Christmas Eve crowds are thinning as people hurry home to warmth, to families, to places where they’re wanted.
I don’t have any of that.
Not without her.
My boots carry me without direction, driven by a desperation that feels more instinct than choice. My breath fogging out into clouds that vanish as quickly as they form.
I stop at a crossroads, shivering, scanning the streets for something, anything, that could mean she’s here, has been here. A sign. A movement. A ghost of her shadow.
Nothing.
Until bells.
Clear, bright, ringing through the snow-heavy air.
And suddenly I’m no longer breathing.
‘I liked listening to the bells. You can feel them in your bones when you’re inside the church.’
The way she spoke of them, just once, half-mad with delirium, smacking at her head with her hands.
‘Do you think they’ll ever ring for us?’
The bells ring again.
Louder this time.
Closer.
And I follow the sound like a man possessed.
It leads me down Cheapside until I see it, St Mary-le-Bow Church, rising out of the winter dark like something carved from moonlight. The tower is elegant, illuminated in pale gold, every chime vibrates down my spine.
The doors are flung open, warmth spills into the icy street, carrying with it the scent of pine and wax and mixed spice. For a long moment, I just stand there. This place… It feels wrong for someone like me. A man with blood on his hands, shadows in his lineage, and a Pairing forged under rituals and sacrifice. But the bells keep ringing, and with every toll, something inside me whispers.
She heard these.
I step inside; the warmth hits hard, the kind that seeps into your ribs and reminds you that the world isn’t always dark. Candles line the aisles. Families fill the pews. Soft chatter drifts through the space like delicate ribbons. I hover in the back corner, back pressed to a stone pillar, my breath still uneven from the cold and the crushing ache that never leaves me now.
A vicar stands at the front, white robes whispering as he moves.
His voice is gentle, steady, a sound that rises and folds over the congregation like a blanket. “…and on this night, we remember hope,” he says. “Hope even in the darkest places. Hope when the path forward isn’t visible, when we feel lost, when we fear we will not be found.”
The words hit me so hard I have to squeeze my eyes closed.
Lost.
Fear.
Not being found.
Penelope.
I see her face everywhere, my mind trying to create her out of shadows.
Where is she now?
Is she cold? Is she safe? Did she find shelter? Food? A way to disappear completely? Is she still in England? Or had she found her way onto a ferry, a train, a plane? Has she slipped into the arms of a different city while I chased her ghost through London?
