#moonacreweek2025

Moonacre week 2025 themes!!

June 1st - 7th

1: Gateway

2: Falling

3: Twilight

4: Nature's Fury

5: Exhaustion

6: Umbrella

7: Everyday Magic

Day 1: Gateway

Something’s missing.

Alright, so the world’s going to shit, and it’s one of these overcast days in early summer that feel like late autumn because it’s cold and grey and windy, so he may not be in the best mood to draw this kind of conclusion. But, standing on the pavement just outside Regent’s Park, folding his pocket umbrella and staring at a spot on the pavement that may once have been a piece of chewing gum, Robin has the sharply distinct feeling that something is missing.

He doesn’t know what it is, though. Bit of a hassle if he wants to find it. Keys, wallet, inhaler, phone, earpieces, they’re all there. And it’s not something personal, it’s something larger, something affecting everything around him, and he hasn’t hat that feeling since he was a teenager and realised that his father made a living winning court cases for the worst capitalists in the city – and even then, it wasn’t so clear.

Can everyone feel it?, he wonders, looking around. The people walking past him look busy and harried, not stopping to look left and right, but that’s nothing new, this is London, after all.

To Robin, there’s a pull.

Day 7: Everyday Magic

They step through the gate, and Robin turns to close it.

“No, leave it open, please”, Maria says. “Just a little bit?”

So he takes a rock the size of his fist and places it at the gate post.

Maria is still shivering and her clothes, the red velvet coat…dress…thingy and the white lace dress, are soaking wet. Even Robin’s leather gear is beginning to feel a bit damp. He goes to look for the house key in the little milk pitcher in the shed and finds them some dry clothes in his old wardrobe and his mother’s, and then they make tea in the small kitchen with the colourful tiles and the old coal stove. The kitchen clock tells him that it is either a new day, or he spent no time at all beyond the gate.

Day 6: Umbrella

It’s still raining apocalyptically when they step outside, and the skies hurl thunder and lightning at them as if they wanted to stop them.

Were he alone, Robin might be deterred by the weather. As it happens, he is not alone, and if Maria can walk through the rain in a white lace dress and a spectacular red velvet coat with sleeves that cover her fingertips, who is he to stay behind?

At least her boots are sturdy. Maria’s hair and clothes are soaking wet within minutes. Robin wishes he could help, but his umbrella would be torn to shreds by the strong winds, and she steadily refuses his jacket.

The brambles shy away from her but keep lurking, like hyenas waiting for the lion to leave. The pines loom over her but daren’t touch.

Day 5: Exhaustion

He comes to on the sofa. Canapé. Something cool touches his temples and he realises it’s a damp handkerchief – an old-fashioned one, with lace and everything, and it smells a bit like lavender and heliotrope.

How the hell did she manage to wrestle him onto the sofa?

Her face shows up in his field of vision, and again, her name is the first thing that comes to mind.

“Merryweather.”

“Nope.” She shakes her head, accompanied by a flash of lightning outside. “It’s still storming. Heavily so.”

Day 4: Nature's Fury

Pines, again. So many pines. First the heather, then the gorse, now the pines. Robin has had his share of spiky, somewhat copper-tinted shrubs and trees for today. It’s getting harder and harder to see the ground beneath his feet, and he has no desire to fall down another literal rabbit hole today, or ever.

At the sight of a deciduous tree, he almost sighs with relief. The pine forest gives way to elms and meadows, and he can definitely see some sort of building in the distance. As he makes his way over, the landscape around him changes once more. The sky is now the colour of plum butter, a ripe, almost bloody purple, decorated with the first twinkling stars. The nearest trees appear to be fruit trees, simultaneously bearing apples or pears and blooming pearly white and completely off-season, as if panicking because summer is already over, like a Lammas flush. Maybe this is an orchard belonging to the building ahead – a small castle, really – but if so, it hasn’t been tended to in a long time. As in his mother’s garden, the branches are overgrown, and the grass grows taller and taller the closer he gets to the castle.