Prologue: Summer 2017

He stands on the cusp of the world.

Toes barely brushing the overgrown, knee-high grass growing tall and proud in the courtyard, he waits, ever silent and watchful. He can hear the sounds of life, always so far away from this distant corner of buried dreams as the village readies itself for sleep. Carlisle has always loved this time of day, just as the fires begin to glow in their grates and families come together. He cannot help but stop, looking away from the calm, desolate ruin before him, to watch the little panes in the hollow glow red. He does not dare think of his own black windows, their glass broken by age and neglect. Only when he sees the first fire go out, its cheery orange warmth snuffed by an unknown, mysterious someone, does he turn away.

The world has grown dark around him, the rosy glow of the sun dipping down behind the distant, sleepy hamlet. He remembers it clearly as it had once been—he can almost see the thatched rooves, smoking chimneys, and ducked, bowed heads shuffling into homes after evening prayer. He can see the church—a massive, towering spire splitting the indigo sky that sits on an old, crumbling foundation built so long ago. The cedars—towering and unkempt—cast eerie shadows on the verge, and his sharp eyes can make out the distinct patterns of black on green. The wind moves through the yard, sending ripples to the walls of the crumbling homestead and the base of those wild cedar trees, as if some little creature was scurrying through the undergrowth.

But Carlisle knows better—there are no creatures, big or small, waiting for him here.

Only when the deep, inky blue gives way to a thick and obstinate black does Carlisle pull his eyes away from the grass. Forcing himself to look—how he hates to look—he fixes his gaze not on the distant village or overbearing cedars, but instead on the gnarled, towering oak tree in the centre of the grassy square.

He recalls her then, with a sudden fierceness that could've brought him to his knees. He sees her broken. He sees her whole. He sees her tall and beautiful and clever… the woman she would never grow to be. His eyes water, though the tears will never fall, and in the wavering, glittering world beyond, he fancies she is really there, silhouetted against the trunk with her thin, white arms reaching up to the sky…

He recalls her as she was that afternoon so long ago, in a time when the world was golden and there was nothing but the promise of hope.