Page 4 of Claimed By the Mothman (Greymarket Towers #1)
Nell frowned, squinting at the screen. The text was too small to read, and the picture was nothing but a sad little box with a question mark in the middle, but the name sounded familiar.
“Oh, that. Yeah, I think I drove past it on the way here? It’s all grown over with ivy and stuff. I thought maybe it was condemned.”
“Nope,” Goldie said, delight ringing in her voice. “Fully functional and the building’s got a vibe. It just doesn’t have vacancies usually, but I got a Zillow alert on the way over here. I’m jealous, by the way. If I didn’t love my mortgage rate, I’d move in an instant.”
Nell hesitated. “Is it expensive?”
“From what I hear, it’s exclusive and affordable,” Goldie said, winking. “I’ll text you the address. Look it up. It might be just what you need.”
—
After Goldie left in a whirl of perfume and oversized earrings, the café felt quieter. The space she'd filled with brightness and motion seemed to sigh after her departure, like the room itself missed her.
Nell lingered, hands wrapped around a now-lukewarm mug of tea, staring out the window without seeing much at all.
Greymarket Towers.
She said the name in her head a few times, testing it like a foreign word. It sounded theatrical, like it belonged in a gothic short story. Not real life. Not her boring, sad, so-ordinary-it-breaks-your-heart life.
Eventually, she pulled out her laptop.
The screen flared to life, casting a pale reflection across her face. For a moment, her own image stared back at her—ghostlike, faintly distorted. Her eyes were tired and bruised around the edges like she hadn’t slept well in weeks. Which was true.
She typed: Greymarket Towers.
The website loaded with a reluctant flicker. It was bare bones and slightly off-center, like someone had designed it on a free trial in 2004 and never looked back. Serif fonts. Mismatched icons. No animations.
And yet…the listing.
Unit 4C. Hardwood floors. A clawfoot tub with a copper showerhead and curtain.
A built-in window ledge that caught the sunlight in every photo.
Wide walls. Gentle corners. It felt, impossibly, like a room she’d seen once in a dream and never found again—or one she’d been trying to remember for years.
There was a short questionnaire. She hesitated again. Then clicked.
Greymarket Towers: Resident Interest Form
Please complete the following to the best of your ability. Answers will not be shared without consent.
1. Do you believe in coincidence, fate, or property maintenance?
She gave a soft snort. All three, lately. She checked every box.
2. Emergency contact (may be living or nonliving):
Her fingers hovered. She typed her sister’s name. Then deleted it. She typed her own.Left it.
3. Preferred method of communication:
? Whispered dreams
? Phone (limited hours)
? Snail mail
Curious, she hovered over Whispered dreams. Then, almost reluctantly, she checked Email .
4. Have you experienced any of the following in the past six months?
? Strong intuitive responses to places or people
? Furniture rearranging itself
? Inexplicable drafts or door slamming
? Feelings of being watched by the moon
Nell clicked the first box without hesitation. She'd always known things about places—whether they were safe, whether they welcomed her, whether they held secrets. Edward had called it 'overthinking,' but Nell knew it was something else.
5. Do you believe buildings can choose their inhabitants?
? Yes
? No
? I hope so
She clicked Yes cautiously.
6. Have you ever felt drawn to doors that weren't there before?
? Yes
? No
? I'm not sure what this means
She chewed the inside of her cheek. There was that time in college with the fire escape that hadn’t existed on the building schematic. She’d been certain she’d used it twice, until it disappeared one day and left a brick wall in its place.
And that summer when she was nine, when she’d followed a door between two cornfields that led nowhere. Her mother had said she was dreaming. But Nell remembered the door…and she remembered not walking through.
A prickle ran up her spine. She marked: I'm not sure what this means.
7. If your apartment developed a personality, what trait would you hope it did not have?
She typed without hesitation: Judgmental.
8. What is it you are trying to find?
There was no checkbox. Just a blank line. Her hands hovered above the keys, her breath shallow. Carefully, she typed: Something that feels like mine. Somewhere I can belong without having to earn it every day.
She should have been confused by the strange questions, or should have laughed at the absurdity of them. Instead, each question felt less like a screening and more like a gentle probe to understand what she truly needed.
Holding her breath, she hit submit.
The screen gave no fanfare. Just a blinking cursor, as if the site was thinking it over.
She shut her laptop, decided to think nothing more of it, and polished off the last of her tea in a gulp.
Outside, the man and his cat walked back across the front of the cafe, both of them looking pleased with themselves.
Five minutes later, her phone pinged. She pulled it out of her purse and saw a response to her inquiry. Heart pounding in her throat, she opened it and read:
From: Ebbin Lyle, Management
Subject: Your Viewing at Greymarket Towers
We are pleased by your interest. You feel resonant, and we look forward to introducing you to Greymarket Towers. A viewing is scheduled for 3 p.m. tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Management
Nell stared at the message. There was no address. No request for confirmation. Just calm certainty, like it had already been accepted.
A faint tingle lifted the hairs along her arms. Then, slowly, she smiled.
—
By the time Nell reached Greymarket Towers, her cheeks were flushed from the uphill walk and her heart was still buzzing from the interview at the library.
It had gone better than she could’ve hoped.
They’d offered her the job on the spot: admin work at the Bellwether Center for Alternative Literacy, starting Monday.
The office was quiet in that charged, library-sacred way.
Light filtered through dusty stained-glass skylights, casting fractured color across the tile floors.
A black cat (not a pet, she was informed, just a regular visitor) had been asleep on the copier.
The walls were lined with shelves of esoteric titles in languages she didn’t recognize. The manager, a pale, elegant woman named Ms. Kephra, had looked over Nell’s resume with a faint smile and said, “You seem like a good fit. We value resonance here.”
That word again.
The front door of Greymarket Towers creaked open as she reached for the handle without her actually touching it.
Inside, the lobby was high-ceilinged and dim, the air cool and scented with lemon oil and something faintly metallic.
Time-worn mosaic tiles spread across the floor in curling patterns—vines, eyes, knots, a sun half-swallowed by a moon.
Oil paintings lined the walls, heavy in their gilt frames.
Most showed people. Some showed things that looked like people, but weren’t quite.
One canvas shifted when she turned her head, the figure’s posture subtly different when she looked again.
A man and a woman passed her on their way out of the building, both dressed in colors that seemed to shift depending on how the light hit. They smiled at her and whispered something to each other that made her skin prickle. Nell took a step back, heart fluttering.
A voice behind her said, “Ms. Townsend?”
She turned.
A man stood there, holding a clipboard and a ring of keys that jingled softly like wind chimes.
He wore a rust-colored cardigan, neat slacks, and a pleasant expression that looked oddly unfinished, like someone had sketched him carefully in charcoal and then smudged the edges.
Brownish hair, neatly combed. Pale, ageless skin.
Eyes that might have been gray, or green, or silver, depending on how the light hit.
Nell had the strangest feeling that if she asked three different people to describe him, they’d each say something slightly different. Taller. Thinner. Younger. Older. The kind of man you’d never recognize twice but would instinctively move aside for.
“I am Mr. Lyle,” the man said, offering a smile as mild as chamomile. “You are precisely on time.”
They shook hands. His palm was cool and dry.
“H-hi,” Nell stammered. “I’m Nell Townsend.”
Mr. Lyle merely nodded his head and made a graceful swoop with his hand. “This way, if you please,” he said, smiling faintly. “I believe you shall find Greymarket accommodating.”
The elevator was brass and mirrored, the old-fashioned kind with a grate that had to be pulled down, and shuddered faintly when it began to move, like it needed to consider the request. The mirror panels reflected Nell back at herself in strange, slightly warped proportions—her arms longer, her face narrower, her eyes. ..flickering?
She looked away.
Mr. Lyle pressed the button for the fourth floor. “Vacancies at Greymarket Towers are rare,” he said as the elevator groaned upward. “We do not advertise. We wait. The building prefers to select its tenants on its own terms.”
Nell glanced sideways at him. “That’s…interesting.”
The elevator sighed open with a sound like fabric being torn and re-stitched.
The hallway beyond was dim and warm, lined with antique sconces that cast soft golden halos along the walls.
The wallpaper was patterned in curling green vines that seemed to sway if you stared too long.
The carpet was thick and plush, the kind that swallowed footsteps like secrets.
They had only taken a few steps when something darted across the hallway ahead of them. It was a small creature, bipedal, maybe three feet tall. It had oversized ears, luminous yellow eyes, and wore a too-big red hoodie.
It paused, looked up at Nell, and waved with uninhibited delight. “Hi!”