The morning after Lady Gridelin vanished was the morning in which all parents sent daggers wrapped in silk with their children as they left for school. Lady Gridelin had slipped from the room, seemingly undetected, leaving the ropes that bound her to her bed in frays, and the chains that desperately clung to the door bent and broken. But she had lit all the candles in the room before she left, and even in the drippingly rosy light from Dawn's bloody fingernails scraping across the sky, breathing shadows took cover behind the flickering flames and told lies to those that questioned where Lady Gridelin had gone.
Only a fool is afraid of the night, and this was a village of people who had learned to hide their foolishness. They trusted the night and it's gentle, longing embrace and ran from the sun as it devoured the stars and the moon every morning.
"Lady Gridelin is a creature of the light. If she looks upon you, you fall to ashes," a father whispered to his son as he coaxed him out the door, sending him quickly off to school. "Protect yourself with the dagger, and do not look her directly in the eyes."
The boy took the knife that was swaddled carefully in white silk, and nodded ceremoniously as he tucked it into his pocket.
"The path that Lady Gridelin walks catches fire with each footstep," a mother murmered as she patted her daughters hair protectively, choosing to keep her indoors until Lady Gridelin was found.
"She hides in the sunbeams and cuts your throat as you're blinded by the light," a grandmother spoke, reciting the knowledge as if it were said thousands of times before. She was slowly wrapping damp guaze around the eyes of a baby, casting it in involuntary darkness. The baby shook with fear at the seriousness of the world it had fallen into as its salty tears mixed with the warm water that dripped in pathways from the guaze and its cries were muffled by an insistent lulaby.
Lady Gridelin herself walked the streets, carefully and in fear. She had wrapped her bedsheets around her naked shoulders and the corners were caked with mud. She had become lost and was wandering in circles like the sunspots that began dancing in front of her eyes.
"There she is." A group of boys saw the woman stumbling over herself as she ran to find her way. "Careful, she will eat you alive and use your bones as a candle and your hair for the wick."
Lady Gridelin began crying, and ran faster.
"Take out your knives men and do not let her grab you. She sips life as if it were wine." Another boy unwrapped his dagger and let the red silk fall to the ground. They chased her through the streets catching the sheets that trailed from her shoudlers and cutting them the pieces.
Lady Gridelin saw her home from the corner of her eye. It was a house obscured in darkness that was unfamiliar even when seen twice.
She ran quickly in and wrapped the chains back around the door. She blew the candles out and tied herself back into her bed, covering her head with the sheets and muffling her ears with her hands.
"She's escaped for today, but we'll get her tomorrow, eh men?" She heard the boys yell after giving up clawing and kicking at her door.
She turned over onto her stomach and let the tar black shadows drip over her and shield her from the day.
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