Weston Abbey’s final dusk closed in as the strange and terrible happenings of the last days were tended to. Lora had seen to the burial of the dead while an emaciated and broken sister Lydia ushered her sisters onto the barges bound for Liverpool. Once they arrived, Sybil’s brother would make arrangements for their new home. Judith and Sybil had secured their meagre belongings and now had begun the work of preserving that which they deemed important from the library. Rebecca worried over which of her casks to bring, assisted by the impressive bulk of loyal household guard and Randolf.

Myfanwy had been removing the protections and sanctification of the abbey, wearing down the barriers that had stymied her mistress for so long. Even now, she carried a bundle of burning sage through the cloister while sweeping the ground with a bundle of yew branches. As Sybil sat before the church, looking back toward her home of four years, she began to wonder whether it had been worth it. She ruminated on the fate of the abbess, rolling the prayer beads taken from her over her fingers. She pondered the last words of Gustav, who accepted his fate readily. They had all been so calm, so prepared for the end. Though her hunger remained sated from the druidess’ offered veins, she pondered how it had come to control her for a good while.

She spied Lora returning from her prayers in the chapel, most likely petitioning the almighty for forgiveness as she’d done those last two days. The nun…. No, not anymore. The noblewoman, shorn of her habit and robe, could not blame her. She too would have sought some measure of clemency from him if her gaze met more than the empty eyes of statues. The ragged tear where her faith had been. In the end, it had not been her love for Judith being deemed a sin that had slain it. Her fervour, her desire to see his glory, had been smothered by her own deeds. Looking to the beads in her fingers, she sighed and tucked them into her satchel. She’d done everything right. Walked the righteous path as best she could with the desires given to her. Still, she’d been led by the horned creature’s whims to this end. Her worry upon feeling her fangs for the first time had been prophetic. Judith truly had made a murderess of her. Though not with the blood she’d saved her with.

“Heavy thoughts, sister,” Lora observed with a kindly look, sitting herself on a stone bench. “We will all be at peace in the end. The wicked were punished,” the nun opined while looking back to the steadily darkening halls of her home.

“What had the abbess done that brought you to turn against her?” Sybil asked with mixed emotions. Judith had borne the weight of being executioner to both Gustav and Margaret. The look of joy that passed over her father’s features upon hearing that had been enough justification in both their minds. Randolf had taken his cowardly household guard prisoner. He would let them stand trial, of course. But a court would likely deem them madmen if they dared speak ill of Sybil now. Like some manner of spider, she had woven a web of deceit and illusion about herself. The doting daughter, kindly and quaint, who could not bring herself to kill even in the face of such villainy. But she could not deny herself any more than her father could deny the wounds in his household guard. And so, like his daughter, he turned his face from it.

“For years, I brought before her vain pleas for aid. I was being weathered as a statue against the onslaught of the abbey’s grief. I begged for medicine, a physician proper,” Lora confessed with a shaking breath before a look of unadulterated spite cast itself toward the freshly dug graves. “I requested sister Judith’s aid in my duties,” she chuckled at the absurd irony of it all, bringing a rueful smile to Sybil’s lips. “She said that she would not trust a sodomite nor heretics to tend faithfully to their needs,” came the final proclamation. One that moved Sybil to resentment before she sighed with a nod. That was unfortunately likely. “Forgive me my deadly laxity. In my haste to dispense the duties of my burden, its weight forced my hand,” Lora apologized with such grave eyes that Sybil reached out to squeeze her hand reassuringly.

She was unsure if she forgave the old woman. She knew there to be no case to answer, no wrong beyond momentary indiscretion. But the resentment that nestled within her called out that it did not matter her intent. Only that she’d failed. And on it went. So, it would go until her dying breath most likely. Her second dying breath, she thought with amusement.

“You had best get to the river before your barge leaves,” Sybil reminded the older woman gently, a smile touching her lips. “All is well between us. Though I imagine you will not wish to be here for what is next,” she lied with frightening ease, fortifying the nun as she began her journey to the gates of the abbey. The noblewoman looked upon her with a forced neutrality before rising to her feet and walking toward the abbey. Her malaise turned to sadness as she passed through her beehives, aggrieved that she could not take them with her. Perhaps she would build new hives at her father’s estate. The impish voice of Judith, ever present in her mind, suggested they make human hives, and she could tend those. The absurdity of it brought a smirk and warmth to Sybil. Content to believe that her industrious little friends would make good of themselves in her absence, she bade them farewell before making her way through the tunnel which had now been cleared of ivy. Better to load the overladen cart of crates, casks and coverings for their journey. Judith appeared to be bringing the rugs, she noted as she spied their rolled-up forms. Her chambers at the manor would most likely benefit from them. Most likely.

She passed a struggling household guard with an apologetic smile into the earthy den of Rebecca who even now seemed quite comfortable giving orders to her newly acquired underlings. Not even her father was spared a gentle tongue lashing for forgetting to close the tap before lifting the barrel. He nodded to his daughter before making his way up the stairwell, too large to risk the tunnel.

“Rebecca, have you seen my beloved? I wish to be free of this place and it wouldn’t do to keep our benefactor waiting,” Sybil asked with a perplexed expression as her freckled friend banged her head against the underside of her table. Rubbing it she held up a hand to check the scrap of paper in her hand was indeed what she sought. Tucking it into her belt, she thought for a moment.

“She was in the library last I checked, mistress,” Rebecca answered with unusual formality. One that brought an exasperated sigh from the noblewoman’s throat.

 “Why would you call me that?” she asked.

“Is that not how you address the lady of the manor? Your father is Earl Randolf. You would be Mistress Sybil, correct?” the frizzy-haired woman inquired with a perplexed expression. Sybil firmly reminded the vintner that of all people her mother would be the lady of the house if she were still alive. She would not be taking titles unless her father offered them. Though she would be lying to say she did not enjoy the sound of Mistress Sybil on another’s tongue.

It was at that moment Judith chose to save the pair from the awkwardness by appearing in her mail and grieves. Even though she was perfectly safe for the most part, her knightess had aspired to embody her pet-name. Sybil had a worried thought that perhaps she might petition the queen for a knighthood. And she’d keep beating seven bells out of noblemen until she got one. The noblewoman didn’t much like the idea of addressing her love as Sir. They would have to make a term for women knights if their kind were to become more common. Though as the pair left that issue to the side, Sybil indicated to the depths where the cells lay. Myfanwy had told them that if they wished for an audience, they should find the door that led to the cavern beneath the wine cellar. Apparently, each floor of the abbey had been carved with the druidic symbols that decorated the floor of the winery. One simply had to know where to look.

The ‘door’ was illuminated as the three of them used candles to light their way. Perhaps they had been underprepared given the amount of times Rebecca almost tripped or stubbed her toe. She was only human, Sybil grinned to herself as she took stock of the great schism in the rock before her.

Upon closer inspection it seemed to be the remnants of a bricked-up archway. Myfanwy had taken a hammer and chisel to it the night the abbess had died, slinging a rope ladder down the morning after. Giving each other a dubious look, Judith and Sybil silently stared each other down for a moment or two before the armed woman relented and began her descent. As Sybil followed suit, candle held between her fingers, she noticed that every inch of the wall had been carved with druidic symbols. Far more recent, given their lack of wear. That they had likely been carved with iron tools sent a prickle of unease up her spine.

Their supernatural sight gave them a sublime view of what lay beneath. Black stone had been carved with frantic, desperate chisel strokes while wicker wards hung from the arches Sybil’s grandfather had built. Before them, a great iron-wrought door sat in rusted decay, cast from its hinges onto the dark pool beneath. Lifting the hem of her dress, retrieved from the abbess’ study, Sybil stepped onto the door and through the circular entrance it had once protected. Judith drew one of her blades anxiously, eyes flitting throughout the chamber. Rebecca’s foot clanged on the door. Both women turned with irritation before the vintner curtly passed her hand over her own face, knowing full well her bloodthirsty compatriots saw better than she did. Vexed but otherwise unable to do anything, they resumed their slow march into the darkened jaws of the chamber beyond.

What they came upon perplexed them even further. The black stone eventually broadened into a large crater, dark waters surrounding a central dais of stone. Upon it, illuminated by a shaft of light from somewhere above them, moss and flowers bloomed in every shade. A stooped, tangled yew tree attempted in vain to reach the light that had sustained the seed that bore it. Yet none of these scenic features were what drew a gasp of astonishment from Sybil. Entangled within the roots of the tree, brought into a possessive embrace, was a truly remarkable skeleton. Forged of blackened bones and leathery sinews that persisted even now, the fully articulated bones were anything but human. Two great ram horns emerged from her forehead, their smaller counterparts emerging from the orbital bones over what were once ears. Her whitish teeth were fanged, fingers long and clawed. Her legs, seemingly human for the upper portions, descended into thick wolfish claws. Judith elbowed her in the ribs, pointing to a long whiplike tail that ended roughly near her feet were she standing. The remains of a dark purple robe, open and rotting, splayed out beneath her. This, Sybil reasoned, was the voice in the dark. What remained of her. They had simply been haunted.

“It was in my hubris and in his guile that your grandfather did offer his poisoned chalice,” the voice spoke, sonorously emanating about them. Rebecca jumped with fright, sightless eyes flying fore and away in hopes of seeing the source of this visitation. Sybil and Judith looked upon the skeleton, hoping to spy any movement or trickery. “Greedily, I drank deep of their devotion. He bade I safeguard his lineage as compensation. His death, untimely as it was planned, saw that I languish here in perpetuity,” she continued to explain. The pair expected betrayal or anger at such a revelation. That their gifts would be stripped from them, and they would be laid to rest as they should have been. Rather than renege on her contract, this creature had allowed her physical form to waste away. Rather than feel betrayed, amusement played across her voice as she recounted her tale. “The fates, in their perfidious mirth, wove a tale in which his blood would free me as he said it would. The wages of his promise have been paid. I gift unto you the wages of mine,” the voice concluded before the cracking of wood sounded. Within the tree, the remains stirred.

Both women remained stock still, unable to comprehend what they were seeing. The skeletal form held its arms wide, standing easily taller than any human. The pool began to writhe and boil, its vapor collating about the bones as mist before it began to solidify into blood, marrow and muscle. Her skin encased these machinations, claws dragging themselves over her naked form to restore the robes that had once been there. Rebecca, shaking behind Judith, whimpered that they were surely to die. That this was the devil.

The woman herself was much as her bones would have suggested. She bore a chalky white complexion, the curvaceous form her visitations had portended and a tail that hovered loosely about her form. Judith cared not for the unearthly, beautiful face or the unnaturally dark, featureless blue eyes. Her horns were momentary concern but what drew her eyes more than anything were the great predatory claws that emerged from her three-toed feet. They were bird like in construction but with shorter toes, thickened to bear the weight of a humanoid. Sybil watched as she manifested a great tome from the air, striking a name from its confines before shutting it. It remained, floating behind its mistress.

“The debts of Arthur Haroldson are settled. You may go with my plundered boon, stolen so fatefully from the Daughter of Ashes,” the woman announced cryptically, as if taking joy at their befuddlement. If Sybil had the right of it, she imagined that their unusual diet and undying nature were the blessing to which she referred.

“If you plundered it on our behalf and to your own ends, would we expect its owner to claim it?” Judith snarled, suddenly hostile to the creature that had resurrected them. Perhaps, much like Rebecca, she had reckoned that the Devil had been their patroness.

“She lacks the means to reclaim that which she has spread as a plague upon mankind. Even if she were inclined to,” the demonic creature smirked, her fangs lending an ever-increasing volume to the uneasy voice in Sybil’s mind. This being struck her as something that did not idly speculate or embellish. Her choice of the word ‘plague’ unsettled the blonde woman’s mind considerably as she realised what would happen if they were to refuse quarantine of their condition. Her eyes turned to Rebecca, timidly hiding behind Judith as if the Francian could do anything should this beast, which spoke with the hunger of her own savagery, chose to do them harm. “Gird well your desire for one another. Eternity is lonesome without another to call your own,” the voice advised, walking toward them as the dregs of the dark pool parted before her. She momentarily stood before them, towering over Judith by her head and shoulders, with an ingratiating grin. Her love stood aside with a suspicious glare, as if allowing her to leave the chamber would invite destruction. As if they had a choice.

Then she was gone. Like a wraith or spectre, the statuesque woman vanished before them with naught but a few falling wisps of white hair to show of her passage. It was as if she’d melted into the very fabric of the world, her book in tow.

“I should resolve that we never come to this place again,” Judith said in a tight voice, visibly shaken by the resurrection she’d beheld. “We will not speak of that creature and her borrowed blessings.”

“And if any should ask, it was a spell crafted by my grandfather. Now hidden to safeguard the proper management of our people,” Sybil added hastily, noting the issue before it arose. She then turned to Rebecca, who nodded firmly. Every faith, nation and people had their mythologies. If they were but the first in a line of many, they would feign sorcerous power rather than confess what had wrought them. “Whatever we have unleashed today, we must protect our own.”

And so, they left that darkened stoop, the hovel in which her cursed cadaver lay. They crawled from within the charms of sealing Sybil now knew her grandfather had carved into the entrance and past the bricks he had vainly hoped to contain her with. She began to wonder whether they’d been wise. Whether they should have simply allowed their deaths. Yet as they emerged into the light of the full moon, her father’s household guard loading the last of their books onto the wagon, the noblewoman did not regret her actions. Whatever that creature was, it had free reign until her grandfather’s lifetime she was sure of that much. Its presence would be mundanity. Her reassurance tasted a lie, even as she looked to the unsettled eyes of Rebecca. She would expect her payment ere long. Perhaps they too would spread the plague.

The two lovers left Randolf and his men to begin their journey home. His personal longboat would carry them to the city of Liverpool then on to the home Sybil had once lost. But before that, they had unfinished business to tend to with one another. They chose the library for their purposes, promising to bring the satchels of books with them. After seating themselves upon a candlelit table in the ever-growing twilight, Judith snaked her fingers through Sybil’s as they looked across from each other. There they stayed for a moment, gazing toward the empty room with sombre eyes. It seemed their love had finally left the prison of its tower chamber. The price had been steep, in Sybil’s view. Perhaps, after seeing their saviour in the flesh, Judith now thought the same.

“It seems our fantasy came with far more addendums than we’d have hoped for,” Sybil wryly observed, thumb teasing over the tendons of her knightess’ hand. She nodded glumly in response before seeming to steel herself. A smile grew between the pair as they both acknowledged it. Their dream, no matter what shape the course had taken, was now within their grasp. Already, the devious mind of the blonde thought of all the myriad ways her blood had become the most valuable tincture in the kingdom. With but a drop, the childless queen could become an eternal monarch. Elite soldiers and guardians for their manor, able to withstand ten men to every single soldier. The fetters of her sex had become immaterial as she pondered the multitudes of ways to defend herself. They would say she sold her soul, she supposed. But in the end, both she and Judith had received a worthy barter for it. And she would not have frequented the marketplace for such atrocities had her love not been felled by inhumane incarceration. Though that did turn the blonde’s mind to curiosity. “At what juncture were you going to tell me of your heart, Judith?” Sybil smirked, jamming a finger into the mailed chest of her lover with force. She made a small noise of discomfort before grinning impishly. That infuriating smirk of hers.

“Myfanwy cultivated that falsehood so I might be buried near the abbey,” Judith confessed with an easy shrug. Sybil’s face fell, though her love was far too entranced by her ruse to see it. “It did not matter to me what the sisters thought. But during my visits to her to learn and exorcise my frustrations to a sympathetic ear, she suggested it. I merely drank nightshade I hid about my person,” she continued as the other woman sighed, looking between her hands.

“Why would you keep this from me? You let me mourn you,” Sybil scolded gently, though there was a certain degree of hurt playing about her voice.

“Had I divulged my plans, you may have dissuaded me or abandoned me as a villain,” Judith replied defensively, though her expression softened as a gleam of mischief entered her eye. “That is, if you did not consider me a lunatic.”

“You are a lunatic my darling,” Sybil purred, her offence slowly melting away. She truly was helpless under those pleading brown eyes. “Though your eccentricity is endearing, do try to consider me in future. Or I shall be the knotsmith when next we know each other,” she threatened with a teasing air. A look of surprise overcame her Francian briefly. It was then smoothed away to an innocent, impish expression.

“Perhaps it is well you joined me sooner. It has done very agreeable things to your temperament,” Judith speculated facetiously, attracting a playfully unamused expression from the blonde. She had to confess it was true. Her perceptions of the righteous path had become very different. Some would say warped.

The two looked to the town with a mixture of emotions. Judith was well rid of the abbey and its restrictions, galivanting about in her armour and weapons. Sybil felt a pang of regret as she closed the door to the library behind her, books over one shoulder. She imagined the townspeople would be there come morning, seeking any pittance they could loot from within. She hoped the thyme they saved would do well in their pots. Little else remained save her bees. Perhaps Myfanwy would take care of them, she thought as they passed the druidess applying her sage to the church near the abbey gate.

They saw fit to bid her goodbye, given that she’d been the architect of it all. They knew so little of her yet by conversation’s end they gleaned she’d only become a druidess for desperation and reform of their religion. Now, with its alterations, it spread to England turning households by the dozen. She even gifted them knowledge of the chapter hidden within Liverpool. But as pleasant as their conversation remained, Judith grew increasingly uncomfortable. As Sybil bade the strange woman goodbye, she could no longer contain herself.

“What was she?” The Francian asked pointedly.

Myfanwy regarded her with a sardonic, almost condescending expression before smoothing her features diplomatically. Shifting her staff behind her to lean upon it, she took a bone from her pocket carved into the shape of a horned sheep’s profile. How very apt given her heritage, Sybil thought with a hidden grin.

“To our faith, she is a new goddess. One that has dwelt within these lands since before mankind set foot upon it. To others, a malignant spirit or hag that brings forth the winter. Rebecca deemed me devil-worshiper. Amusing given her aspirations,” Myfanwy explained, flipping the token in her hand to reveal writings on the reverse that made no sense to the noblewoman’s eye. “You do not wish to know what she is. You wish to know if you can trust her. To which the answer is no,” she continued, giving Judith a meaningful stare. “But she will not forsake a barter. In many ways, you had the upper hand in negotiations. Do not expect such fortune again if you deal with her,” the druidess warned before righting herself and returning the token of her faith back whence it had come. She cracked her back with a grumble of age before gifting them a warm smile. “I pray you two find happiness, in the end. Truly. My work yet remains.”

With that, the lovers and heretic parted ways. One toward the abbey, two toward the town. Their minds raced with understandings and questions. But they need not linger on them, Sybil reckoned as she met her father at the riverside. She held in her mind the idea that as she left this place, she would leave behind the horror that had accompanied it. The woods where Gustav fell, the warehouse where the abbess met her end. The horned beast within the abbey basement. The muddy streets Judith had found her bloody banquet upon. She looked upriver, her father standing proudly upon the prow to guide them home. They sat in each other’s arms, Sybil swilling from a wineskin Judith offered. The future would contain tribulations aplenty for creatures such as them. But for now they had found their fantasy.