No,the voice in my head disagreed.It’s only sleeping. Soon, it will wake and be more beautiful than before.
I lost track of how long he stood behind me. I didn’t listen to the noises he made. He only touched my hair. My mind was outside on that sleeping branch. From there, I would be able to see beyond the fence. I was sure of it. I imagined what I’d find there. One day, I’d walk through those gates and find the road. I’d walk into town and find my mother. I’d hold her close, and this nightmare would be over.
Until then, I knew better than to protest. It would only make it last longer.
Benedict moved away with a sigh and heaved his bulky frame over to the window, where he fiddled around with a little paper cup before coming back to stand over me.
“Here. Take these. It’s a new dose; let’s see if it helps.”
I reached out automatically for the medication, but a screech cut the air. It sounded like the building was screaming. I covered my ears, a headache immediately spiking through my temples.
“It’s the fire alarm, some fool’s set it off again,” Father Benedict said, swearing. “Take your medication, don’t forget.”
I nodded just as the door opened, and Sister Vera gestured me out.
I followed the crowd in the hall down the emergency stairs. Cold wind billowed up from the open door at the bottom. Snow covered the grounds. The institute sat on the outer border ofTurin at the foot of the Italian Alps, and the snow often fell until Easter.
I shuffled through the snow, watching as the slush soaked through my socks. I only had sandals on, not really any protection against the harsh weather. The rest of the patients milled about outside, their breaths freezing into puffs of hot air above their heads. I shivered violently in the wind and ducked into a recess to escape it. There was a small area where the old, rambling institute building butted up against the chapel that sat on the grounds of Hallow Hall. I couldn’t remember finding out about it. It was lost to a past that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I hurried toward it now, reaching the wall and slipping around it before any of the nuns could call me back and make me stand with the group in the howling wind.
In my hurry to escape the gusts, the cup of medication brushed the wall and fell from my fingers. The tablets landed in the slush, quickly dissolving into an icy puddle below. Gone.
Oops, that’s a shame.
I stomped the pills into the melting snow and leaned against the wall in the sheltered area. I’d done it; I’d managed to avoid two days of medication. By tomorrow, my mind would be clearer. I needed to make sure I missed medication doses whenever I could, or I feared I’d lose myself completely.
Tucked away in the corner was a metal bowl I’d smuggled outside for the cat that lived on the premises. The tabby affectionately nicknamed Gravy, heard me banging his bowl on the stones and, meowing at me, ran down a tree where he’d been perched, spooked by the sound of the fire alarm.
“Here we go, boy, my little stray. I got you bacon this time.” I pulled the greasy, dried-up meat out of my pocket and eyed it critically. It wasn’t in the best shape, but judging by the way Gravywrapped around my legs, he was into it anyway. He dove for the bowl just as a low, scraping sound made me jump out of my skin. No one came around here but me. Until now, apparently.
Across the recess, facing away from me, was a man.
He was dressed in black robes, just like all the rest of the clergy who gave their time to the patients of Hallow Hall. He was standing strangely, leaning an arm against the wall before him, the other in front of him somewhere. The arm on the wall moved lazily toward his face, and a plume of smoke rose over his head. He was smoking, but there was something odd about the way his legs were planted. It took me a long moment to realize what he was doing.
Pissing. The priest was pissing... against the wall of the chapel. Smoking and pissing on sacred ground.
I stared. I’d never seen anything like it. It was brutish somehow, shocking for sure. It was unsettling. A priest desecrating holy ground. Smoke rose around his head and the piss, adding to the disquieting sight. He let out a deep, masculine grunt as he peed on the brick of the chapel. Unease spread through me. I watched his back jerk as he finished up and pulled his robes closed. Then he spun around, stepped a few paces away from the steaming snow, and leaned back with a satisfied sigh.
He lounged against the wall, uncaring of the snow dampening his black cassock. His profile was striking. He was tall and so very broad. He smoked calmly, ignoring the shrieking fire alarm sounding overhead. He pushed his black sleeve up and scratched his arm, revealing dark tattoos that crowded his skin. I thought there might be one on his neck as well.
The one on his arm was terrifying. A face without eyes, just deep, dark holes. They seemed to stare right at me.
He didn’t look like any priest I’d ever met. There was an auraof violence about him that clung like a second skin. He didn’t just wear it, hewasit. He was brooding, with long winged eyebrows the same black as his hair. Thick stubble molded over the lower half of his face, highlighting the strong jaw and firm planes of his chiseled cheeks. His dark eyes were expressive. Pools of warm sepia that felt like they would suck you in if you stared too long.
While the rest of the institution’s staff rushed to and fro in the courtyard behind us, trying to keep patients calm, this man leaned on the wall smoking a cigarette, very much like someone who wouldn’t care in the least if the whole building burned to the ground.
Snow swirled down, turning the sky white. The fire alarm screamed, and the man with the tattoos wearing the priest’s robes turned my way, tapping the ash of his cigarette to the snowy ground.
For a second, when my eyes met his, his appeared black as night.
Demon. Devil. He’s finally come for you.
“Shh, don’t be rude,” I muttered.
The man stilled and took me in.
His head tilted to the side, his gaze straying from the top of my head to my feet in a slow, leisurely perusal.
Over our heads, the fire alarm finally went silent, and the lack of noise felt like a scream.