Salome: Episode 12.
Marks on her neck. I shook my head. It couldn’t be. This was just a dream.
Welcome to episode 12 of Salome. This is a Gothic Horror novel set in the 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, having only experienced the dream once before, experiences it every night. Then, Catherine appears in the little house in Turin.
The dream recurred every night, and every night I beat my fists against the wall of the little house in frustration. I felt that there was a puzzle to solve, and no one could do it for me, or guide me through it. Sometimes I cried, sometimes I cursed, sometimes I circled the house repeatedly, trying to see what must have been there. No matter what I did, it ended the same way, the despair of my fruitless venture sitting heavy in my heart each time.
Every morning, the tiredness bore further into my body. I grew more exhausted as the day went on, but in my eagerness to prove that Father John’s faith in me was not wasted, I forced myself to sleep and dream again. To free myself for the following night, I made sure to confess my sins of the night before. It helped. I endured my physical training, moving on to the next task before anyone had to remind me. Mother Hildegard stepped back, watching me from a distance instead of at my shoulder. I enjoyed the newfound freedom, and I would prove to her that her trust was warranted.
I kept a little notebook at my bedside, and I memorised and noted down everything that happened in my dreams, even if they were the same as the previous time. I felt it was my mission to find the answers. I closed my eyes.
“Don’t go. You are here now. You must stay.”
The hooded man, his soft whispers somewhere just out of reach, echoed in my mind. I was at the stone cottage again. I’d once called it home, but now it was a recurring nightmare, with no clear exit available to me. Even during my waking hours, I felt him behind me, always quicker than my ability to move my head in time. His voice became the very air, the sky, the thunder in the clouds, as distant as the mountains. I looked out of the window up to the hillside. The church waited. It always did. But I would not go right now. I resolved to try something different.
“Why must I stay?” I asked. No one answered. The wind moaned softly in the cracks of the walls like it always did in this dream. I checked the rooms again, brushing my fingers across the beds and the furniture, in some obscure hope that they would tell me something. They did not.
Dejected, I sat down on the bed and fixed my eyes on the small crucifix on the wall. Perhaps God would tell me. “What is this for?” I asked. No one answered.
Something caught my eye. It was moving outside in the garden. I stayed where I was.
“Sister?”
She stood in the doorway of the cottage, her sunken eyes wild and frightened, the only animation in her thin face. Catherine. “Sister, is that you?” she asked again.
I nodded. “It’s me.”
I reached for her hands and felt them. Cold, but skin and bone. “We are dreaming,” she said, her voice monotonous. I studied her face again. What I saw filled me with mortal fear.
“When did you last sleep before now?” I asked, burying my panic.
“I do not remember.”
“Come,” I said. “We must go to the church.”
“Why?” She snatched her hands away from me, backing away.
“That is where the dream ends.”
“I cannot,” she cried, trembling. “I cannot go up there. Please, don’t take me up there.”
I held her arms as she writhed and sobbed. “What is it? What’s wrong?” She pushed me away, screaming and holding her head as she crashed backwards into the door frame.
When she looked at me, I saw only the whites of her eyes, until they closed completely. She collapsed to the floor with a thud, and I rushed to hold her.
Her head lolled as she lost consciousness, and my blood turned to ice, my heart denying what my eyes could clearly see. Marks on her neck. I shook my head. It couldn’t be. This was just a dream.
But then my own scratches were bleeding.
“Catherine,” I pleaded, “get up!”
The lightning came first, illuminating the horror in my arms, followed by thunder that felt so close, it could have been on the roof. Tiles came loose in the wind, dropping and breaking on the ground outside. I shook my friend and begged her to come back to me.
Then I heard the howls.
Wolves.
Froth poured from her mouth, her body convulsing.
“Almighty and Eternal God,” I began, gently putting her down on the floor. I clasped my shaking hands together. “The everlasting salvation of them that believe, hear us on behalf of Thy sick servant…”
The howling, louder with every passing moment, instilled such primal fear in my heart that it threatened to distract me from my prayer. I persisted.
“For whom we implore the aid of Thy pitying mercy, that, with her bodily health restored, she may render thanks to Thee…”
I could not help but look at them.
They were outside the house, red eyes glowing in the darkness. Screams of villagers that weren’t there, invisible flesh torn from their bones. The startling crack of gunshots that fired at nothing. The snarls of the predator in my very ears.
They want you to stop.
I would not abandon this prayer, even when the saliva of the fetid maw dripped down the back of my neck.
“She may render thanks to Thee!”
The winds around us rose, slamming the shutters of the house against the stone walls. I was forced to yell over the racket.
“In Thy Church! Through Christ our Lord. Amen!”
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
