Salome: part 1.
Chapter 7: The sky, heavy with the leaden tint of thunder, sat low on the mountains. Night was coming.
Welcome to chapter 7 of Salome. This is a Gothic Horror novel set in the late 1880s and introduces Sister Salome, a young Italian nun who will appear in the 3rd Muldoon book. I started this serial to help you get to know her before the events of the next novel.
Last week, Salome was given her training brief and a baptism of fire when she finally met Mother Hildegard.
No one came for me that evening, or at least, not that I knew of. I slept through supper and evening prayer. I slept and I dreamt of many frightening things, mostly to do with Mother Hildegard leaving me on the dock, alone and unsure of which vessel to board for Turin.
But the dream that woke me in a panic was one of home. Not the convent, but my very first home.
I was at the little farmhouse, the rooms bare and long-forgotten, the windows empty of glass and a thick blanket of dust enveloping the mismatched table and chairs. No one had lived here since us. My bed, still in the little corner of one of the rooms, remained made, not even an indent to mark that it once had an occupant. Folded blankets, moth-eaten and mouldy, rested on a stool at the foot of the bed.
I peered out of one of the glassless windows and in the fading light of day saw the fields empty of animals. What remained of this place, only whispering grass and still, craggy hillsides, their sharp stones unmoved by the slow moan of the wind. The sky, heavy with the leaden tint of thunder, sat low on the mountains. Night was coming.
I retreated into the house and looked for a candle. I could not find one.
The cupboards were empty, my hands the only ones to touch their surfaces in years, my fingerprints decorating each edge like petals on a gravestone. I sat there for some time, my mind identifying where each glass bottle once lived, or where the playing cards sat. Like the sun, life that was lived here fell into the shadow of the moon, but there would be no dawn here. These people were gone. I was gone. The little child who once slept and dreamed in that bed was no more. I looked across to the other bed where he once slept. It was very much the same as mine.
Using my finger, I wrote his name in the dust. Francesco.
I closed the last cupboard and turned to look about the room, freezing when I caught sight of a shadow in the corner of my eye. Blinking to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, I slowly looked to the direction of the movement. Someone was outside, or so it seemed. A fleeting shadow of a tree in the storm, perhaps, or a trick of the dimming light.
I approached the front door and looked out. Nothing. I circled the house and walked to the empty goat pen, my shawl held tightly around my neck. The wind, more insistent now, blew northwards towards the churchyard, and I followed its direction with my eyes.
A little lantern glowed from within the graveyard.
What compelled me to walk up there, I did not know, but I did. There was something peaceful about being the only one there. Perhaps I wished to be alone and it came true.
I knew every curve, every dip, every jagged stone under my feet as I approached.
Father was here, and mother too.
The lantern rested atop their gravestone.
I reached for it, and held it down over the stone to see their names. Just two. This was where they would stay forever, and it was reassuring to see them, in some way. I made the sign of the cross and knelt on the grassy mound. I remained there for a moment, until another light caught my attention.
The church door was open.
The rain, falling with the heaviness and intent of spring, hammered on the steps of the church. I hurried inside at first but caution caught me, and I stopped in the doorway. In my hesitation to go any further, I held on to the wall and looked outside again. Only when I studied my surroundings did I notice a dark substance on the door, the posts and the lintel. I reached out to touch it, and it was so old that it flaked away.
Then I saw the bones and the blood-stained blade. The bleached skeleton of a lamb, laying exactly where the creature was left after sacrifice.
“They tried to stop it,” a voice said. I narrowed my eyes and focused on a figure near the altar. It was a man, standing in front of a candlelit shrine. Tall and hooded in dark robes like a monk, facing in my direction, though who he was, I could not see.
“Stop what?” I asked.
“Death.”
He approached me, and if he had been a man he would have had to use his feet to do it. He appeared before me, as close as I had been to the door. Through his obscured face, his eyes glowed, as unnatural as fire burning in pure snow.
I stepped back, but his long nails pinched my skin as his cold hands gripped my wrist in an iron vice. “Don’t go. You are here now. You must stay.”
That voice. So familiar a voice.
“Papa?”
Sister Catherine was by my bedside when I woke, gasping for air and desperate for water. The room was not lit, but I could feel her eyes watching me. “Sister, you were screaming,” she whispered. In the faint glow of the moonlight outside, I could see that she was wearing her nightgown, and her dark hair was cropped and brushed back. I did not know how late it was. She handed me a damp rag for my head. I took it and wiped the sweat away from my temples.
“Water,” I said, my throat too dry to resist the coughing that followed. She dutifully rose from the bed and fetched me a glass. I drank it greedily and demanded more.
It flowed down my throat and either side of my chin, dripping on to my habit that I was still wearing. I drained the glass and gave it back to her, shaking my head when she asked if I wanted any more.
“I am sorry for disturbing you,” I said, although I was not sure how I could have disturbed her and only her when she slept in a full dormitory on the floor above me.
“You didn’t. I was walking through the house,” she said. “I cannot sleep as well as everyone else; I walk up and down the stairs in the hope of growing tired.”
I realised that we had not spoken since before my meeting with Mother Hildegard. “Did you… did Mother Hildegard want to…?”
“She spoke to all of us, yes.” Her face betrayed nothing as she lowered her head. “I should have known he was a plant.”
“Why?”
She sighed. “I’ve been here for a lot longer than you have.”
“Two years.”
“No. Longer. I lied.” She turned her face away. “Anyway, now that you’re all right, I should get back to bed.”
“Thank you,” I said. I needed to change and sleep for what little time was left of the night. She rose from the bed and approached the door, turning to look at me once more. “I wasn’t allowed to tell you, you know.”
“That’s all right,” I said. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I could see her clearly now. She seemed pale, even in the cool glow of the small hours. Pale and sheepish.
She left and closed the door behind her. I undressed and washed my face at the basin, feeling for the towel and blotting my face with it. I looked up at the mirror and squinted, gasping when I saw it.
The hooded man. He was in my room, standing by my bed. I sharply turned to face him, but he was gone.
Ways to support this fiction newsletter.
As well as the option to upgrade your subscription to paid, I do also have books that you can purchase as well as a ko-fi and paypal.
If you’re enjoying Salome, you really would enjoy The Muldoon Mysteries series. There are currently two books (standalones) in this series. Click the image below to find out more about them, and find them on Tiny Worlds.
My books are now available at Tiny Worlds
Poignant in its description, creating a deep atmosphere of nostalgia, putting our heroine (and the reader) in a mood primed for fright!
Wonderfully atmospheric. Classic gothic horror!
Really enjoying this story, Hanna. And so well written!