Falena di mezzanotte
Falena di Mezzanotte is a fantasy-romance novel with Gothic overtones written by Teresa Bulgaro and first published in 1739 AN by the independent publishing house Edizioni Specularis, based in Sestara. The author's second significant work after My Shifting Parrot, the book explores the boundaries between attraction, identity and inner darkness through a tormented protagonist and a mysterious connection with a nocturnal creature. The novel has received praise for the originality of the setting, the dense and sensual prose, and the use of symbolism inspired by Vendean folklore and forgotten moon cults. It is considered one of the author's most fascinating and cryptic texts.
Editions
- First edition (1739 AN) - Panduso Edizioni. Hardcover with monochrome illustration (silver moth on black background). Limited edition of 500 copies, now considered collectible.
- Pocket Edition (1740 AN) - Panduso Edizioni. Softcover paperback edition.
- Second Edition (1742 AN) - Panduso Edizioni. Hardcover edition with new color cover and an afterword by Teresa Bulgaro on the creative process.
- Illustrated Edition (1745 AN) - Panduso Edizioni. Hardcover edition, with critical notes by Teresa Bulgaro and six ink illustrations by Andrea Gua Nong Son Rinh and Foorreelangelo. Includes appendix on moth symbols in Far Southern night cults.
Plot
🜁 Act I - The House of the Leaning Shadows
The protagonist, Neralyn Daevra, is an ancient manuscript restorer who has recently moved to Veldra, a town on the Ostavyr Plateau known for its long nights and milky skies. Neralyn has accepted an assignment at the House of Leaning Shadows, a now secularized monastic library where texts are said to breathe in the corridors when the fog rolls in. Neralyn is shy, reflective, fresh from a relationship that has left her drained. She lives alone in an attic above the library, surrounded by books written in dead languages, clocks without hands, and a clarinet she never learned to play. Her days are silent, until one night she is awakened by the regular beating of wings against the window: an unnaturally large black moth with purple highlights and an eye-shaped pattern on its back. The insect disappears at dawn, but on subsequent evenings it returns. Despite attempts to chase it away, Neralyn begins to perceive its presence as familiar, almost protective. At the same time, strange marks appear in the margins of the books she restores: unfamiliar ideograms that seem to move when not directly observed. One night, while leafing through a volume on the lunar ritualism of the priestesses of the Silver Veil, Neralyn has a vision: a woman shrouded in coils of shadow, with moth eyes and semi-transparent wings, watches her from a balcony suspended in nothingness, and whispers:
«It is not I who sought you out. It is you who summoned me.»
The presence intensifies. Neralyn begins to sleepwalk, to leave messages to herself, and to sense that something else is moving in the library. In the depths of the forbidden archive, she finally discovers the creature's name: Thasmeris, a shape-shifting moth bound by an ancient lunar pact to the Library's janitor -- a role that Neralyn, unknowingly, has already inherited.
Thasmeris' presence becomes tangible. The moth no longer appears only at night: it now manifests itself during twilight, creeping into the physical environment with mysterious traces. On the pages Neralyn restores, luminescent symbols appear by touch, and some scrolls react to her skin - as if recognizing her.
In an attempt to understand, Neralyn delves into the interdicted archives of the House of Leaning Shadows, where she discovers volumes belonging to a forgotten sect: the Vigils of the Silver Veil, an order of women who communicated with nocturnal entities through bodily cycles and lunar rituals. Thasmeris' name recurs several times, described as the queen moth, eyes of midnight, last remaining sister. Meanwhile, Neralyn develops unexplained symptoms, including increasing photosensitivity, which forces her to work only after dark; a change in the pigmentation of her eyes, which take on purple reflections in certain mirrors; the appearance of skin symbols on her body, such as tattoos slowly forming along her back and shoulder blades, resembling wings not yet unfolded.
🜂 Act II - The Bond and the Vigil.
Thasmeris' presence becomes tangible. The moth no longer appears only at night: now it manifests itself even during twilight, creeping into the physical environment with mysterious traces. On the pages Neralyn restores, luminescent symbols appear by touch, and some scrolls react to her skin - as if recognizing her. In an attempt to understand, Neralyn delves into the interdicted archives of the House of Leaning Shadows, where she discovers volumes belonging to a forgotten sect: the Vigils of the Silver Veil, an order of women who communicated with nocturnal entities through bodily cycles and lunar rituals. Thasmeris' name recurs several times, described as the queen moth, eyes of midnight, last remaining sister. Meanwhile, Neralyn develops unexplained symptoms, including increasing photosensitivity, forcing her to work only after dark; a change in the pigmentation of her eyes, which take on purple reflections in certain mirrors; and the appearance of skin symbols on her body, such as tattoos that slowly form along her back and shoulder blades, reminiscent of wings not yet unfurled. The moth speaks to her in a human voice, and leaves her small objects: a broken ring, a lock of hair tied with silver thread, a gray feather that does not burn in the fire. Nothing that happens has the appearance of delirium, yet the line between the real and the symbolic grows thinner and thinner. A secondary figure enters the scene: Sister Caelitha, a former archivist nun, now blind, who reveals to her that she is the last one to remember the moon songs. She sings to her an ancient melody in a fragmentary language. Neralyn recognizes it-it is the same language she has begun to write involuntarily in her nightly notes. The bond with Thasmeris is not amorous in the conventional sense. It is a predestined bond, cosmic, but also sensual, in a form that precedes and exceeds the body itself. An intimacy of the soul is established between them, made up of silent acknowledgements, psychic reverberations, and a constant sexual tension that blends desire, vertigo, and terror. Each shared glance is a contact. Every object left behind by Thasmeris is an invitation. Neralyn's skin warms with each appearance of the creature. Her breath breaks. They never touch. Yet a form of ancient eros is consummated between the two, as if their essences, once merged in a forgotten age, now seek to return to each other in an eternal, unresolved act. When Neralyn tries to leave Veldra, the city refuses to let her go: trains are cancelled, roads break into illogical paths, and time seems to slow down. Veldra wants her, or perhaps Thasmeris is not ready to let her go. The act ends with Neralyn standing before an ancient mirror, placed in the center of the Hall of the Dumb Virgins, which returns not her reflection but that of a winged woman with a face identical to her own.
«Which one are you, oh true janitor?» asks the voice in her head.
🜃 Act III - The Night Mirror
Time in Veldra loses consistency. Days blur, clocks stop at midnight, and Neralyn is no longer sure when she sleeps, if she sleeps at all. The library changes: walls shift imperceptibly, corridors lead to rooms that did not exist before. A room entirely wallpapered with darkened mirrors awaits her. No one is reflected. Thasmeris appears more frequently, in increasingly defined forms: no longer just as a moth, but as a woman with semi-transparent wings, clothed in nothingness, shadow skin and slanted pupils. Her voice penetrates thoughts. Her words are not spoken: they are felt within, with a warmth that burns deep within.
«Do not fear what you desire. You have sought yourself within me.»
Neralyn is drawn to a forbidden room, where lies a leather-bound manuscript engraved with her signature-a signature she does not remember ever writing. Leafing through it, she discovers an incomplete lunar ritual, half prayer, half erotic evocation. The passages speak of union, of merging, of losing the “self” to ascend to an intermediary state between human being and cosmic spirit. The marks on her body join in a moth-like pattern between her shoulder blades. Her shoulders throb, aching. Skin changes texture, and Neralyn's vision alters: she begins to see traces of light where no one sees anything, to hear music in ancient stones, and to grasp desire in inanimate things. The decisive encounter with Thasmeris takes place in a submerged room beneath the library: a place no one admits exists. There, surrounded by pools of water and amethyst walls, the two face each other. No dialogue. But the two merge for a moment: two identities that recognize each other, mingle, desire each other beyond all language.
The erotic act is not physical, but metaphysical. A fusion of memories, of wills, of fears. An embrace of essences that silently implodes. When they separate, they are no longer the same.
Thasmeris leaves only one gift: a moon feather, white as milk and cold as metal. Then she disappears. Neralyn wakes up in her own bed. But now her eyes are completely different, and purple veins run in her wrists. She knows what she must do. But she does not yet know if she will accept. The act closes with her walking down the central corridor of the library, the books opening by themselves as she passes, and the voices of the Vigils whispering in the dark.
🜁 Act IV - Awakening without dawn.
The city of Veldra has stopped responding to common laws. Shadows lengthen at noon, the moon appears even in broad daylight, and street names rewrite themselves. Neralyn is no longer just a restorer. She has become something else, something the world around her perceives but cannot comprehend.
The library empties out: anyone who tries to reach it is seized by dizziness or gets lost. Only Sister Caelitha remains, motionless, blind, now transformed into a guardian of the unspoken. To Neralyn she reveals a phrase:
«When the soul is full, it cannot remain whole.»
An ancient door, without a handle, opens as she passes through. Beyond, a black crystal amphitheater unfolds beneath a sky that pulses like living skin. In the center, the moth - Thasmeris - not as a spirit, nor as a woman, but as a living manifestation of the cosmic cycle: a winged figure of pure energy, sculpted in light and memory.
«You have remembered me. Now I can remember you.»
The last choice is offered voicelessly: become a Vigilant and accept the total transformation, or retain her human heart and forget everything. Both options lead to loss. Neralyn drops to her knees. Her wings, invisible until that moment, open. The transformation is not physical, but existential: a dilation of the self, an expansion of identity to the point of dissolving all boundaries.
In the moment of fusion, she relives every encounter, every whisper, every tension with Thasmeris, but also every choice she made on her own. It is not annihilation. It is integration. She does not stop being Neralyn. But she will never be just Neralyn again. The city shuts down. Then it awakens. The citizens of Veldra resume their routines: stalls return to the square, trains resume on time, and no one seems to remember what happened. Or if anything ever really happened at all. The central library reopens to the public, perfectly restored, but no one knows who did the work. Some claim that the interior corridors have changed shape, others speak of rooms that no longer exist. But these are, perhaps, only suggestions.
Only Sister Caelitha, still sitting in the same shadowy niche, maintains a different expression. More serene, but also more distant. When someone asks her about Neralyn, she barely smiles.
«Neralyn? I don't know anyone by that name.»
But then, as the sun sets, she turns slowly toward the eastern window, as if waiting for something. Or someone. And every night, on the dome of the library, a white moth dances silently around the bell tower. No one notices it. Or maybe no one wants to notice it.
Characters
- Neralyn Daevra: restorer of ancient manuscripts, shy and reflective. Protagonist, comes into contact with Thasmeris and becomes unwilling custodian of an ancient legacy related to the Silver Veil.
- Thasmeris: shape-shifting female figure, night moth and ancient spirit. She manifests as a dark and sensual presence, bound by a lunar ritual and connected to Neralyn through a cosmic bond.
- Sister Caelitha: former archivist nun and last surviving Vigilant. Blind but gifted with ancient memory, she offers Neralyn keys to interpretation and ritual chants of the Veil.
- Order of the Silver Veil (collective mention): ancient female community devoted to lunar cults and connection with nocturnal entities. Their magical heritage permeates the entire story.
