Night rain poured down, battering the stone paved street with fine, cold sounds. The entire city seemed shrouded in gray mist, with sparse lights and not a soul in sight.
At the instant the Midnight Bell struck for the twelfth time.
Something strange happened.
The maid who had died during the day appeared on the street.
At this very moment.
She looked utterly terrifying.
She wore a tattered yet still magnificent Red Wedding Dress, its hem dragging across the ground and covered in mud and rotten leaves. A faded White Veil Crown rested atop her head. Her face was pale as paper, and her steps were so light that she seemed no longer human. With every step, a thin layer of frost bloomed across the ground, while a sickly sweet scent of decay filled the air.
"Moon rises. Moon falls."
"The bride seeks a bridesmaid."
The Ghost Bride's song echoed through the empty street, every note like a rusty blade scraping across the listener's eardrums. She dragged a pitch-black coffin behind her, its bottom grinding against the stone pavement with a teeth-aching creak. Moonlight shone upon her deathly pale face as Golden Sand swirled within her hollow eye sockets.
The Golden Sand sometimes formed the image of a sun, sometimes twisting into the shape of a spider. Her head suddenly turned one hundred and eighty degrees behind her, and the torn corners of her mouth stretched all the way to her ears.
"Careful. Don't let that filthy thing find us."
Ian pulled Kam into the shadow beneath a doorway, his wand casting a Triple Concealment Charm before them. He could feel Kam trembling—this young member of the Hermit Society had never witnessed anything so horrifying.
"That coffin." Kam's voice was barely louder than a mosquito's. "It was prepared for the