The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Nineteen

Gone

The Book of the New Moon Door cover image: A book with yellowing, wrinkled pages lies open on an old wooden desk, with a sprig of lavender lying in the center.

Fallen leaves, turned from pale yellow to deep gold in the bizarre evening light, collect around Berend’s feet as he crosses the wide, central thoroughfare. On either side, the buildings loom tall and shadowed, and a thin green-black sliver of the vertical forest in the south cuts a dark line through the red-tinted sky. It’s shorter than it used to be, and something flickers in and out of view at the top, jutting out at different sharp angles whenever it appears. Berend tries not to look at it. His eye still aches from the last time he tried.

It’s quiet here, and all the windows up and down the street are shuttered. So lights, not even a burning scarlet reflection, shine out from amongst the dark wood casements and between climbing vines. If any of the wealthy citizens who live in this district are at home, they’re hiding very well. Berend hopes—because he’s less inclined than usual to pray, given that the gods are either dead or about to be—that Lady Breckenridge is among them.

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New Patreon Post/ The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Twenty

The world is ending, she wants to scream in the man’s face, none of it matters.
The Book of the New Moon Door

Even in the midst of the apocalypse, you still have to deal with people. The latest chapter of The Book of the New Moon Door is now available on Patreon.

Song of the Week

Mourning Ritual, “Bad Moon Rising” (Creedence Clearwater Revival cover)

Good morning!

I had a lovely time at What the Hex yesterday! Hello to everyone I met there. If you signed up for the newsletter, check your inbox for a confirmation email! MailerLite really wants you to consent before it adds you to the mailing list.

That’s going to be my last event of the year, and now I’m focusing on getting The Book of the New Moon Door published and into your hands. If you’re keeping up with the serial version, there will be a new chapter on Patreon tomorrow, and last week’s chapter will be here on the website to read for free on Wednesday.

As always, thanks for being here, and have an excellent week.

The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Eighteen

Dust

Table of Contents

It’s only been a few hours since Berend became acquainted with the wall of bone, but it looks like wind and rain have been battering against it for centuries. The bones have turned the color of old parchment. Pores and cracks have opened up all along the lengths of each rib and femur, each dome of a skull, and all the knobbly ends of joints Berend can’t identify, piled up as they are. Under his feet, fragments of bone crack and crumble into dust.

A thick fog blankets the brief stretch of ground between the street and the wall, and it covers Berend’s good eye and muffles his ears. He’s maybe three steps past the temple when it disappears, lost in the morass of gray. The wall runs east to west, as far as he can remember, so he puts it on his left side and places one tired foot in front of the other. Even the eerie red light that made its home on the western horizon doesn’t penetrate the fog anymore.

How much time do we have? he wonders. It’s a foolish question—no one has the answer, not even the gods, and if he thinks about it, he’ll probably stop stark still and not be able to move again until the world finally does end.

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New Patreon Post/ The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Nineteen

They’re almost certainly gone, and whether that means far away or turned into bloody red paste, he can’t say.
The Book of the New Moon Door

Berend tries to tie up loose ends, and one of them comes looking for him. You can read this chapter right now on Patreon.

Song of the Week

The Tallest Man on Earth, “The Sparrow and the Medicine”

Hello! It’s Monday again.

The What the Hex Autumn Witches’ Market is this Sunday! Brooke and I will be at Dresden Castle in Cudahy, WI, and doors open at noon. Admission is free! Here’s a link to the Facebook event for more details.

This market will be the second opportunity to preorder The Book of the New Moon Door. The third and final opportunity will be on this website in late November. More on that next month.

Also, if you signed up for the newsletter, be sure you check your email for the confirmation! You won’t be added to the list unless the mailer program is very sure you consent.

I am still deep in rewrites, so please enjoy a new chapter on Patreon tomorrow and last week’s chapter here on Wednesday.

Have an excellent week!

The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Seventeen

Knowledge

Table of Contents

Around the ruin of Father Pereth’s office, Isabel has constructed a wall of books.

It’s really more of a low fence, three or four books high, depending on thickness. She stacked them haphazardly at first, but that prompted probing investigations from glowing tendrils and many-jointed fingers. Now, church records, illuminated manuscripts, and typeset prayer books stand in neat rows like bricks in a wall. She adds one more at the edge of the gap, a bound copy of the Kalusandr Scrolls, and winces as the already yellowed pages make contact with the heavy, damp air.

If this works, and this defense holds long enough for someone to find a way to send the thing beyond the wall back to the undreamt-of abyss from whence it came, all these books will be ruined. Centuries of church doctrine and millennia of history are only as durable as paper and ink. How can the church rebuild when all their knowledge is covered in mildew and mud?

It’s more important to save the people, she reminds herself. Knowledge survives when people do. What use are books in an empty city?

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New Patreon Post/ The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Eighteen

Huge, multi-jointed fingers, each as tall as a man and gray as death, reach out ahead and grope blindly at the muddy ground. One swollen knuckle splits open, revealing a green eye with a pinpoint pupil.
The Book of the New Moon Door

Did someone order some body horror? No? Well, here it is anyway. You can read this chapter right now on Patreon.

Song of the Week

Basia Bulat, “Already Forgiven”

Good morning!

If you’re here from Bitchcraft Fair, welcome! And if you signed up for the newsletter, be sure to check your inbox for a confirmation email. I’ll be sending them out right after I post this.

While I work on getting The Book of the New Moon Door ready for publication, you can read the serialized version here. There will be a new chapter on my Patreon tomorrow, and last week’s chapter will be up here to read for free on Wednesday. All the previous chapters live under the Stories tab above (under the Menu if you’re on mobile). The published version will differ in several ways from the serial version, but there may still be spoilers.

Whether this is all old news to you, or if it’s your first time here, I appreciate you. Have an excellent week.

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