It should have been a quiet, relaxing night. She was in the middle of nowhere in the middle of her holiday, which was usually the way she preferred it; Jane Ogden was even counting down the days before she could reasonably retire from her job with the Ministry of Magic and move to the middle of nowhere. In a few minutes, the clock would hit midnight, and she'd be at 1,530.
She didn't have any issues with her job, really - she was just tired of it. In a couple years, she'd start really planning in earnest to leave London. A quiet little cabin on the outskirts of a quiet little village would do her just fine.
Jane had always liked her solitude.
The little house she'd rented for three weeks was set on a hill, which meant that there was virtually always a breeze. It had taken her a few days to get used to it, but after a week and a half, she'd come to find it comforting. She'd been generally eschewing the well-lit deck built into the side of the house in favor of the hammock under the apple tree; one night, she'd even drifted off before going inside and woken up just as dawn was peeking over the trees.
Tonight, though, the darkness felt different. She wasn't sure why, but she was suddenly horribly aware of how exposed she was out here and how easy it would be for someone to sneak up on her. Though the full moon was rapidly approaching, the clouds obscured most of the moonlight that might have otherwise filtered down. The stairs leading up to the house and the deck were illuminated by the faintly glowing orb mounted overhead, but down here, she could barely see her hand in front of her face.
Her first irrational thought was that the moonlight never could do what she wanted it to. It would have been nice if just once, the moon had been out when it actually did her some good.
The orb flickered twice, and her breath caught in her throat.
Jane knew that she was just being stupid. There was no reason that this small little house on a small little island with very few people now that the busy summer season had passed would have anything or anyone on it who wanted to hurt her. There were no natural predators on this island, just deer and birds, and while she wasn't in law enforcement and consequently wasn't really familiar with the way criminals thought, she couldn't see any logical reason for a human predator to want to come here. There just weren't enough people to make it worth their time - most of the houses were empty.
Even so, the uneasiness remained, and after a minute of straining to hear something - anything - that didn't belong through the pitch black night, she heard a thud just a few steps behind her. She instinctively sprang to her feet and rushed toward the house. Her sensible side only caught up as she was putting her foot on the first step.
Apples had been falling the entire time she'd been here, and that had undoubtedly been an apple. Of course it had been an apple. That's hadn't been enough to so much as give her pause before tonight; she wasn't sure why she was so on edge.
Once she'd ascended the five stairs leading up to the deck, though at a significantly more subdued pace, she forced herself to lean on the railing and look into the darkness. There was nothing out there; she knew that.
There was nothing out there. There couldn't be.
Still, for the first time since she'd arrived, Jane locked the door behind her. The sound of the deadbolt sliding into the solid oak frame soothed her jangling nerves a little, as did the click of the locks as she closed each of the many windows lining both the far wall and the wall directly to the right of the door - for Merlin's sake, did this house have nothing but windows?
Branches from one of the trees nearest the cottage brushed against two of the windows with unusual force, and her heart leapt into her mouth. It took a minute before she could steel herself enough to turn around and look at the offending windows head-on. She was almost surprised not to see someone or something pressed up against the glass, as though she were in a melodramatic ghost story.
Granted, she could barely see anything at all, so the absenceit wasn't much reassurance.
She grabbed her wand from the counter on the other end of the big, airy room and rushed around the room, tapping each individual window lock to reinforce it. There was no sense in taking chances.
The thought was discomforting enough on its own. She'd come here to get away from concerns about taking chances. She'd grown up in a little village where nobody ever bothered to lock their back door, and probably not their front one, either.
She missed that. It made for a more relaxing life when you weren't suspicious enough of your neighbors that you always locked the door to your flat and when there wasn't intense pressure not to hold the front door for anyone you didn't know.
"Just the full moon." She forced herself to take a deep breath. It was shakier than she would have liked - but then, the full moon always made her jumpy. She cast one more spell, and once she'd gulped down a glass of the chilled potion kept safe behind a closed cabinet door, she went upstairs.
For the first time since she'd arrived, she took her wand with her.
In the bright, cheerful light of the morning, she felt more than a little foolish. It was very difficult to believe that anything sinister was lurking in the shadows; there were birds singing in the trees, and the leaves that littered the ground would surely have crunched if anyone - or anything had been stalking across them.
It briefly occurred to her that dementors didn't step on the ground at all. They glided across it. Maybe that sudden forboding hadn't been the approaching full moon at all. Maybe it has been a dementor. That would explain her sudden feeling of dread and fear.
"What would a dementor be doing here?" she asked herself irritably. There wasn't a good answer to that. She'd had plenty of bouts or anxiety and fear without a dementor to trigger them, and anyway, the island wasn't dreary or gloomy; it hadn't rained in days, and then it had just been a sunshower.
She was just being silly.
When Jane emerged from the staircase onto the first floor, she found it unsufferably stuffy. She'd generally been keeping a window or two open every night to keep it cool, and now she wished she'd shrugged off her misplaced anxiety the night before and left at least one cracked overnight. That wish intensified when she waved her wand to open all of the windows at once and nothing happened.
She'd forgotten how paranoid she'd been the previous night. She had to go to each individual window to tap it with her wand and unlock it, which took long enough that she was thoroughly annoyed by the time she was finished. Once she'd finished that and unlocked the door, she was finally able to wave her wand. All of the windows flew open, and a refreshing breeze quickly filled the cottage.
She grabbed a book off the table and collapsed onto the long windowseat lining the far wall. She wouldn't let her nerves get the best of her like that again. Of that, she was certain.
She was laying in the hammock when the sun set that evening. Despite her resolution, the twilight made her stomach twist uncomfortably again. Before the sky could truly darken, she hurried inside and slammed the door behind her with more force than was really warranted. She didn't venture outside once after that, and she locked the door and the windows after she ate dinner - though only the normal way, not the paranoid magical way - and she took her wand upstairs when she went to bed.
The next evening, she forced herself to stay outside until the stars were shining in the sky. The black surrounding her was unsettling in a way she'd never found it to be before, but the longer she stayed out there with nothing of note happening, the more her anxiety eased away.
Even if her palms were still clammy.
Even if she still felt like there was someone watching her.
Even if the occasional thud of an apple falling on the ground no longer felt as benign as it once had.
She went a step further and lay on the dying grass and crumbling orange leaves the next day to watch the sun set. For the first time in days, she was quite sure that she was alone; the scenery around her was silent other than the slight breeze rippling over the leaves, and she could still see well enough to see the small shapes in the darkness as apples fell from the tree.
This was the holiday Jane had been looking for.
It was only after the sun had disappeared below the horizon that she felt a sudden sharp pain in her stomach. The searing pain kept her stationary for a minute or two, and then it lessened; she clapped her hands to the offending area, where the pain had turned to a dull, steady ache, and rolled on her stomach just in time to retch.
The force made the pain in her stomach spike so quickly her vision clouded momentarily; she retched again as she fought to maintain consciousness, and the violence of it made her lower ribs ache. The ache didn't go away once she'd stopped retching; she'd probably fractured a couple.
She couldn't concentrate on that, though. As she tried to crawl toward the house, her entire mind focused on getting onto the deck and off the grass, she felt pins and needles erupt across the surface her entire body.
She let out a loud moan. Her eyes were beginning to swim with tears, making it nearly impossible to see what was in front of her; her questioning hand smacked against the step hard, and she groaned again.
Still, she put one hand on the railing, the other hand on the bottom step, and hauled her plump body onto it. She wasn't sure how long it took before she was finally able to collapse onto the deck, so exhausted she could hardly move, and she almost let her eyes close - just for a second - when she heard a creak.
Her head snapped up, exhaustion or not. There was a shape standing in front of her, though she couldn't make out any distinguishing characteristics; the orb light was glowing most brightly than she'd ever seen it glow before, and it made her eyes, not yet fully dry, tear up again.
A shiver ran down her spine, and she opened her mouth. Only a growl emerged; her mouth had finally finished turning into a muzzle. She could only see the outline of a figure in the darkness.
She flexed her claws. If she could just be fast enough -
"Well, well, well." The voice was cold and high. She saw the figure start to raise their wand, and she lunged forward.
She wasn't fast enough, and the spell hit her squarely in the chest.
A/N: New story! I promise I'm going to finish some of current WIPs soon, but this has been rattling around for awhile, so I want to start posting it. 3 Reviews are hugely appreciated.
Branwen