Celeste Ledgerwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Celeste Ledgerwood came to Thawless to count the dead, and she couldn't find the book that held them. She was a blue-haired nymph with an accountant's soul. Every soul the horrors of Thawless had claimed sat in one cursed ledger, unbalanced, and she meant to balance it. But she had never seen the ledger. She couldn't count a single name until she found where it rested. She crouched by an old stone well, the only landmark that hadn't lied to her. "Okay," she muttered. "When there's a MacGuffin, you follow the weird stuff." And Thawless had gone very weird. Down the lane, a public privy shuddered and hopped like a spooked frog. Water sprayed from its bowl. A second privy, farther off, spun in a slow circle, lid clapping. Celeste squinted. The toilets weren't random. They all leaned toward one shuttered building, like iron filings toward a magnet. "Cursed things point at other cursed things," she said. "Basic exposition, thank you." Then a striped calico cat shot past her boots and froze. Its green eyes fixed on the same shuttered building. It purred, but the purr broke into sharp, clicking bursts, like a smoke alarm learning to speak. "That's the 'danger's inside' noise," Celeste whispered. "I have watched enough movies to know I should ignore it. I never do." She followed the cat and the hopping privies to the door. It hung open a crack. Inside, on a lectern of black wood, sat a huge book. Its cover breathed. Names crawled across the pages on their own, thousands of them, wet and glowing. The cursed ledger. Her whole reason for coming to Thawless. Celeste's fingers itched for a pen. She stepped in. A shape uncurled from the shadow of the lectern and stood upright. A white rabbit, no taller than her waist, in a scuffed leather vest and heavy boots. His eyes burned orange. When he grinned, his mouth held rows of long, sharp teeth. "Bookkeeper," the rabbit said. His voice was soft and pleased. "I'm Warren Fangsworth. Nobody counts my names." Celeste stopped. Her heart slammed. She made herself smile. "Great. A killer bunny guarding the audit," she said. "You're the deleted scene nobody asked for." Warren's grin widened. "Come closer. See how the ledger works." "I've seen this movie," Celeste said. "The curious one always dies first." But she edged forward anyway, eyes on the crawling names. Behind her, the calico's purr snapped into a frantic rattle. The privies outside stopped hopping all at once. The whole lane went silent. Celeste reached the lectern and looked down. She saw the ledger, close enough to read. Every name. Every soul owed. The count she needed, finally in front of her. Warren stepped between her and the book. "Now you've found it," he said, teeth shining. "Getting near it is a different tally." Celeste swallowed. The ledger was real. It was here. And a hungry thing stood between her and the first line.