her feet. Out through the farmhouse she went, running blindly in the dark, stumbling over the chaotic mess of overturned furniture, and then over the threshold and into the bitter night. She looked around, but could see no trace of the fleeing shadows.
Turning to the sky, she cried out again, voice breaking with shock and grief. "I offer myself! Only leave my son and take me! Take me!" No reply came; no shadows brought her son back out of the depths of the night. Eugen was gone. Her son had been taken from her. She was alone.
She fell to her knees, and then to the ground, and wept in the cold light of the stars.
-----
When her sobbing stilled, the gibbous moon was setting; it was not long until dawn. She had hoped that the shadows would return for her and end her pain, carry her off into the endless darkness, but they had not come. She pushed herself upright on cold, stiff arms, then rose on cold, stiff legs, and walked slowly toward the farmhouse door.
Her son had been taken. She knew what she had to do.
Beneath a stone in the kitchen's floor was the chest. Her mother had spoken of it only once, as she lay dying. "Hide it. Keep it secret. No-one can know." She bloodied her fingers on the stone's edge before thinking to use the poker from the fire. With a little effort, the stone lifted, and she pulled the ancient chest from the crevice beneath. It was small, but it felt heavier than it should. Weighted down with darkness, her mother had said.
Her cold, bloodied fingers fumbled with the catch for almost a minute before it came open, and the chest's heavy lid swung open almost of its own accord. Perhaps it was a trick of the eye, but the inside of the chest seemed to soak up the flickering candle-light without itself being lit. In the corner of her eye, shadows flickered and danced, moving with what seemed like purpose, intent.
Inside the chest was the book. Its black leather chilled her fingers as she pulled it out; dust rose from the pages as she flicked it open. There, written in quavering script, were the Secrets.
She had opened the book once before, and had hardly read it for a minute when she threw it from her grasp, unable to stand the sight of the pages or the words upon them. Now, however, she grasped it tightly, turning the pages with purpose, searching, seeking. It was not long before she found what she sought.
The chest held other things, too, rare treasures gathered over centuries by the holders of the chest. She drew some of them out: chalk, black as midnight; fractured crystals that glowed weakly with eerie unlight; small flasks of powdered herbs that smelt of death; shrivelled things upon which she could not bear to think.
As many things as there were in the chest, not once did her hand draw out something she did not now require.
Book in hand, still ice-cold, she set to work. On the floor, she scratched out symbols that bent and twisted before the eye; here she sprinkled powder, recoiling at the smell; there, she placed a crystal, or some other unknowable thing. Finally, she set a fire and hung the kettle above it, casting into it all manner of horrible things from the depths of the chest, until there bubbled in the kettle a night-black liquid.
She took the kettle from the fire and placed it beside the markings on the floor, then fetched her sharpest knife. She dipped the knife into the kettle, and drew it out, and it too was black, as though more an emptiness than a thing. She held her hand out over the markings, closed her eyes, and pressed the knife into her palm. She hardly felt the sting in her cold-numbed hand, but when she opened her eyes, deep red blood dripped from her palm onto the floor, mingling with darkest black.
She spoke, her voice dark, hollow. "Shadow of Ygn, by blood and darkness you are commanded. Come forth, for I will treat with thee."
She watched a drop of blood fall from her palm, and as it splashed upon the floor, she said "Come forth!" Another drop, another command. "Come forth!" The third drop fell, and her body stiffened as she breathed the final words. "Come forth!"
With a sigh, the fire snuffed out, and darkness fell upon her.
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