Darkness Walks with Her

A formidable scream it was. A scream that could tear through trees and travel at ungodly speeds. A scream that twisted through trunks and cut through greenery itself.

Sharp.

Womanly.

Wrathful.

Between two full-bodied willows, her elegant silhouette rose, with smoking edges that dissolved into darkness. Slender, feminine curves and a long torso narrowed into a small waist and lengthened into a flowing ethereal gown. Her hair danced with the wind and melted into her ethereal garments, which themselves melted into fog. A crown of twigs, antlers, bones, thistle and crimson roses made her shadow appear primitive, ancient, and terrifying.

No face.

Just two vengeful eyes of jade. And searing rage.

”Keep away!” her phantom rasp came through the branches themselves, through the stream, and the ground beneath their feet. “My sacred babe. My tiny child!”

Agnes’s little veil lay now undone in front of her and a headful of long black hair had spilled out of her habit. Her figure, limp. Her eyes, still closed.

Lorenzo’s breath caught in his throat.

The shadow wept bitterly, with a loud, devastating pitch.

The men arose, scrambling to stand on the very ground that seemed to obey only her.

“That is a woodland fae!” Cedric declared in a panic.

”A what?” Edgar asked. ”We have to leave. We have to leave now!”

“Keep away, keep away, keep away your darkness, keep away, keep away…” the silhouette’s shouts kept coming in a relentless, punishing succession. “Keep away your darkness, keep away, keep away…!”

The repetitive auditory assault ceased only because the majestically dark, tear-stained silhouette appeared to take breath, drawing air from every living thing round it, including the three men who now lay panting as she inhaled. The temperature in the forest also tumbled, as frost laced the nearest leaves and shadows loomed forward as all four men gasped for air.

And then, her scream.

All three men writhed on the ground, now trying to shield their hearing from such a primal, soul-shattering, otherworldly shriek.

Edgar fled first, in a frenzy.

Ignatius immediately assumed a combative stance, sword drawn, despite the cacophony that made his very ears bleed.

“Be gone, unholy spirit!” the knight shouted, without being able to hear himself properly. “In Christ’s name be gone!”

”Virtuous thought, but I’m afraid the Holy Gospels are of no use to you here. You have to run!” Cedric said, dragging the knight backwards by the collar of his cloak.

Only Lorenzo remained now, bewitched by the vision.

”We can’t leave Agnes…” Lorenzo said, with astonished dread.

But Cedric seized him too. And pulled him away.

✨✨✨

Eventually, all four men collapsed near a birch grove, panting. Their ears were still ringing.

A muffled silence returned, broken only by their settling breaths, the soft drip of water from leaves, and a distant, more ordinary wind. Lorenzo turned and took two steps, but Cedric’s hand closed hard on his arm.

”No.”

Lorenzo tried to pull free. Cedric’s grip did not yield.

“Whatever that was, it still has her,” Lorenzo said.

”Whatever that was, it is still there…” Cedric said. “It appears to not want to hurt her.”

Once sure Lorenzo would not leave, Cedric then turned his attention to something more pressing.

“Edgar… You drunken fool!”

He wrapped his hands around the tallest doctor's neck. Ignatius watched.

“Why did you do it?! Why did you try to abduct her?!” Cedric spat.

“I-I… just wanted the secret of the elixir!” Edgar said. “I was never going to harm her, I swear! I just wanted to frighten her a little.”

”What is this elixir? What is he talking about?” Ignatius asked finally.

All three doctors exchanged glances.

“No, sir. You don’t ask questions here,” Lorenzo said then. “Not until you tell us why you were following the little sister.”

”I was not,” he said. “But I had left the tavern right before closing, and saw a shadow tracking the girl as she finished her chores. A blessing that I did. Though I feel that I just wandered into…heresy.”

”So then, they exist… the fae,” Lorenzo said, and then he and the knight both exclaimed in unison:

”No natural philosophy ever mentioned them!”

”The Bible never once mentioned them!”

Cedric took a few steps and found a spot to comfortably sit and take a breath.

“Nor would they ever,” he said then.

Ignatius remained standing, gazing back in the direction where they had come.

”She’s but a child,” the Templar whispered. “Yet, we just saw darkness walk with her.”

”And what will you do about that, soldier?” Edgar asked. “Tell your pious brothers what you’ve learned tonight? So they can send their disgraced army of fanatics to arrest and execute her, this wee thing, then terrorize her sisters? Those sisters actually assist us with supplies to fight this mortality, while lords and churchmen have turned their backs on us. Not that I would allow you to leave this place alive if that was your intent.”

The knight snickered.

”Her attacker now fancies himself her preserver.”

”Faster than you can blink…”

”With no training and no sword…”

”Do not presume to know the first thing about me, knight…”

”All right, that is quite enough. You will do nothing of the sort. Neither of you. Now, sit.” Cedric said, sounding weary of them both. “Sit, I say.”

Both men slowly approached the circle and sat on the cold, wet earth. Lorenzo finally sat down too. Ignatius settled himself with a bit of clanking.

“You come bearing the cross of an order itself accused of occult and tenebrous practices. I expect more temperance from you, knight,” Cedric said.

”This is different. What I saw with my own eyes…”

”And saw what exactly?” Cedric challenged.

”Saw what?! You were there. We all saw!” Ignatius said. “The child was left in its presence. I must return before that unholy thing takes her.”

”You would cut down a woman because she chose to dress in twigs?” Edgar asked.

”A specter,” Ignatius insisted. “Cedric himself said a fae…”

“We still don’t know what we saw,” Lorenzo cut him off. “Not for certain.”

”Are you saying it was trickery?” Edgar asked.

”She…it… defended her. Whatever it was, it defended her. We don’t know what it will do if threatened. I am saying we will wait until the light of day.”

By the time they passed by the spot where all had occurred, Agnes was gone, the shadow woman was also gone, and the indolent black stag that grazed there barely looked up at the men.