Halloween Choose Your Own Adventure-Day 1

Spooky Monday, Mavenland!

From now until Halloween, the Manuscript Mavens are running a Choose Your Own Adventure® story, in which YOU vote on what happens next! Every morning brings a new author, from the Mavens to the just-sold, to the best-selling. And every night brings a new twist!

Get your Choose Your Own Adventure® votes in by 8:00pm EST (5:00pm PST) and you'll be eligible for random prize drawings. Vote every day, and you'll be eligible for the Grand Prize--autographed books from Maven pals and Guest Mavens!

(Already read the intro? Skip to today's story. No idea what's going on? Read the "rules".)

Intro, as provided by Ballantine author Tessa Dare:

The freezing air nipped at Mary’s throat where her too-small cloak gaped in front. There hadn’t been money for a new cloak this winter. Nor the winter before. Gathering the threadbare garment about her as best she could, she hastened her steps along the ice-crusted path. The distant thwacks of an axe cleaving wood cut through the thick blanket of silence. A thin curl of smoke from a nearby cottage disappeared into the winter-white sky. All was grey; all was quiet--just as it had been ever since the tragedy. This was Cotswold’s season of sorrow.

But a smile warmed Mary’s cheeks, for the air tasted of snow--crisp with anticipation, sweet as a secret. A lone snowflake twirled from the gray silence, and she caught it in her hand, admiring the bit of crystalline lace as it melted on her palm. And then it was gone. The first snowflake of winter, and a scrap of beauty none but her would ever see. The rest of the villagers kept to their thatched-roof cottages, or trained their eyes on the loamy soil beneath their feet... but not Mary. Mary looked to the sky.


With a sudden crack of thunder, everything changed.

The once-fluffy white snowclouds turned black, heavy, oppressive, stringing across the sky like sticky strands of oily taffy. Flakes turned to sodden mush, falling from the shadows in dark glops, splattering across her face like mud spraying from a carriage wheel. Actually... the rumbling thunder sounded too much like uneven wooden wheels skittering across the slushy rocks to be anything but. Mary leapt to the side of the road, dead grass crackling beneath her booted feet.

Skeletal horses clattered past, their ghostly gray flanks tethered to a black four-wheeled carriage, a hunched gnome of a driver perched atop the box seat to sting the horses with his whip. Viscount Nightshade, the town's fearsome recluse, lounged across the rear seat, making no attempt to refasten the collapsable leather top. He did not wipe the greasy sleet from his overlong hair or from his greatcoat. He did not bid the driver to hurry faster.

As the ancient barouche rolled past Mary, Viscount Nightshade turned his pale, unblinking gaze upon her. His eyes glittered. He smiled. Mary saw--well, she thought she saw--oh, for Heaven's sake, she didn't see any such thing, did she? But in the space of a blink, he'd resealed his bloodless lips around his strange white teeth and vanished onto Satan's Fury, the most notoriously unsafe bridge this side of Nottingham.

What the devil was a recluse like Viscount Nightshade doing tearing hell-for-leather through the streets in weather as foul as this? For that matter, what was Mary doing gaping after him instead of seeking cover until the worst of the storm passed? She could take her chances crossing the slick planks of the rickety bridge... but what if the viscount lurked there or she tumbled into the ice-crusted river below? No, the far better plan would be to find shelter immediately before the warmth of a fire.

She glanced up and down the wet, deserted road. No friendly faces glanced back at her. No people dotted the barren countryside at all, despite the sudden conviction she was being watched. She glanced over her shoulders, scanned the horizon, squinted into the thick tangle of trees lining the road. No smoke plumed from any of the brown-thatched cottages... save one. Some said Hemlock House was haunted, but Mary was not so superstitious as to believe in such things. At least, not when she was shivering with cold and soaked straight through to her shift.

Another vicious crack of thunder rattled the rocks beneath her feet. Her heartbeats quickened with the increasing fury of the swirling black sky. She sprinted for the front step. Her feet slipped and slid on the slush-coated dirt. She'd lost both her bonnet and her breath by the time she reached the rotted wooden door. She knocked until her cracked knuckles bled. Despite the stench of acrid smoke above the decaying thatches, no one answered.

Mary twisted her chapped fingers around the icy brass doorknob, and:

YOU DECIDE!

A) ...a snarling ghost floated through the door, becoming more real by the second.
Hemlock House was totally haunted. Duh.

B) ...the decomposing flesh of a corpse's hand ripped at her frayed pelisse.
She was being watched. By zombies.

C) ...the door swung open, revealing a sharp-eyed old grandmother.
With a still-wet knife.

D) ...the door wouldn't budge--the bloody thing was locked tight.
Leaving her standing there helpless when Viscount Nightshade careened back around the corner.

YOUR TURN: You decide what happens next! Leave your vote in the comments by 8pm every day between now and Halloween---Tomorrow's story continues with the twist YOU choose!

Today's continuation brought to you by Erica Ridley.