Child Of The Night #nightdwellers #beginningline He stepped silently out of the shadows like a spectre, his face ashen in the cold moonlight, the wind lifting the tails of his suit jacket and playing with the strands of his thick, chestnut hair. “So it’s come to this,” he said. Anger flickered in his eyes. “We have to!” she yelled out of despair. She buried her face in her hands. “She’s... She’s not normal Richard”, she mumbled raising her head to look at him. “She’s your family!” he hissed back. “Please just come inside and talk to them”, she said softly. “Have you lost your fucking mind?” he shouted. Her arms hung lamely at her sides. The lights from the orphanage windows lit the anguish in her face, and he noted how much older his wife looked. “It happened again Richard, the whole chandelier came down and nearly killed me. How does that happen? How does it just fall down? And the other day on the ladder? How does that happen? It’s her, I know it is”. His demeanour softened slightly as he took her hand, “Sandra, you can’t just give a child away. You are her aunt and the only family she has left”. “But she’s EVIL!” she wailed pulling away from him. “She is troubled, she just lost both her parents and has been shipped across the country to live with people that she doesn’t know. Look, honey, I know it’s been hard with the move and the...” He trailed off, he couldn’t bring himself to say the word: Miscarriage. “Just come home and we’ll figure it out”. She wanted to scream and kick and push him away. She wanted to slap his face for making her feel like she was losing her mind. She wanted to go inside and tell the orphanage to take the girl away from them, but she had no more fight left in her. Her anxiety had worn her thin and she felt emotionally dried up. She closed her eyes as he led her away and she pursed her lips as she swallowed her tears. Was she losing her mind? Were all the incidents and injuries that had occurred since the child arrived just accidents? Her guilt began to dilute her fear as they drove silently home. They noticed the smoke from a block away, but it was when they turned into their street that they saw the swirling lights from the fire engines and the swarms of onlookers that pointed and held their hands in front of their mouths in shock. He sped up to the house and stopped the car abruptly in the middle of the street. He flung his door open and dashed towards their burning home. She already knew what had happened. She opened the car door and got out, but she couldn’t bring herself to look back towards the house. She only had a second to wonder if the girl was inside before she saw her across the street, her face lit up by the dancing flames that engulfed their home.