The air is cooler than it was at dusk. It settles against my skin without asking. My feet sink slightly into damp earth, the soil soft from evening dew. I do not remember unlatching the door. I do not remember crossing the yard.
The path folds beneath me anyway, trees parting around me as though I have already passed through them once tonight. The forest smells deep. Wet bark. Moss split open under heel. A sweetness rising from rotting leaves. I breathe it in, the scent settling low in my lungs.
Roots curl across the ground, but I do not stumble. Ferns bend and spring back as I pass. My hands hang at my sides, fingers brushing against bark as I pass close to the trunks. A beetle crawls across the top of my foot, but I do not shake it off. The moon slips between branches, making my shadow stretch long before me, then disappear when I step beyond it.
After a while—or perhaps no time at all—the trees thin. Roofs crouch low against the dark. A single ember glows faintly through a window. No movement. No light but the pale wash from the sky. I stand at the edge of the field, my feet sinking into softer soil, dew cooling the mud already clinging there. The air near the houses smells different—ash and animal and straw.
I pass between them like a shadow that has forgotten its body, and soon, our door stands before me. Its wood bears a faint stain where something once lay, tough I cannot tell if it is shadow or memory.
The latch gives with a soft click as I step inside.
The house is dark. The embers in the hearth pulse faintly, red beneath ash. The air smells of smoke and wool. I pause just past the threshold, when something cool brushes the back of my neck. I turn.
The doorway frames only night. The yard is empty. The path still. The trees beyond do not move.
I hold there a moment longer before I turn my back to it.
I walk across the room. My feet leave faint marks on the packed earth floor, the ladder waiting ahead. I climb without sound, my hands finding the rungs without looking.
The blanket is cool when I slide beneath it. My skin is damp. My pulse slow.
Below, the door remains open, night breathing through as I sink.
***
I wake as if pulled upward by the throat.
My skin is slick. The linen clings to my back. For a moment I do not know where I am. Then the beams above me come into focus, and my eyes fly to the door below. Closed. The latch rests where it should. No strip of night across the floor. No open mouth swallowing the dark.
My breath shudders out of me. A dream. Only a dream. I press my palm hard against my mouth as if to hold that truth there. My heart still pounds, but the walls stand solid around me. The house breathes slow and ordinary, gray with early dawn. My hands search blindly beneath my pillow until my fingers close around the rosary, the beads sliding through them as I climb down the ladder and kneel before the hearth.
"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me."
The words spill out quickly at first, breathless. I bow forward until my forehead nearly touches the earth, then rise again. My body moves before thought can follow.
One.
"Have mercy on me."
Two.
I bend and rise. Bend and rise. The motion settles into rhythm. The beads slip one by one through my fingers.
Three.
Four.
My knees begin to sting. I welcome it.
Five.
"Do not let him in," I whisper without meaning to. I swallow and correct myself. "Have mercy on me."
Ten.
The image flickers behind my eyes.
Trees washed in silver. Damp earth.
