Morsend is…underwhelming.
That is as much as Moira is able to say about the town that birthed her ancestors on her father's side.
The first thing they see as they walk down the hill is the cemetery and a small chapel next to it. After that, it's all houses one after the other. The town is small and not at all exciting or even pretty. Maybe the port and beach are prettier, but for the time being, Morsend is an ugly small town that looks empty.
Maybe the emptiness was because it was winter break. Moira is sure she would leave the town as much as she could if she lived here for the whole year around.
They do eventually reach the main street, mostly full of fish-related tourists traps, some restaurants and, thankfully, the Chinese restaurant.
The Golden Phoenix II was as typical as they came, very stereotypical with napkins shaped into cranes, painted walls and gold columns with the shape of dragons. The guy that checks them out is at most a year older than Moira and looks extremely bored. They're informed their food will be in half an hour and Charon and her take the time given to explore the main street a bit.
They walk slowly, looking at stores and stopping in front of some—Moira in front of a clothing store and Charon slowing down his walk by a second-hand book shop—and, by the time the half and hour indicated by the restaurant is up, Moira believes she has seen everything the town has to offer. Maybe the beach would hide something marvelous but at this point she highly doubts it.
The way back to the house is boring, the sun setting behind them too early and bringing a terrible cold with it. Moira really hopes it doesn't snow, her and the cold never agree with each other, an enormous contrast with Charon love of winter—nothing better than a heavy blanket and thick socks, he always says every time Moira mentions his strange love for it—while she has always preferred spring.
By the time they get to the house, Moira trembles in the dark and ponders the possibilities of requesting some sort of lighting to be installed on the uphill path to Ellis House. The gravel under her feet make her skid from time to time and the only guide to the house is the house itself, with its glowing windows making it look like a face staring down at them.
In the dark, the house's windows glow yellow, making it seem like the house is staring down at them, the windows eyes and the front porch a wide open mouth ready to swallow them whole.
Moira follows her brother as he enters the house, the previously dim chandelier hanging over the foyer looking much brighter in the dark of the night. They go directly to the dining room where the table has already been set for three—not four, they had been informed by the nurse that their grandmother ate mostly puree, porridge and soups and all of them in bed—their father putting napkins next to the forks, it seemed there were no chopsticks in the house.
"We bring a feast!" Exclaims Charon, lifting up the plastic bag where their food was, their father shushes Charon loudly.
"Shut up boy, your grandmother is sleeping" he growls and Charon looks down in guilt, shuffling the rest of the way into the dining room, Moira following with a grumbling stomach.
As her father and brother pull out every container from the bag, her dad turns to her as he puts the rice container on the table.
"Moira, go to the basement and get yourself something to drink, I saw that there was some soda in the fridge there" says her dad with a gentle smile, he almost looks fine, like he was before they go the news of their grandfather's death.
Moira freezes at the prospect of going down to the basement, at night even, and neither Charon or her father notice when she doesn't respond.
"There's a fridge down there?" Asks Charon with a confused chuckle "With soda inside?"
"There's a lot of stuff down there, including a washing machine and a bunch of old furniture and knickknacks" answers her dad, also amused, he smiles at Charon "You should check it out, I know you like those things"
"Ermm" interrupts Moira and both males turn to look at her expectantly "Charon…could you help me out with that…drink?"
Charon and her dad stay quiet for a second and then Charon raises an eyebrow in confusion before smiling widely.
"Sure thing Mo!" He says as he passes by her side on the way out and pats her shoulder "Come on, I'll also grab something for me. Do you want anything dad?"
"No thank you, I'm good with water" says their dad and before Moira can react Charon drags Moira out of the room.
The basement is, as she had suspected, the mysterious door in the kitchen, and the stairs down to it are the most terrifying thing she has ever seen. Charon palms the wall by the door, looking for a way to turn on the light, and eventually finds it, a single lightbulb turns on beyond the staircase. It lights up enough of the way for Charon to brave the stairs with a confidence Moira doesn't feel, but she follows, the wooden stairs creaking under their weight.
The basement is creepy and filled, as their father had told them, with old and broken furniture and many, many things everywhere—a gramophone, more books, rolled carpets, boxes upon boxes probably filled with more things, a fridge and a washing machine. But everything is located around a square shaped carpet in the middle, its vibrant red color making Moira believe it is the most recent addition to the basement. The composition of the furniture and stuff leave the middle of the basement free of anything, just the carpet. Moira wanders a bit as Charon goes directly to the fridge, and as she walks, her feet make a sound that is not the same creaking as the rest of the house, a crunch typical of when one steps on broken glass. Moira squints at the floor, trying to see what she had stepped on, and finds tiny shards of glass and a small pile of more of it in a corner, like it was in the process of being gathered to throw away.
Moira ignores it for the time being and keeps looking around, more curious than afraid the longer she stands in the basement.
The basement. Where her grandfather had died.
Oh. She had forgotten about that.
She wonders how her father had felt when he had entered this particular room. If he had felt nothing or if he had felt overwhelming sadness for the death of his estranged father.
"What do you want, Mo? There's not much, we'll have to go grocery shopping tomorrow after the funeral" is saying Charon as Moira keeps looking around.
Since there's not much to look at on the carpet, she notices immediately something strange about it, a corner slightly bunched up, showing a stain of some kind underneath.
"Mo?"
"Help me with this, I think here's something underneath" says Moira instead of answering as she crouches by the carpet and lifts the crumpled corner. The something she had seen was black paint but not just a splotch, no, it had been done with purpose, with a design in mind. Weird.
Charon lifts the carpet's corner without the need to crouch and manages to lift up half of the carpet in one go, folding it in half.
And there, Moira can see it clearly, a sigil of some kind, painted in the middle of the basement's floor, a circle with a X in the middle of it, a line with crescent moons at each end crossing the cross horizontally. In the upper part, between the lines of the cross what looked like a trident and on the opposite side, a vertical line going down and with a shorter line making something of an upside down christian cross.
All painted haphazardly, like in a rush, with some bold strokes in black paint while others looked too thin. Tiny shards of glass all over it, no, not glass, she can see it better now, mirror shards.
"What the fuck" whispers Charon at her side, Moira looks at him and finds his eyes wide and confused. She returns her attention to the sigil, frowning and leans forward to touch it, just to check, she thinks to herself overcome with the need to just touch it, to see how it feels.
Charon grabs her hand before she can, a movement too fast for the position he's in—still standing while Moira is crouching—and as result he falls forward, his free hand raising to stop his fall and making him crash to his knees in a painful drop that makes Moira flinch. His hand ends up falling directly over the sharp shards all over the design.
Not much blood comes out of the small wound it creates on the palm of his hand, but as Charon sits back and stares at the cut on the palm of his hand, as Moira frets over him with worry, some drops of his blood drop on top of the painted sigil.
Later in the month, Moira will recall this moment as the beginning of the end.