Read an Exclusive Excerpt of Lucy Foley’s New Thriller The Midnight Feast

And there’s a lot of local pagan history that I want to tap into, old rural traditions of celebrating the seasons . . . but with a fresh, modern touch. Nothing macabre, you know? Some of the local legends are a little on the darker side. And nothing crusty. “Pagan chic,” you could say. I have this vision of Saturday night’s celebrations taking place outside under a clear, starlit sky. The forecast suggests I’ve manifested my desire. See? I always get what I want. It’s going to be fabulous. I can feel it.

I close my eyes to truly experience the moon’s energy on my face. It’s so important to engage all your senses, to check in with your environment. But it’s only now that I become aware of the thump thump thump of distant bass. A shout, some laughter. It’s coming from the beach below the hotel, I know it. They’re back. I didn’t think they’d have the audacity to trespass once The Manor was actually open. That’s my beach.

I pick up my phone and call Michelle. “Hello, lovely,” I say, lightly. “It’s happening again. Can you sort?”

“You’ve got it Francesca. No problem!” Michelle. So eager to be of service. I can hear she’s practically vibrating with excitement at this opportunity to prove herself. She has been by my side every day for the last six months in the run-up to opening. As loyal and obedient as a trained spaniel.

“You’re a star,” I say. “You know that, don’t you? Thank you.”

Another thundering of bass, just as I hang up. And whoosh—a flame of pure rage leaps up inside me so fast it leaves me breathless.

No Francesca. Inhale. That’s not who you are. You are so much bigger than this. Reach for the light. Find the still place. Exhale.

BELLA

I’m lying on the most comfortable mattress I’ve ever encountered but I’ve never felt less like sleeping.

“I have to make you aware that you’ll be very close to the woods,” the receptionist told me when I phoned to book, after transferring a chunk of my modest savings into my current account. “And there will be construction work during your stay, near those Hutches. But we’re offering a substantial discount.”

“How much?”

“Fifty percent. But I should also let you know that this particular Hutch will be closest to the noise.”

I took a deep breath. “I want it.”

It’s not the impending construction work: I can deal with that. It’s the feel of the woods hemming me in, the trees pressing against the windowpanes as though they’re trying to have a good look at everything.

Giving up on sleep, I scroll through Instagram until I find the official account for The Manor. Every image or video has a kind of sunlit haze to it, like it’s a dimension slightly more perfect and beautiful than our own. And every gorgeous image of the surroundings—the Georgian main building silhouetted by the setting sun, the light glinting off the pool, the herb garden in full bloom, the woods with the dawn mist rising off them—is interspersed with a photograph or Reel of Francesca Meadows looking equally picturesque: a wicker trug filled with rosemary looped over one arm, bending down in a trailing linen shift to tickle an improbably clean pig behind the ear, picking barefoot through the wildflower meadow like something from a perfume ad. These images, the ones of her, always seem to get the most likes, the most views. I scroll and scroll until my eyes ache. But I can’t stop looking.

A sound, outside. I glance up, suddenly alert. The phone slithers onto the floorboards with a clatter. Out there in the dark, coming from the direction of the woods: a low, guttural groan.

And then . . . nothing. Over in a second. But the silence seems to reverberate. I slide off the bed and grab the robe from its hook, pull it around me. My nerve endings bristle. My eyes, when I glance at myself in the mirror, look wide and scared.

I unlatch the door. The warmth of the air is almost foreign. It’s almost completely silent outside, just the faintest hush from the trees as the breeze moves through them. The sky is a deep, velvet, countryside black and the stars seem crazily bright and near, as I’ve not seen them for many years. The sound is gone. Already it’s hard to remember it properly, grasp exactly what I did hear. Or perhaps it didn’t come from the woods as I’d thought, but one of the other cabins. Perhaps the loud sex couple are back at it. I don’t think so, though. I’d hate to think what sort of sex would produce a noise like that. It sounded like something in pain.

And then something catches at the edge of my vision. Like a trick of the eye at first, like those little silver specks that appear if you stand up too quickly. Little pinpricks of light moving between the trees. The welcome drinks will be long over by now; it can’t be that. As my eyes adjust, I see the lights look more like flames, flickering, moving around at head height or perhaps higher.

And now I catch sight of something else. A figure at the very edge of the woods. Possibly wearing some kind of hood. Maybe fifty feet away, just caught by the perimeter lights. Standing so still that if I hadn’t looked in exactly the right spot I might not have noticed it. I say “it” because I’m not totally sure that what I’m seeing isn’t a trick of the eye. If it is a person it’s difficult to tell where they start and the shadows begin—and if it is a person I can’t make out a face. I squint into the darkness. I think I see some kind of movement there now. But again it could just be a trick of the wind, the shadows rearranging themselves. Or it could be another guest having a quiet smoke in the night air.

But something is clawing at the edges of memory. Something I don’t want to let out of its cage—I shut the door quickly, then lock it. My heart is thumping in my chest. A ditty playing on repeat in my head. Vaguely following the lines of that old children’s song, “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.” Except in the version I learned, there was something much worsethan teddy bears lying in wait.

THE DAY AFTER THE SOLSTICE

The fishing boat draws closer still—as close as the fishermen dare without running aground; the submerged rocks along this stretch of coast are infamous.

Now they can make out the body a little better, the spreadeagle of the limbs.

“Must have fallen from the cliff path,” one says.

“That’s quite a way down.”

“Makes you wonder. How long you’d be conscious of falling—before you hit the bottom.”

“Jesus, mate. Don’t say shit like that.”

The breeze has picked up. A section of material lifts and billows like a sail: the white fabric crazed with streaks of blood.

“It’s one of them,” says another. “Got to be. From that place. They had their opening weekend do there last night, didn’t they? Could hear the music down in Tome.”

The relief of it. Not a local, then. One of them. The alien species. The invaders.

“Tide’s gonna take ’em soon,” one says. “Or should we—”

“Fuck no. Not going any nearer. We’ve called the cops. We’ve done our bit.”

Smoke continues to fill the sky to the west. “It’s got to be connected, right? To what’s going on at that place.”

“There was chat in the pub last night,” one guy interjects. “About the Birds.”

“Pull the other one, mate.”

A shrug. “Just telling you what I heard from Joe Dodd.”

“Oh, old Joe. Right. Well he does like his fairytales. Few pints of bitter down, was it?”

“I dunno. Maybe. But there’s been talk for a while of locals sorting ’em out. Could be someone finally snapped . . .”

They stop talking at the sound of sirens and a sudden cavalcade of flashing blue lights above the clifftop.

“Well, here they come. Not our problem anymore. Wonder what they’ll make of all this.”

They all fall silent again. In spite of all the blood, the hair might actually be the worst thing. It’s the way it moves. Ruffling in the breeze, giving the false impression of life.