Another chapter is ready for your reading pleasure, and I just want to personally thank everyone involved. I could never imagine how our story would unfold, but that’s the magic. Seeing how everyone adds their personal touch & style is the best.
I can’t wait to see what Lucy does next.
Chapter 3 is out! So, please read the next chapter here.
Lucy's journey: Chapter 3
Welcome to the ongoing story of Lucy’ Cowen, who has gone from a frightened teenager to a demon hunting psychic bad-ass in a shorter time it takes me to brush my teeth.
Chapter two
In the days following her ordeal, Lucy would venture back to the old oak tree at the edge of their property. It grew twisting from the earth, birthed like some gnarling giant straddling the world she knew and the wood beyond it. She approached cautiously, expecting the figure to reveal itself, but it never did. Defeated, she turned back to the house. Her stepmother shunned such notions as a mere childish fantasy and took to repeated scoldings after that night for waking the household. But grandma was strangely quiet, biting her tongue whenever they met.
As Lucy trundled back, she noticed the same concerned eyes peering from an upstairs window. Grandma was watching.
Grandma knew better than Lucy’s stepmother. She had lived in a time and place when the existence of demons was known. For some strange reason, though, they were no longer thought of as real!
And now, now the demons were having a field day.
Fairy tales tell you that if you don't believe in something, it dies: poof, gone. But when you don't believe in a demon, it only has more power to move: to scare, to tamper, to plant doubts.
Grandma smiled down at Lucy. She didn't want to frighten the girl, not yet at least. There would be a time to bring the truth to the girl’s attention, but not until she was absolutely sure it was, indeed, what she thought it was.
Lucy, being an inquisitive child, was not deterred by her stepmother's scoldings. That night in bed, Lucy was awakened by the faint odor of what she recalled as that of her father's cigar. Standing at her window looking out at that massive oak tree, a voice whispered into her ear again. It was compelling her to go and seek a small moss patch at the base of the tree.
A key that would unlock father's secrets would be found. Not waiting for morning, Lucy slipped out of the house into the darkness in only her nightgown, barefooted. She kneeled down digging the moss up with her bare hands. There, now revealed, was a large ornate brass key. Returning, she noticed a light was on in her Grandmother's room. Mysterious shadows flickered about in the window.
Has this all been a dream? She wondered that next morning. Looking at her dirty fingers and soiled feet were certainly proof positive it was not. Then reaching under her pillow was that brass key. Ms Kitty advised Lucy not to tell her stepmother but to take it directly to Grandmother. Later that afternoon, Lucy and Grandmother slowly ascended the staircase to the attic. The key fit perfectly as the bolt released….
Inside were items and devices that caused Lucy’s jaw to drop and her Grandmother to nod knowingly. Tables covered in vials filled with clear liquid marked Holy Water, silver tipped stakes, traps. On the walls hung archaic technology splattered with stains too strange to think about and on shelves, books marked with symbols and scribblings almost impossible to decipher.
“Your father was an inventor, Dear,” said Grandmother softly, “and he put those inventions to good use hunting demons.”
Lucy heard her words but didn’t have it in her to respond, not right away at least. The revelation that her father wasn’t just an inventor but a demon hunter? It was almost unbelievable. Even with all the strange activity lately, seeing his burning corpse, the way his phantom spoke to her. Could it really be true? Ms Kittie hopped up onto a shelf and placed her paws onto a notebook before cocking her head toward Lucy, urging her to read. So Lucy reached forward to pick it up. The energy in those pages radiated through her skin before she even touched them. It burned, but didn’t hurt, as she held its weighty mystique in her hands.
Her fingers flicked through the pages, eyes scanning all that she could understand about her father and his past. Beings that he encountered, things that should not exist, monsters that he defeated. As she approached the end of his writings, Lucy finally understood, that night in the library her temper was likely not her own. The fire? Not her fault at all but instead the curse of a demon. Her father, her family, this household clearly had an attachment that cost him his life. Lucy knew exactly where to start looking for the demon still stalking House Corwen. She’d bet her life on it.
She knew that venturing in the night to that place would be dangerous. It would take much time for her to prepare, despite her eagerness to prove all of her suspicions correct. The following nights consisted of her sneaking into the room and studying what her father had created. She continued to read from the book she had taken, twice over, thrice over, too many times to count. Among its dusty pages, a note slipped to the floor. It read, “I’ve found it, where they are coming from. I’ve found the ELSEWHERE.”
The burning in her fingers slowly took on a different sensation the more she read. It energized her. It made her feel powerful. And like the greatest euphoria, she began reading out of habit like a soft obsession.
She would slip her hand onto one of the gleaming stakes when her addiction had been quenched that night, and practiced pushing it forward. She had imagined the heart of a demon, its form barely humanoid and consisting of mostly some dark, gel-like substance that the weapon effortlessly pushed into it. She had done it once. Through the imagined heart. Then the gut. Then the neck. And all the while, she couldn't help but keep a smile on her face, as if a larger force had called upon her, perhaps the spirit of her father that had ascended to someplace greater, to carry on what had been lost from his physical form.
She had to catch herself eventually from thrusting her weapon so quickly. She blinked, having a moment of clarity in the midst of this violent impulse. She was at pause for a moment. Even if this felt good... she was left shaking in her confusion.
The following morning Lucy tiptoed past her stepmother’s room, a task she’d mastered ever since she started sneaking out to her father’s secret room, and tapped on her grandmother’s door. There was no reply. It wasn’t like her grandmother to not be in her room.
She peered under the door and saw a light on with shadows moving around. She tried the doorknob and it opened easily as she turned it.
The light blinded her eyes momentarily as the door behind her slammed shut. She turned back and there was her grandmother, out of breath with dirt on her face.
Lucy was stunned for a moment, then said, “Nan… why is there dirt on your face?”
“I’ve been…” She stopped short, fixing her gaze on Lucy’s feet. “Where are your shoes, child?”
Lucy looked down too. She had been so startled by her grandmother’s sudden arrival that it took her a moment to think—then she remembered.
“I took them off so I wouldn’t make a sound in the hallway.”
The frown on grandmother’s face softened. “Clever girl. Now go and get them, quickly. We’ve things to do.”
Lucy darted back out of the room and down the hall. Her mind was racing. ‘Is Nan taking me to hunt monsters?’ She imagined taking her father’s things and battling wretched demons with her grandmother, like her father must have done. She grabbed her shoes and sprinted back for the door.
Then she skidded to a stop- Her stepmother was blocking the way.
Lucy cursed herself. She had made too much noise!
“What is all this racket you’re making, Lucy?”
The ice-cold marble stole feeling from Lucy's soles, but the brass key in her pocket burned like a coal against her thigh. Her stepmother blocked the hallway, arms crossed, that familiar crease between her eyebrows cutting deep.
"Well?" Margaret's voice sliced through the pre-dawn quiet. "What's so urgent it couldn't wait for sunrise?"
Lucy held up her muddy shoes like evidence. "Nan's wedding ring fell in the garden somewhere." The lie tasted bitter on her tongue, but not as bitter as the truth would.
Margaret's gaze shifted past her to where Grandmother stood breathing hard in the doorway. "Your ring, Mother Corwen? The gold band you claimed would outlast us all?"
"Even the strongest metal grows loose with time," Grandmother replied, each word carefully measured.
"How remarkably convenient." Margaret's smile could have cut glass. "First Lucy's midnight adventures, now missing heirlooms. This family certainly has a talent for... losing things."
The pause before 'losing things' hung in the air like an accusation. Lucy watched hurt flicker across her stepmother's face before hardening into something more dangerous—the look of a woman who suspected she'd been made a fool of one too many times.
Margaret swept past them both, her heels striking the floor like hammer blows. Only when her bedroom door slammed did Lucy dare to breathe.
"She knows." Lucy's whisper barely stirred the air.
"Margaret has always known more than she admits." Grandmother's eyes fixed on the window where oak branches clawed at the glass. "The question is how much longer she'll pretend otherwise."
Lucy moved closer, catching the scent that clung to her grandmother's nightgown—copper and ozone, like the air before a lightning strike. "Nan, what were you really doing out there?"
"Checking your father's barriers. They're... wearing thin." Fear cracked through Grandmother's voice, just for a moment. "Every night those things try something new. Test a different weakness."
The brass key pulsed against Lucy's leg, warm as living flesh. She wanted answers, yes. But not if it meant her father was truly gone forever. Not if it meant the whispers crawling through her head were real.
Ms. Kitty materialized on the windowsill, amber eyes wide with urgency. Her mew sounded almost like a warning.
"She's scared," Lucy breathed.
"Smart cat. Fear keeps you alive in this business." Grandmother joined her at the window, voice gentling. "Your father trusted his instincts. Maybe you should trust yours."
Beyond the glass, dawn struggled against the darkness. In that gray space between night and morning, Lucy saw them—shapes that moved like oil against water, belonging to neither world.
Her breath clouded the window as she leaned closer. They were waiting. Patient as predators.
The whisper slid between her thoughts like silk: Little inheritor... your father's journal burns with such beautiful secrets. Such power. Just say yes...
Lucy jerked back, heart hammering against her ribs.
"You heard them too." It wasn't a question.
"I've been hearing them for five years." Grandmother's admission hung heavy between them. "They're getting desperate. That makes them more dangerous than ever."
The window shimmered, and suddenly her father stood beneath the oak tree—alive, whole, writing frantically in his leather journal. His mouth moved urgently:
"The ritual requires three... Hunter, Guardian, Inheritor... if I fail, the burden passes..."
Lucy pressed both palms against the glass, desperate to hear more. "What burden? What passes to who?"
But the vision shattered at her touch, leaving only her own reflection staring back—pale, hollow-eyed, looking far too much like her father in those final days.
"The choice." Grandmother's voice carried the weight of decades. "Between what you want and what the world needs. Between safety and duty." Her fingers found Lucy's shoulder, surprisingly strong. "Your father chose to protect everyone else. It cost him everything."
"And if I don't choose?"
"Then those things out there will keep pushing until something gives way. Your father's barriers, your sanity, this family." Grandmother's grip tightened. "Or me."
The word hit Lucy like a physical blow. She thought of her grandmother's dirt-stained face, the copper-and-ozone scent, the way she'd been breathing so hard.
How many nights had she been out there alone, fighting things Lucy couldn't even name?
"The choice has to be yours," Grandmother said softly. "I won't force what your father couldn't. But those barriers won't hold much longer, and I'm..." She paused, suddenly looking every one of her seventy years. "I'm not as strong as I used to be."
Lucy stared at the oak tree, its branches reaching toward the house like grasping fingers. She thought of the silver stakes in the attic, how perfectly they'd fit her hands. How the violent urges had felt like coming home to herself.
She thought of her father's burning corpse in that dream, how even death hadn't freed him from whatever he'd started.
She thought of her stepmother's wounded face, and how this house hoarded its secrets like weapons.
"What if I'm not strong enough?"
"Then you'll learn. Or you'll die trying." Grandmother's honesty cut clean as a blade. "But right now, doing nothing is also a choice. And it's the wrong one."
Ms. Kitty jumped down and padded toward the staircase, pausing to fix Lucy with eyes that held too much knowledge for any creature, real or imagined.
The attic waited above. The journal waited with its burning secrets. And beyond the window, the Elsewhere Folk waited for her answer with the patience of things that had learned to measure time in human lifespans.
Lucy pulled the brass key from her pocket. Its metal was warm as blood, humming with power that made her teeth ache.
In three hours, Margaret would wake and demand answers Lucy couldn't give. In three hours, the sun would burn away the gray spaces where impossible things lived.
But right now, balanced on the knife's edge between childhood and whatever came after, Lucy Corwen knew exactly who she had to become.
The key seemed to pull her toward the stairs.
Her bare feet found the first step, then the second.
Behind her, Grandmother whispered something that might have been a prayer.
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Love this! Great job with the second chapter.
Love the characters, loving grandmother, awful stepmother, smart girl-everybody classical, moving softly. Great!