The words were harsh and unfamiliar, a language unknown to me, but knew the rolls of vowels and the hushed sobs of what it truly meant.
A prayer to ferry the dead to the afterlife—the final passage.
From the crowd, I picked out the mother we had visited nearly a fortnight ago. Eyes were rimmed red, cheeks wet from tears. She looked more fragile than the desperate mother I met She watched as her little girl was lowered to the cold earth.
Ayla squeezed my arm, her frown twisting further. “It’s the little girl from last week. Shortly after we left, her mother informed me that she passed away in her sleep. Want to know what I found when I examined her lifeless corpse? Bite marks.”
The priest finished the prayer as mourners walked up and tossed dirt upon the casket. Many left with tears on reddened, chilled cheeks with others holding onto loved ones steeped in grief. Wails drowned the cemetery in a haunting chorus carried on by gentle falling snowflakes kissing tears away.
The mother stood alone at the grave, clutching tulips of winter white contrasting the rippling black of mourning clothes rustling in the soft quiet. Her somber gaze down cast to the casket below, she hardly noticed our approach.
Ayla spoke with honeyed words. “My condolences. I know it’s been a difficult time for you.”
From under the dark veil, the woman’s lips parted as she shook her head. “It was to be her tenth birthday today. My little girl is ten today, and I had to bury her.” She sniffled into hands.
Her shoulders shook with hard sobs escaped her throat.
Ayla threw a rose onto the casket. Its scarlet bloom stood out from the dustings of white. The gravediggersshoveled dirt onto the casket, burying flowers, snow, and the innocent little girl into the cold ground.
The mother was ushered off by someone, her sobs the only sound in the cemetery. Snow fell softly, covering the ground once more in innocent white.
We had buried Father in the fall of last year, months after that—I became sick. I kept it from the household for as long as I could until Miriam had suggested we visit Father’s grave to pay our respects on such a winter’s day as this. Among those stones, Miriam and I traveled just as the mother did—weaving ourselves around worn rock, the ground patched with dirt and snow with some plots newer than others. Huddled at the face, the secret burst from lips, blood bubbling onto the white and staining it crimson. I had watched as Miriam’s expression fell into despair.
“You’re not sick. You can’t be,” she had whispered among the graves with her sorrow-filled blue eyes coated with tears. “You can’t be.”
I nodded, the words lodged in my throat. It was funny to think about mortality in this way only a year later, the fear haunting me well before then. The oddity of the fear still haunting mortal dreams kissed softly as death.
A pang shot through my heart. I wondered what she would say about Silas, Ayla, the village, everything. Would she see them as pawns to use as she had me? Or would she see it as that night in the study, taking life for what it is?
Ayla scowled, “Are you happy now? She’s dead. The monster is better off dead, yet you dally with the lives of the villagers.”
My heart sank to the depths of my chest. Silas was not involved. He gave me his word. Despite this, there was hardly any other person or reason for the villagers’ afflictions. I didn’t meet her hard gaze, in disbelief at the truth I refused to accept as willing as others had.
“Look at me,” Ayla shrilled. She grabbed my wrist, jostling me forward into the mud. I knelt at the foot of the girl’s grave. “What more proof do you need? He’s a killer, and if you don’t kill him—he will kill you.”
“I can’t,” I choked up as tears welled. Her grip on my neck tightened as the taste of dirt flooded my mouth. “I can’t. He’s not doing this—he gave me his word.”
“You trust the word of a monster over the faithfulness of your friend? How absurd!” Ayla hissed, her fingers digging harder into my neck, grazing over the soft, tender flesh and the bandage. She yanked upwards, dragging me to my feet. “What do we have here?”
“No! Don’t! Please!” I cried, struggling against her. I tried with all my might to pry her fingers off my neck.
The air snatched from my lungs, depleted in one swift movement that blurred altogether.
Ayla ripped the bandage off, revealing the two neat pricks upon pale flesh, rubbed red from the cotton.
“What have you done?” She gasped, releasing me to the ground. “You let him drink from you? You were supposed to kill him, not become his lackey!”
My hand flew to my neck, covering the awful truth. “He would never hurt me. He isn’t the one doing this—please believe me! There—there is someone else involved.”
“You can’t trust what that beast says. You are brainwashed—brainwashed. Probably will kill us all if given the chance.” Ayla’s lips curled into a heinous smile. “You’d kill us all.”
The shadows fell across the stones, and the bell’s thunderous baritone struck free, shattering the eerie gloom and replacing it with such darkness. They curled around Ayla’s feet, gliding with her as she strode toward the gate.
She tossed her head back, blonde spooling out from her cloak. “Defend him while you can. It won’t last.” She walked off, the snow falling harder until she was nothing more than a speck of blue among the landscape.
Darkness followed after her as I stood at the gate, condemning us to a path where neither of us will ever cross again.
That was the last time I saw Ayla Wallace.
