Page 11 of Threads Of Madly Whispers

“It wasn’t hidden,” she finally breathes, snapping back to the present, her voice sharper now. “It was out in the open.” Her nail jabs at the page twice, a soft but insistent thud-thud against the parchment. “This is where it all started. And just last night, I think—I think—I put the pieces together. But I can’t be sure unless…unless we go there.Tonight.”

Her hand drags through her hair, fingers knotting at the roots like she’s trying to ground herself, but it’s no use. The tension in her voice, the way her eyes flicker with something close to desperation—it’s clear. She’s on the edge, dangling over some dark precipice we can’t yet see.

“I need answers,” she says, her voice barely holding itself together, and for the first time, I’m not sure if she’s looking for the truth or trying to outrun it.

“Weneed answers.” I reach for her hands, squeezing them gently, trying to anchor her spiraling thoughts. “Those answers mean just as much to you as they do to us.”

Her franticness, once hidden beneath that cool exterior, is starting to slip through the cracks, and I hate seeing her like this—unraveled, uneasy. She sighs, the tension in her shoulders loosening just a bit, though her eyes still blink with that restless feel.

“I know,” she breathes, the words fragile but steady.

“Now,” I say, nodding towards the map, “let us in onthose.” My finger taps the red markings smeared across the page like wounds.

She takes a breath, gathering herself before speaking. “This thing is much more complex than we thought. It’s not just a solid picture, it’s apolyptych, multiple layers, each revealing another beneath it.” Her fingers trace the symbols with a kind of reverence, as if the map itself is alive. “It’s like each symbol makes up another.”

“It’s one in many,” I add, the old saying rolling off my tongue, echoing the articles I’d buried myself in earlier this morning. The words feel heavier now, more than just theory.

“Exactly,” Naseria nods, her eyes lighting with a flicker of recognition, “Like a tree with many roots, all tangled beneath the surface.”

"Well, when you find a moment, I would appreciate it if you talked fewer parables and more constructed sentences, for my sake, of course”

“How unfortunate. This is probably because you —” he cuts her off.

“Sounding like Shakespeare is not something to puff your chest about, so swallow back whatever you were about to say and speak properly.”

“Well, areyoudone huffing and puffing?” I ask, biting back a laugh that threatens to slip past my lips.

“The clan is built on what they call theblood rituals,” she begins, her voice low and certain, like she’s reciting something forbidden. “Four circles, to be exact, and each one happens at a different location.” Her finger hovers over the map,again, tracing invisible lines between the markings. “Neither the time nor the date was mentioned in any of thereadings, butthis—” she jabs at the page with a sharp, deliberate motion, “shows the locations. Well… only three out of the four.”

Her words hang in the air, ponderous with what’s missing.

“Now, that was not so hard, was it?”

“A man of literature can easily woe a woman Miro, it’s words that make her we?—”

“Then he must have been sore to look at. I do not need words nor a fucking voice when l can have a pair of legs spread for me just fine with my —”

“Looks?” Naseria arches her brow like he possibly could not stand on his admiration.

“Charm,”he smirks

“Moving forward—” I playfully roll my eyes, a smirk tugging at the corner of my mouth. “The rituals are nothing short of their titles then, blood is shed,” I add, letting the words dwell, their gravity sinking into the space between us.

“Wait, so you want us to visit one of the locations tonight?”

Naseria nods

“As in the time you do not go searching for the boogeyman, because that’s when shit goes south?”Miro’s face is riddled with concern that is creepingly blooming in me.

“Yes, tonight,” she says.

“Any reason it has to betonight?” l ask because Miro does have a point. When you go searching for the things that stalk the shadows, you will find them baiting you with hungry teeth.

“There’ll be a full moon—and I know, what are the chances will find anything. But it’s worth trying.”

The rituals are rumored to unfold beneath the crimson glow of a red moon or, in plainer terms, a full moon. Butwith only twelve full moons gracing the sky each year, the alignment feels less like chance and more like an omen carved into the fabric of time. What weighs heavier is the lore that clings to that blood-soaked moon. Across faiths and philosophies, it is a symbol of malevolence, a celestial warning draped in shadow, heralding the arrival of something dark, something inevitable.

Yet the Pagans, with their ancient eyes and earth-bound hearts, saw it differently. To them, the red moon was no curse, but a beacon of change, a harbinger of transformation. But standing at the edge of this unraveling mystery, I can’t tell which is more terrifying, placing fragile hope in their misplaced beliefs, or surrendering to the creeping dread that reality is far more monstrous than myth.

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