The sound was heavy, like it vibrated Maud’s heart with each note. She struggled to take deeper breaths, but they remained shallow, strained.

  It was a drum. Loud and dense. It made the leaves in the trees shake. It made loose branches fall. Soft grass and spongey ground pulsated its beat into her bare feet. The air itself beat with its rhythm.

  She couldn’t stop. No, she didn’t want to stop. Something was drawing her, pulling her—carrying her toward its embrace. It was a familiar embrace, as familiar as her mother’s comfort, yet different. Like the warmth of a fire before it begins to burn.

  Her instincts were in competition, striking at each other, clawing for dominance while her feet carried her deeper and deeper into the dark of the night.

  Into the dark of the forest.

  It was her voice in her head. Different voices. Many voices. All hers. Urgent. Calm. Comforting. Abrasive. All swimming and filling her head with noise as her eyes stared into the darkness toward her destination. Between trees, through shadows, guided.

  ‘Stop.’ ‘Hurry.’

  ‘Where are you taking us?’ ‘Wait and see.’

  ‘Help.’ ‘Why?’

  ‘What is there?’ ‘Wait and see.’

  ‘Follow.’ ‘Promise.’ ‘Safe.’

  ‘Follow.’ ‘Loved.’ ‘Family.’ ‘All that you lost.’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘Draka.’

  Bricks stained with blood and ash stopped her. They rose high above her, reaching past the canopy of the forest, with scrapes and marks like fingernails clawing to climb them. A wooden gate, half destroyed by something ramming through it, was blocked by barbed steel wire and pikes. Pikes that hung with meat and bones. The wooden gate was crushed, boards had fallen over. The decrepit roofs of the walls were open ribcages linked by boney spines from one end to the other. Bits of rocks and boulders filled the pathway. The gate was battered, broken through. Beyond, she could see the frame of the double doors in the distance, the rising shadow of grey walls and a shattered stained-glass window. The gate had been painted red when it was crushed.

  ‘Come and see.’

  The gate was battered and broken from inside. Something had broken out of it.

  Maud shivered in the dark shadow of the walls of the Abbey. There were remnants of a camp on the path behind her, behind the pikes with bits and bones hanging from them. She didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think at all. She took a step back.

  The smoldering campfire beside the path, the tent that had been torn through, the staff topped by a cross laying in the mud, her heart raced through the goosebumps rising in her skin. Her feet were heavy. Her arms were heavy. Dread gripped her as the darkness filled with eyes she couldn’t see. She just knew. They were watching her, studying her, waiting for her. Hungry.

  The pikes had skulls on them.

  Human skulls.

  The tatters were skin.

  She would never forget the smell. She couldn’t breathe without it being there. Couldn’t see without seeing them there. Couldn’t run without knowing they were behind her.

  Yet, she ran. Yet, she breathed. Yet, she saw.

  Owls hooted and shrieked above her.

  ‘Come.’ One said.

  ‘See.’ Another chirped.

  ‘Join.’

  Maud stumbled, clawed. The forest went on forever. The mud was deep and thick. Shadows moved and reached for her. Rocks and branches leapt for her.

  Arms wrapped her.

  She screamed and kicked. She punched and clawed. Her teeth bit down through cloth.

  “You’re safe, child,” a bearded man held her tight. Though she clawed, punched, kicked, he held her in his arms and ran his hand across the back of her head so her chin rested within his embrace. “You know the words. Say them. Say them with me, Maudeline Clevlan. Say them.”

  She bit down. His embrace emboldened her. She punched. His embrace strengthened her. She kicked. His embrace calmed her.

  “In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust,” Her words were wrapped within his voice. “Let me never be ashamed; deliver me in thy righteousness.”

  No longer did she bite. Light peered down upon her through the night’s darkness. His embrace filled her with it. Surrounded her with it. No more punches. No more kicks. Her heart steadied.

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  “Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily,” She listened even as she said the words. His voice was a song in her ear, soft and vibrant. A thousand voices. “Be thou my strong rock, for a house of defense...”

  “…to save me.”

  A thousand eyes watched her.

  The light blinded her.

  “Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see,” he whispered in her ear with whiskers tickling through each syllable.

  “For thou art my rock and my fortress,” Maud was surrounded by the light, shielded by it. Her breathing deepened.

  “And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

  She wasn’t looking into the light. She leaned back from his wool covered shoulder, from the whiskers on her ear, within the shroud of the light that kept the thousand eyes from her. Dark eyes refracting with light peered into hers. She didn’t hear his voice any longer. There were no rattling leaves. No branches breaking. No owls hooting.

  She felt it boom through her body.

  “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by…”

  “The Lord,” Maud answered.

  “He that is of God heareth God’s words…”

  There were blues and greens in those eyes of his. Gold and red. Yellow and purple. She felt her heart speak in her voice, “I hear them not because I am not of God.”

  The light shimmered and dimmed around them. His eyes narrowed into hers. His hands, rough and filthy, touched her cheeks. “I have not a devil, but I honor the Father.”

  “I don’t mean to dishonor Him,” she trembled. The shaking gripped her in his hands. She felt the pressure in her head building and building. The eyes surrounding her, closing and closing.

  “What am I?”

  Her heart spoke, “the light of this world.”

  “Who am I?”

  She floundered. The light dimmed a little more. “I don’t know.”

  His arms wrapped her once more. Her cheek slid across the whiskers of his cheek and his breath thumped against her ear, “Woman, why weepest thou? Who seekest thou?”

  Whoever or whatever those eyes belonged to were coming closer. Their voices whispered in the distance sounding like hers.

  ‘Come.’ ‘See.’ ‘Join.’ ‘Family.’

  “They have taken away my Lord,” she cried into him. Spilling over him. Her body felt distant, limp. Her heart drummed through her, moved her lips with her breath. She couldn’t separate from the voice speaking from within her, yet it felt so far away.

  She felt his smile against her. Chills ran down her spine. The eyes grew closer. She knew there were claws like knives aimed at her. She knew that death was in their grasp.

  ‘Come.’ ‘Follow.’ ‘Join.’

  “Maudeline.” Her eyes widened as he made her look at him. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I set you apart.”

  She felt the light burn within her. It blinded her as her ears became clogged with their voices sharply digging into her.

  ‘See.’ ‘Promise.’ ‘Safe.’

  He rattled her face to recapture her eyes. “Breathe, Maudeline. Receive.”

  She tried to shake away. He gripped her face and pulled her close. Voices. Light. Blinded. Deafened. His voice was heavy drums against her skin, against her ribs.

  “Be not faithless, for I am always there,” his voice boomed. “If thou ascend to heaven, I am there. Thou makest thy bed in sheol and I am there with thee. Even there shall my hand lead thee and my right hand shall hold thee.”

  Her lungs contracted. She couldn’t. She didn’t know how anymore. How to see. How to hear. How to breathe. His hands on her face, the warmth of the light; she steadied.

  “Woman, why weepest thou? Who seekest thou?”

  Maud found her eyes peering deep into his, mesmerized as the words burst from her lips, “My Lord, Jesus Christ.”

  The man smiled. His voice softened in her ear, pleading, “Breathe and receive ye the Holy Spirit. And fear no evil…”

  ‘For thou art with me.’ Her voice was not her own, yet it came from her.

  And her lungs opened. Her eyes focused. Her ears reached out as if they were her hands. The light filled all around her, shielded her. Shielded them. Only, not them. Not him. He was the shield.

  His wool shirt was a blanket of iron across his chest. The whiskers were framed by plates of steel that brightened with the shining light. His arms dripped with iron and steel. Streams of brilliance reached out from his back and joined the light surrounding them, reinforcing it against the thousand eyes, wrapping them against the thousand fangs and claws that those eyes belonged to.

  Maud felt the light drape over her like a blanket being dropped from above. As she felt it cling to her shoulders, it shot outward through the trees, shooting splinters of wood and bark all around her. The eyes, the claws, the fangs, retreated in shrieks of pain.

  As the light faded away, she was nearly brought to her knees in the forest, out of breath. Alone in the dark. Though it wasn’t completely dark. Ahead of her, she could see her house, just a little ways down the path she was already on. Behind her, was a path of darkness lined with silhouettes of crimson monsters. She was surprised by their shapes, but not afraid. Crimson and dark, sharp and jagged points at the edges of what should have been deep, black shadows, and not a single drop of adrenaline rushing through her veins. Only calm.

  She straightened and walked home. That morning, she told Pierre about what happened. Every single bit of it. Even though the door was shut to her room, she knew that Aurelie was listening, too. As she said his words, Pierre’s brows squeezed closer and closer together. His mouth moved as if he were saying the words with her.

  When she finished, Pierre’s eyes glistened and his mouth gaped toward the ground between them.

  “I’ve taken too long,” he said as if he were speaking only to himself.

  “What?” Maud tilted her head at him, waiting for his eyes to see her.

  When they did, he leapt to his feet and rushed to the door, stopping only to say, “I need to go. Until I come back, read the book of Matthew in the New Testament.”

  The hair on the back of her neck rose.

  Distantly, to himself, he said, “That was a warning.”