Bound by the Moon’s Call

The mist clung to the streets of Ashen Hollow like an old memory, thick and unyielding. It was always like this—quiet, strange, and wrapped in a veil of mystery that seemed almost sentient. The fog moved through the town as if it had a mind of its own, curling around buildings, creeping along the cobblestone paths, swallowing up the edges of the world. Lena Morrigan walked the familiar route from her cottage to the library, her boots making soft sounds on the damp stones. It was early, just after dawn, but the town was already stirring in its subdued way. Lena liked this time of day—when the streets were mostly empty, and the world seemed more hers. Ashen Hollow had a rhythm to it, one that everyone followed, whether they realized it or not. The townspeople moved through their days as though bound by something invisible, something unspoken. Lena had always felt it—a tension in the air, a pulse beneath the surface of things. It wasn’t the kind of town where you asked too many questions. It was the kind of town where people accepted what they saw and kept their heads down. Lena had never been good at that. She found herself drawn to the town’s whispers. The folklore. The stories. She had grown up on them, listening to the old tales passed down by the elders. Wolves in the forest, witches in the bloodline, curses older than the trees themselves. The people of Ashen Hollow didn’t talk about those things openly anymore, but the stories still lived on in the shadows, and Lena had always been fascinated by them. It was why she became a librarian. The library was her refuge, her quiet escape from the weight of the town’s unsaid truths. The old books smelled of dust and secrets, and Lena liked the feeling of being surrounded by knowledge, even if most people in Ashen Hollow preferred to pretend those dusty volumes didn’t exist. Today, as she approached the library’s old wooden door, something felt different. Lena paused, her hand hovering over the iron handle. The air was still, too still, as if the mist itself was holding its breath. A faint prickle crept up the back of her neck, but she shook it off with a soft laugh. You’re imagining things. She pushed the door open and stepped inside. The familiar scent of aged paper and wood greeted her, calming the nerves that had flared outside. The library was quiet, as always. Sunlight filtered weakly through the high, arched windows, casting long shadows over the shelves of books. The silence here was deep, almost sacred, and Lena took comfort in the predictability of it. She set her satchel down behind the counter, slipping into her morning routine with practiced ease. The sound of pages turning, the quiet hum of the old heater in the corner—it was all part of the rhythm she’d come to rely on. And yet, today, something felt off. Lena moved through the rows of books, her fingers brushing the spines of well-worn volumes. Some of them had been here for centuries, long before she was born, long before most of the townspeople had forgotten the town’s darker past. There were sections of the library no one ever visited anymore, shelves of books that hadn’t been touched in years. She had always found those sections the most intriguing. Today, she found herself wandering there, as though something unseen was guiding her steps. The back corner of the library, where the air felt a little colder, the shadows a little darker. The books here were older, their leather bindings cracked and their titles faded. This was where the stories lived. The ones no one wanted to remember. Lena hesitated in front of one particular shelf, her eyes scanning the titles. Superstitions, curses, local legends. She knew most of them by heart. But her gaze stopped on a book she hadn’t noticed before. It sat low on the shelf, half-buried under a stack of crumbling papers. The cover was worn, the title barely visible. Curious, Lena reached down and slid the book free, brushing the dust from the surface. The Witches of Ashen Hollow. She frowned. It wasn’t unusual to find books on witches here—Ashen Hollow had no shortage of stories about them. But something about this book felt different, heavier. She opened the cover, flipping through the brittle pages, her brow furrowing as she skimmed the contents. Most of it was what she expected—stories of old magic, warnings of the dangers that lurked in the forests. But as she neared the middle of the book, something caught her eye. A name. Morrigan. Her heart skipped a beat. She scanned the passage again, slower this time, the words pulling her in. “The Morrigan witches, protectors of the leyline, cursed to guard the secret beneath the Hollow…” Her fingers trembled slightly as she turned the page, but the next few were blank, the ink faded beyond recognition. She closed the book, her mind racing. Morrigan. Her family name. She had heard whispers of witches in her bloodline before, but nothing concrete, nothing more than passing remarks from her grandmother, who had long since passed away. Lena shook her head. It’s just a coincidence. A common enough name. But still, the way the book had seemed to find her, the way her heart had leapt at the sight of her name in the worn pages—it was unsettling. She tucked the book under her arm and made her way back to the counter, setting it aside with the intent to read more later. For now, she had work to do. The library would open soon, and despite her unsettled thoughts, she needed to focus. She couldn’t afford to get lost in old stories and vague connections. But as she worked, that nagging feeling lingered. The one she always tried to ignore. That sense that there was something about Ashen Hollow that wasn’t quite right. Something deeper than the fog that clung to the town. She had always felt it, just beneath the surface of her ordinary life, like an itch she couldn’t scratch. She had spent her whole life pushing that feeling down, convincing herself it was nothing. Just her imagination, a byproduct of growing up in a town where stories of magic and curses were woven into every stone, every tree, every breath. But now, with the book resting beside her, and her family name staring back at her from its yellowed pages, that feeling was harder to ignore. As the day wore on, Lena couldn’t shake the eerie sense of something looming on the horizon, just out of sight. The library remained quiet, the air thick with the weight of things left unsaid, but that didn’t ease the strange pull she felt in her chest. A tension she couldn’t name. It was as though the town itself was watching her, waiting. For what, she didn’t know. But one thing was certain: something was changing in Ashen Hollow, and Lena couldn’t escape the feeling that her life was about to change with it.