Lucy Atherton

Lucy Atherton

Lucy Atherton

Lord and Lady Atherton’s daughter, younger sister to Geoffrey. Not quite right in the head.

The villagers speak of her as “Mad Lucy” – when they dare to speak of her at all. Because the village remembers. Remembers when little Lucy, with her sweet blonde curls and her pretty ways, went missing from the big house. All the menfolk looking for her, Lady Atherton- she were different then, and no wonder- in tears, organizing the search, and everybody with this feeling that they’d be finding her body. Mayhaps that would’ve been better. Because they found her, with blood all over her face and her hair all matted with gore, wandering the moors, laughing and keening up at the the big yellow moon- and they found the body of a village lad, horribly dead, not a mile away.
Of course, nothing was ever proved.
But Mad Lucy does still prowl in the night when the moon is full. She gathers herbs, so they say.
Sometimes, the morning after a full moon, the villagers find a dog with its throat slit, or a chicken without a head.
Foxes, maybe.
Nothing will ever be proved. Not so long as Lady Atherton lives.