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He was waiting for her outside her house again.
Mona squeezed the bag of shopping in her arms and narrowed her eyes. Luckily, he hadn't seen her yet, too busy staring at the sign next to her door to pay attention to the world around him.
“Hey, what do you think you're doing?”
The man jumped as she called out, then turned and lifted his hat to flash her his usual smug grin. “Just waiting for someone.”
“Well, you can't do it here. This is my house.”
Mona tried not to look at him as she sauntered past, pulled out a key, and unlocked her front door. She'd have thought that would be enough to send him away, but when she looked up again, he was still standing there, staring at her as if she were the most curious thing in the world.
Seeing that he was clearly unable to take a hint, Mona dropped her bag inside the door and turned to face him properly. He was dressed in his usual black travelling clothes, his skin paper-white beneath a wide-brimmed hat. The majority of people tended to hide the fact they were wanderers when passing through the village – outsiders were regarded as novelties at best and threats at worst – but this man had made no effort to do so since the beginning. Thus, he'd earnt himself the less-than-flattering nickname of 'The Vagrant'. Not that he seemed to mind.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Mona asked stiffly.
Instead of answering straight away, the Vagrant ran his pale fingers up and down the doorframe. “I overheard some of the villagers talking today. They called you a witch.”
Mona's hands curled into fists. “If you've come here to provoke me—”
“Not at all,” said the Vagrant, raising his hands defensively. “I just thought you ought to know.”
Mona pursed her lips. “People always have a thousand things to say when your back is turned. You're no exception. Rumour has it you're only hanging around here because you're a murderer on the run.”
It was a lie, of course – she'd never heard anyone say such a thing and only concocted the story to get back at him – but there was no missing the menacing glint in his eyes as he looked at her and said, “They're absolutely right.”
His response was so unexpected, Mona found herself unable to speak. The silence crept into long seconds, until the Vagrant's face crinkled into a grin. “A joke, of course!”
“Hilarious,” Mona muttered, ashamed at how fast her heart was beating at such an obvious trick. With a sigh, she turned back to her open door. “Look, I'm busy. If there's nothing else I can help you with, then I wish you a good day.”
She was about to head back into her house, when something cold touched her wrist. For a moment, she thought she'd somehow come into contact with ice, but then she noticed the Vagrant's fingers wrapped around her wrist, holding her back.
“Sorry.” He let go of her quickly. “Before you go, I wanted to ask. Your name... It's Mona, isn't it?”
She nodded.
“Well, Mona. There's actually a real reason I was waiting here.” The Vagrant lowered his head as something close to embarrassment took over his face. The emotion felt strangely out of place on his features. “I noticed you've been to the market, and, well, things have been tough recently.”
Mona stared at him with wide eyes. Was he really begging her for food? Regardless, she bent down to her bag, tore off a section of the stick of bread she'd bought, and handed it to him.
“I'm going to give you my honest advice, Vagrant,” she said. “Leave this village tonight. If you're struggling for the basics this much, then there's nothing here for you.”
The Vagrant looked down at the bread in his hands, then back at Mona. “One thing I've learnt in my years of travelling is that every place has something interesting. I just have to find out what it is here.”
Mona snorted. “If you insist.”
His eyes lingered on her up until the moment she closed the door.
She watched him walk away from behind her curtains, black robes flitting with his footsteps. Only when he'd disappeared between the houses at the end of the path did she finally allow herself to breathe out.
As the village healer, Mona was more than used to finding people loitering outside her house. Cuts, broken bones, sickness. There was no end to the afflictions with which people came to her, and she was happy to take them all into her home and fix them up. However, the Vagrant had visited her three times now, not for healing, but for small talk, and there was nothing Mona detested more, especially when each conversation seemed more random than the last.
It wasn't that she disliked him. He was polite enough, and as far as Mon knew, he hadn't caused harm to anyone in the village.
There was just something odd about him that she couldn't put her finger on.
She looked down to see her hand rubbing subconsciously over her wrist where he'd grabbed it. Even though the skin had returned to its normal temperature, she could still feel the ice in his touch. He'd never touched her before. It had been... uncanny, to say the least.
Mona carried the bag of shopping over to her kitchen table and started to unpack, placing the bundles of herbs into their respective jars and hooking the knots of onions and garlic over the stove to dry. It had been two full weeks since the Vagrant had arrived at the village. With their location just off one of the main trading routes that passed through the forest, they saw their fair share of travellers, though none usually stayed for more than a day or two before heading on their way.
The Vagrant, however, seemed to have no intention of leaving, nor did he have any noticeable source of income other than begging. Nobody knew where he'd come from, whether he had any skills, not even his name. Mona saw him sometimes hanging around the fountain in the village square, or coming and going from the tavern in the evenings. She'd have thought he'd have been run out of the village by now for being a nuisance, but nobody seemed to mind him being here. Truly, he was like a ghost.
Mona chuckled to herself as she finished unpacking the food and walked over to her bed. She couldn't imagine herself ever receiving the same treatment were their situations swapped. Despite everything she did for the people around her, there was still an overwhelming majority who treated her with trepidation. A young woman, unmarried and living alone, dabbling in the supernatural arts? Utterly scandalous. Of course, there was nothing supernatural about creating salves out of herbs or reading the stars for healing purposes, but the concept still didn't sit right with many of the villagers. To them, a woman was only worth something as a mother or a whore. Like Lumine, Mona's oldest friend. She'd married Ajax, the town blacksmith, two years back, and every week since, she'd confided in Mona over morning tea. Sure, Ajax kept a roof over her head and told her he loved her, but there was no hiding the bruises that sometimes appeared on her cheeks, the way her eyes darted to the door whenever he was brought up in a less-than-favourable light, as if she was afraid he'd be standing right there, watching her.
Mona would rather be shunned as a witch than have to put up with that.
With a sigh, she glanced out of the back window. Being located at the edge of the village meant her house backed onto the forest. The setting sun cast long shadows against the trees, creating little pockets of darkness in between the undergrowth. Many of the villagers feared such a view – wolf sightings were rampant, after all, not to mention the myths of fairies and monsters that lurked after dark to steal people away – but Mona had always found it beautiful in an eerie, lonely kind of way.
Not to mention it afforded her a little privacy.
With that in mind, she sat down on the edge of her bed and started to undo her boots.
*
Scaramouche watched Mona undress through the window.
He'd been hiding in this spot behind the tree for a while now, knowing it gave him the best possible view without risk of being spotted. Not that he was in any danger of that. Mona was too preoccupied with peeling off her clothing to notice a lone figure lurking in the forest outside, after all.
He'd spent enough time watching her over the past few days to know her undressing routine like the back of his hand. First, she removed her long boots and placed them at the side of her bed. Next came her corset, which she deftly untied and slipped off her head. Then she reached for her dress.
Scaramouche's breath hitched as Mona stood up from her bed and pulled the garment over her head. She was naked from the waist up underneath. His eyes fell to her smooth shoulders and pert breasts, travelling downwards when she slipped off her hose to reveal long, shapely legs. Sights enough to please any potential voyeur, and lovely in their own right.
For Scaramouche, however, the best was yet to come.
Mona walked over to her dresser, still oblivious as ever to his presence, and raised her hands to her head. During the daytime, she kept her dark locks confined to two long tails, and it was as she pulled out her ribbons, one by one, that Scaramouche felt himself leaning forward with bated breath.
Because, with each shake of her head, there was a moment where her neck was entirely exposed to him.
Scaramouche stared at that neck as if in a trance. Even with the distance between them, he could hear the thrum of her pulse, see the artery jump beneath the white skin as clearly as if he were standing next to it. And the smell of her... He'd taken hundreds of humans in his life, but few had ever carried with them a scent like Mona. It was intoxicating. Before he knew it, he was scooping up a handful of dried leaves from the ground and pressing them to his nose just to focus his senses once again.
When he looked back at the window, Mona had disappeared – no doubt to change into her night clothes. From there, she'd light a fire in the hearth, have something to eat, and brew some tea, then climb into bed shortly after nightfall. Scaramouche could appreciate that. After all, not even little witches truly knew what kinds of monsters prowled around in the dark.
Deciding he'd seen enough for now, Scaramouche pulled away from the tree and circled back through the forest to the village edge. He usually waited a week or so between hunts, preferring to take little and often rather than stirring up a panic with a massacre. This time, however, he hadn't touched blood since arriving in the village. All of it was Mona's fault, of course. The moment he'd seen her, he'd known she was worth waiting for. It wasn't just her looks or her smell; something about her whole demeanour had him hooked. He couldn't say what it was. He'd taken countless young women and men before, many of them richer or prettier than her.
But none of them had made him feel anything like he did with Mona.
Scaramouche's boots clicked against the cobblestones as he made his way towards the square. Houses lined the road either side of him, their windows glowing shades of orange as families lit their hearths for the night. A pair of men he'd drunk with a few nights ago ambled towards him, though neither of them acknowledged him as he passed. He had a way of making himself blend in like that. People barely noticed him until he wanted them to, and even then, he faded from their memories more quickly than others. It was one of the ways he'd survived this far, drifting from village to village, as much a ghost as any of the spirits mothers warned their children about as they huddled beneath their covers at bedtime.
When he reached the square, Scaramouche paused to take a look around. To his surprise, the area was empty, with just the trickle of the fountain and the hum of the wind to break up the quiet.
He took a left down a narrow road and came to a stop in front of a small farmhouse. The wooden pen at the side was full of chickens scrabbling around in the dirt. A single goat stared at him from the back with vacant, milky eyes.
Scaramouche dropped to a crouch in front of the pen and reached into his pocket for the bread Mona had given him. He wasn't sure why he'd even asked her for it. To have an excuse to keep talking to her, perhaps? To feed into the narrative that he really was a wandering vagrant with no money for food? After a quick glance into the house to make sure nobody was watching him from a window, he tore off a corner of the bread and flicked the crumbs through the fence panels. Just as he'd hoped, a chicken wandered over to him.
“Hey, there,” he cooed, reaching forward to stroke its neck. The animal sidestepped his hand and bent down to peck at the crumbs. Scaramouche tore off a few more pieces and dropped them in front of it. This time, when he reached out his hand, the chicken allowed him to touch it. He ran his fingers through its feathers, felt the heat that radiated from its skin.
Then he closed his hand around its neck and dragged it towards the fence.
*
Two hard knocks punctured the silence.
Mona jumped in her seat. She'd been dozing for a while now, lulled by the heat of the fire crackling away in front of her. A glance out of the window told her it was nighttime – well past the hour she usually received visitors. The only reason someone would visit her at this time would be for a medical emergency.
Either that, or they wanted to stir up trouble.
A second pair of knocks had Mona placing the book in her lap on the arm of the chair and standing up. She wiped the sleep from her eyes, grabbed a metal poker from the hearth, and walked over to the door.
“Who's there?” she called out.
No response. Mona squeezed the poker between her fingers and tried to ignore the thrum of her heart in her chest.
“I'm not opening the door unless you tell me who you are.”
Another few seconds of silence followed. Mona was about to try and peer through the window next to the door when a weak voice called out, “Please open up. I don't think I'm going to last much longer.”
Mona's eyes widened. She recognised that voice. Tucking the poker under her arm, she reached for the key hanging on its hook and unlocked the door.
Just as she'd suspected, the Vagrant stood in front of her, though something was obviously off about him. It took Mona a moment in the darkness to spot the blood covering his face and neck, the way his eyelids drooped, as if it was taking all his energy to keep them up.
“What in the world happened to you?” Mona breathed.
Had he been attacked by wolves? Gotten into a fight with one of the villagers? Either way, she suspected she wasn't going to find out anytime soon, as the Vagrant suddenly slumped forward. She caught him in her arms.
She started to drag him back over the threshold, only for him to suddenly backwards like he'd been burnt. Mona stared at him. “What are you doing? Come inside. You need help.”
She slipped her arms under his again and guided him forwards. This time, the Vagrant followed her into the house, feet dragging against the floorboards. The stench of blood filled her nostrils, but she did her best to ignore it. It wasn't like she'd never smelt it before.
Normally, Mona treated her patients on the wooden table at the back of the room, but given the limited light, she decided to place the Vagrant on the rug in front of the hearth instead. After kicking the door shut, she dragged him over and started to lay him down when she felt a sudden pain at her neck.
“What are you—” was all she managed to say before her words morphed into a scream.
It felt like one side of her throat was being crushed and stabbed at the same time. Mona tried to push the Vagrant off, but he was latched on hard, clinging to her like some kind of parasite. White stars flashed across her vision. She had no idea what was happening, only that she'd never known pain like this before.
Mona hit the wall. Something jumped under her arm. Looking down, she realised she was still holding the poker. She grabbed the end and, with all the strength she could summon, smashed it into the Vagrant's back over and over. His grip on her loosened slightly, allowing her to wrench herself free and stumble back.
Mona felt like she was going to faint. She stuck out a hand and caught one of the wooden beams that ran along her wall as the world lurched and threatened to drag her down. The Vagrant stood in front of her, illuminated by the light of the fire. He no longer slumped, and while Mona couldn't make out his full expression properly, she could have sworn there was a smile on his face.
Once the initial nausea had passed, she raised a hand and pressed it to the side of her neck. There was blood there, torn-up skin. She jumped as her fingertips brushed an opened wound.
“Y-you bit me,” she stammered.
The Vagrant took a step forward, and now Mona saw, by the light of the fire, the fresh blood that clung to his lower face. Her blood. The stains on his neck probably didn't belong to him, either. Had he killed someone just to get her to let him in? The thought sickened Mona.
“Get out of my house,” she whispered.
The Vagrant lifted his chin. “Or what?”
Mona raised the poker in his direction, trying but failing to keep her hand from quivering. The Vagrant sneered, then surged forwards and grabbed onto the end before Mona could swing it. He jerked his hand, and the tool was his.
Now that her defence had been stripped from her, Mona knew her only choice was to make a run for it. She turned her eyes to the door on the other side of the room. If she was fast enough, she'd be able to make it to the heart of the village and call for someone. Regardless of what they thought of her, she was sure no-one would turn a blind eye to a woman being attacked.
Pushing off her back foot, Mona made a lunge for the door. She'd almost made it when a pair of arms wrapped around her from behind and dragged her back. She swiped at the air, kicked out, screamed, but it was all in vain.
She hit the rug hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. The Vagrant fell on top of her, knees folded either side of her waist, his weight keeping her from scrabbling to her feet. When Mona tried to reach up and claw at his face, a pair of cold hands grabbed her by the wrists and pinned them down.
There was no way for Mona to escape, so she did the only thing she could: she threw back her head and shrieked.
The Vagrant's hand clamped down over her face, and once again, Mona was taken aback by how icy his skin felt against her own, so much so that she fell silent. She looked up at him with wide eyes. He looked different without his hat – younger, somehow, his dark hair falling around his face and head cocked in a way that suggested he was studying her.
“Be quiet,” he muttered.
With one of his hands over her mouth, Mona realised her other hand was free. She grabbed his wrist and tried to wrench him off her, but he wouldn't budge.
“I'm not letting go unless you calm down.”
Calm down? The very suggestion felt like a sick joke to Mona. She had to get out of here, and fast. But the Vagrant refused to free her. Even when she hammered at his arm with her fist, he didn't move. It was as if she were as inconsequential as a fly buzzing around his head.
Mona closed her eyes and let out a howl of frustration. The Vagrant gritted his teeth, leant over and snarled, “Shut up or I'll tear your throat out.”
Mona froze.
“Sorry, but I had to say something to quieten you down,” said the Vagrant, sitting up again. “And I didn't mean to bite you, either. I'm usually better at controlling myself than that.”
Was it Mona's imagination, or could she sense a hint of genuine apology in his tone? Slowly, he pulled his hand away from her mouth. The bottom half of her face felt numb with the cold.
“'Usually'?” she whispered.
“Of course,” said the Vagrant. “You're an intelligent woman, Mona. You've probably worked out what I am by now.”
She had. At least, she had an inkling. But even then, it didn't feel real. Mona had grown up with tales of supernatural creatures, yet unlike the villagers, who hung charms in their windows and sprinkled crushed herbs in protective rings around their beds, she'd never really believed them. She was a woman of logic. She put her faith in medicine, things she could touch and feel, not the superstitious ravings of a bunch of people who'd long ago branded her an outsider.
“I know exactly what you are,” said Mona. “You're a madman.”
The Vagrant's lips curled upwards. “Is that really the stance you want to take? Because I guarantee I could end your life before your next heartbeat and not feel a shred of guilt over it.”
The calmness of his voice led Mona to believe he wasn't bluffing. Before she could stop them, tears were welling up in her eyes again.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she sobbed.
“I've been trying to work that out myself for a while now,” the Vagrant said. “It's not like you're anything special. And yet I've found myself drawn to you since the moment we met. Why do you think that is?”
Mona shook her head. She didn't want to know. She watched the Vagrant as he ran his thumb along his bloody chin, slipped it into his mouth and grimaced.
“Chicken blood. It's rather foul, but it does the job.”
Mona wanted to throw up.
Once he'd finished sucking his thumb dry, the Vagrant shifted on top of her so that he could lean over her more comfortably. He'd torn up his travelling clothes a little to give the illusion he'd been attacked. A strip of material near his neck slipped down, revealing a sharp collarbone and a patch of smooth, white chest smeared with animal blood.
Mona's heart jumped, this time in a different way. She'd never been so close to a man before, especially not one in any state of undress. And now she looked down at herself, and realised that she, too, was far from presentable. She'd been ready to sleep when the Vagrant had knocked, and as such was dressed in just a loose, white slip. Normally, she would have died before letting any man see her like this.
But he's not a man, she reminded herself. If his claims were to be believed, he wasn't even human. Mona forced herself to collect her thoughts and stared up at the Vagrant with defiant eyes.
“Tell me what you want of me,” she said.
The Vagrant hummed softly. “I'm not entirely sure. I suppose right now, I just want to understand you.”
That certainly wasn't the answer Mona had been expecting. She wondered whether it was a ploy to lure her into a false sense of security before he went in for the kill. It certainly made sense if he was one of... those. Mona couldn't even bring herself to think the word, it was so preposterous.
“There's nothing to understand about me,” she said. “I'm a healing woman, plain and simple. I guarantee you my life is as boring as the next person's.”
“You see, that's where you're wrong,” said the Vagrant. “I've been watching you for a while now, Mona. You may live among a group on the surface, but deep down, you're as much of an outcast as me.”
Mona stiffened. “You've been watching me?”
The Vagrant ignored her, lifting a hand and brushing a lock of dark hair out of her eyes. “I hear the villagers talk about you. I hear the things they say. They're scared of you, Mona. And so often, that fear turns to anger, turns to violence.” He lowered his lips to her ear and whispered, breath cool on her skin, “Humans hate what they don't understand, and nobody here understands you.”
Mona might have thought he was trying to manipulate her had she not experienced the truth he spoke of for herself. She'd been trying to ignore it all these years: the glares, the cold shoulders, the way the temperature of the room seemed to drop whenever she walked in, whether it was the butcher's or the blacksmith's or even the tavern. She knew everyone in the village hated her, and in turn, she'd come to hate them herself. She'd shut herself off and carried out her duties with a quiet determination, waiting for the day when someone got drunk enough to come and get rid of her themselves, to wipe clean the anomalous stain on their happy, conformative little community.
The Vagrant spoke the truth, but he didn't know the half of it.
“And what gives you the right to pry into my life, hm?” Mona muttered. “You say we're both outcasts, but you're a monster. You've killed people.” She paused, hoping that he'd deny it, but when he remained silent, she closed her eyes and continued with shaking lips. “I am nothing like you, and I pride myself on that.”
She half-expected some kind of retaliation, but a thick silence followed, broken up only by the cracking of the hearth nearby. Finally, the Vagrant sighed, a languid, contemplative sound.
“Perhaps I was wrong, then,” he said. “I rarely make mistakes nowadays, but maybe you really are just a boring, simple human. It's a shame, too. I thought you were different, but...” He shrugged, and Mona opened her eyes to see a hint of real sadness pass across his features. Her heart sank as she worked out the implication behind his words.
“Wait,” she whispered, terror flooding her all over again.
“I'll try not to make it hurt, but it'll help if you stay still.”
Mona almost cried out when she felt his breath on her neck, his lips brushing her wound. Every muscle in her body tensed up like springs as she braced herself for the pain.
“It wasn't supposed to be like this.”
Several heartbeats had passed before Mona realised she'd spoken the line out loud. The Vagrant remained with his lips at his neck, though to her shock, he hadn't bitten her yet, as if he were waiting for her to elaborate. Mona took the opportunity and ran with it, anything to buy her a few more seconds of life.
“I always imagined myself living alone, but not like this,” she said. “This village... It feels like a prison. No-one acknowledges me. They don't even look at me unless I'm helping them, and then the moment they're out of the door, I'm a stranger to them again.”
Mona took a deep, shaky breath as her eyes grew wet once more. Reluctant to let the Vagrant see, she turned her head to the side and stared at the window at the back of the room. “Do you know how many times I've dreamt about running away into that woodland? Just throwing off my shoes, disappearing into the trees and never looking back?” The thought enveloped her like a warm, familiar blanket, and she smiled despite herself. “A simple, wandering life. I'd probably be dead within a week, but it would be more meaningful than this.”
By the time she'd fallen quiet, Mona was trembling. She'd only meant to stall the Vagrant, but somehow, she'd managed to tap into things she'd never even admitted to herself, let alone another person. Was that why she was crying right now? Not because she was going to die, but because she'd finally allowed herself to be honest?
No-one had ever given her the time before. No-one had ever stopped to listen to her. Maybe if they had, they'd learn that she'd never had a choice. Her mother had died when she'd been a teen, and she'd inherited this house instead of moving away because it was the only place she'd ever known. She'd never had the means to make her own decisions, and when she had, she'd been too spineless to follow through with them.
That was why she hadn't run away. Because she'd been scared.
Well, Mona wasn't going to let fear rule her life anymore. Even if it was just for these final few moments, she would face death with her chin held high, knowing she'd admitted the truth to herself at last.
“Do it,” she commanded.
The Vagrant's grip on her wrist tightened, and she felt his breath hitch against her neck. Mona squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the pain of his teeth against her throat.
Slowly, he pulled away.
“What are you doing?” she stammered.
The Vagrant turned his eyes to the hearth. When he spoke, his words eerily echoed the thoughts in Mona's mind: “I'm giving you a choice.”
For a long time, Mona simply lay there on the rug, staring up at him. Then she scrambled to her feet and took a step back. The Vagrant did nothing to stop her, just continued to stare into the fire like a man in a trance.
Determined not to squander her chance at escape, Mona dashed over to the door. Her hand stopped, however, as she reached for the handle. She turned to look over her shoulder. The Vagrant hadn't moved. Her eyes fell on that slither of exposed collarbone.
“Will you follow me if I run?” she asked.
The Vagrant waited a few seconds before shaking his head. “No.”
“And if I call for help? Tell people what you are and bring a mob back with me?”
The suggestion sounded needlessly hostile even before she'd finished speaking. When the Vagrant looked up at her, Mona noticed a hint of mockery shining in his dark eyes. “If that's what you want to do, then go ahead. I'll be gone before you return.”
Mona glanced at the door. Just a few steps, and she'd be free of this house. She could get help, have her wound seen to, put this nightmare behind her.
But what then? Return to a life of scorn? Spend every day staring out of the window into the forest, daring herself to take a step outside but too scared to make that first move?
Life wasn't meant for that. She wasn't meant for that.
And maybe tomorrow, she would wake up and realise all of this had indeed been a terrible dream, that the Vagrant she'd been talking to outside her house had been a figment of her imagination all along; but for now, she left the door behind her and walked towards him slowly. He held out his hand, palm upturned. Mona reached out to touch it, then paused. She could still turn back now, and the Vagrant probably wouldn't stand in her way.
If she wanted to create a point of no return, there was one thing she had left to do.
Mona reached down, took hold of the base of her slip, and pulled it above her head. She took her time, relished the feeling of the cold air on her skin followed by the heat of the fire that rushed in to replace it. She dropped it to the floor on top of the fire poker.
She'd always imagined her first time naked in front of a man would be a daunting experience, and sure enough, Mona felt her cheeks start to burn as the Vagrant looked upon her. But there was a softness to his gaze, too, an intimacy in the way he ran his eyes over her body where she'd expected only hunger. Slowly, reverently, he placed his hands on her waist. Mona gasped at the temperature of his skin on such a private part of her body.
“Scaramouche,” he whispered, leaning forward.
It took Mona a few seconds to realise he was telling her his name. Somehow, it felt more intimate than the act of her showing him her body.
“Scaramouche,” she just managed to repeat before his lips met her neck.
This time, the pain was less of an explosion and more of a slow build. Mona felt his teeth slip into her, felt the crushing agony grow and grow until she was trembling in his arms. But she stood tall, just as she'd promised herself. Even when the blood rolled down her back and she heard the soft gulping noises as Scaramouche drank from her, she didn't resist. She dragged a hand up his back, fingers exploring the curve of his muscles, the jut of his shoulder blade through his robes, before finally fisting them in his hair.
“Keep going,” she whispered. “Take what you need.”
Scaramouche groaned in response. His hand dropped to her backside and squeezed the flesh hard, clutching her against him. Mona smiled wistfully. She could feel her mind slipping away, the world around her spiralling down into a warm, enticing darkness.
She didn't fight it.
*
Night passed, and with the grey light of dawn came a new day for the village.
Just before the sun rose, a pair of figures made their way out of the house. The first was a man dressed in dark clothes who carried himself with the confidence of a seasoned traveller despite his youthful face. He walked over to a nearby bush, picked up the wide-brimmed hat he'd discarded beneath it, and fitted it onto his head, then walked back and took the hand of the second figure. This one was a woman clad in a long, green tunic cut off at the knees. She nodded in thanks and allowed herself to be led forward, smiling despite her obvious unsteadiness.
Later on in the morning, a woman would turn up looking to procure some cough medicine, only to find the door unlocked and the house empty. She would walk inside and notice the discarded white slip on the floor, run her hand over the bloodstains on the rug where just hours before, two bodies had lay entangled with one another, the embers of the dying fire casting a dim, flickering light across their naked skin. Then she would take a closer look at the slip and find that it, too, was dyed with blood, before running back into the village to tell people that Mona, their beloved healer, that precious young woman who just couldn't quite fit in, had been murdered during the night.
But by then, the two figures would be long gone. And now, they laughed with one another as they made their way towards the forest, as if all of this were little more than a beautiful, endless dream; a human and monster no more, but a pair of ghosts drifting hand in hand into the light of dawn.