The heavy brass key bites into the lock with a stubborn, metallic snap. Bryn Ackerley leans her shoulder against the oak door of Moor Cottage, bracing against the winter wind that whips across the Cumbrian fells. The air smells of wet slate and the coming snow, sharp enough to sting her lungs. Inside, the cottage is a tomb of cold air and dust motes, untouched since her grandmother breathed her last.
She moves through the small rooms, clicking her tongue to guide her collie, Pip. Her grandmother, Nan, had kept this place empty for forty years, refusing to let it even when the village ran short of housing. A promise kept is a debt stayed, Nan used to mutter, though she never said to whom. Bryn shakes out a fresh linen sheet over the mattress, her fingers catching on the woven friendship-band at her wrist.
A sudden sound breaks the stillness of the moor—a rhythmic, heavy grind of gravel from the lane below. Pip gives a low, vibrating growl, the fur along her neck spiking into a ridge. Bryn straightens, her hand instinctively finding the heavy iron crook she leaned against the porch wall. Footsteps crunch heavily on the frost-hardened lane, a tall silhouette stepping into the pale yellow porch light.
