She wanted to stop and cry, but she knew that would be death, and so instead she trudged along, the tears running down her face. It was close to midnight now, and the starfall was at its peak, the sky bright with glowing rocks that fell every second or so. They were white and orange and yellow, fast and pure; and on another clear night like this she would have sat and watched them race through the black sky, alone but happy. Tonight, however, they were just another timer that was against her, and she wept in despair as the world flashed around her.
The road to the harbour was wider than the one between Hod and her village; but she was so exhausted and dispirited that she didn't care that she was more exposed. For a while, she didn't care if all the horrors of the night took her. She just remembered Bernice's hate-filled face, the sting of the stone. She lifted her hand to the back of her head, felt under her hair. There was no blood, which was something.
Why had they hated her so much? What had she done to them? She hadn't often gone to chapel, it was true; she liked her own company and mostly kept herself to herself; but were they offences in the eyes of the people? How was she associated with the howling things that haunted the island?
She sighed, and wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her hand. She didn't have the luxury of wondering. She had to get to the bay, she had to find somewhere, make it secure; and then she'd worry about the ship.
But the sting of the stones, the hatred in their faces; they haunted her as she walked.
YOU ARE READING
Devils on Starfall Isle
Fantasy'Death is coming in the Autumn.' That's what Tira tells Verity. But Verity is stuck in her life, and doesn't understand just what's at stake, until it's much too late... A novella written for ONC23. Guidance: mild horror, sex references.
