a bump in the night || fernand & sybille
In the early hours of the night in the Delacroix household, everything was silent. The house squeaked and creaked, but it was in the way older houses were prone to do, a comforting reminder of the house breathing in, and out. Down the hall her father Marcel softly snored, and the occasional carriage passed by on the street over from their cul de sac, but all was peaceful. These were the soothing sounds of Sybille’s childhood home, and they lulled her to sleep easily.
However, a sudden snap disturbed the silence. Sybille stirred, slowly surfacing through the levels of sleep. The unmistakable sounds of footsteps downstairs quickly pulled her up to consciousness. Her eyes snapped open, looking around her room, until a thump downstairs told her where the intruder had come in. Heart beating fast and heavy, hands shaking she sat up and quietly placed her feet on the floor, lighting the lamp next to her bed after three attempts with the match.
With the warm glow of her lamp making the demons of the shadows a little less frightening, she took a deep breath, and waited to hear the sounds of a robber, of cabinet locks snapping, of drawers of silver being rifled through, but instead she heard nothing but a steady, curious pacing. It continued for long enough that she gave a bitter curse and pulled open her bedside cabinet, finding the object she sought towards the back of it.
In bare feet and in nothing but her nightgown she exited her room and walked down the stairs, her lamp enclosing her in a golden light as she entered the drawing room. Behind her back she tightly clasped a long, and wickedly sharp dagger. The light cast out the shadows of the room, and Sybille was surprised, and quite frankly, relieved to see it was none other than a street urchin she had seen in Simone’s company. She and Simone had been on good terms… though Simone had been scarce the past few weeks. Hopefully she hadn’t earned her ire, not enough to warrant a break in from one of her acquaintances. The dagger was a reassuring weight.
“It’s rather late to be calling in, isn’t it?” she said to the man in a teasing, chiding sort of voice, as if she was used to break-ins in the middle of the night.