England - West Coast 
Dartmoor, Newton Abbot
St. George, Chapel of St. George
06 October 1898, 6:11 pm

The twilight provided only moderate brightness through the stained glass windows set into antique wooden frames and masonry, enveloping the sacristy at the side of the imposing building, particularly in a dim gloom. The light from the few lit candles broke on a silver decanter and climbed over the worn wooden beads of a rosary to settle on the silver threads of a gown. A dozen Bibles and hymn books leaned against each other on a shelf of polished wood while neatly folded corporals of white linen rested in the chambers of a wall shelf. The rest of the sacristy was sparsely furnished - only a few holy pictures and a small table found their place in the tiny room.

Next to burnt-down candle stubs on their iron holders, a man's robed figure bent there over the yellowed pages of a book. The irregular scratching accompanied the circular movements of his fingers as the quill left new, curved letters on the small stack of parchment. Father Ewans had already come so close to the paper over time that the blackness of the texts could be seen reflected in the half-moon-shaped glasses of the pince-nez on his knobbly nose. The smell of ink, polished wood, and old parchment tickled the nose of its author. It wouldn't have taken much for the tip of it to be blackened in addition to his fingers.

"Alan! Come with the matches at once!" the man's rasping voice croaked impatiently as his bony fingers slid to the garment. Rustling softly, they loosened the white priest ribbon but did not pull it entirely from the grip of the stiff collar. Silver-grey hair carefully combed adorned the head of the soul shepherd, whose eyes were noticeably more strained with every passing minute due to the fading daylight.

The fingertips of his left hand drummed on the wood of the imposing desk in a much faster rhythm. At that moment, a harsh gust of wind unexpectedly drove into the vestry. One after another, it wiped aside the book's pages, and the remaining sparse light was abruptly extinguished.

"Damn!"

Following the clatter of the pen, the priest's flat hand came down abruptly on the old wood, which groaned under the harsh impact. The dull thud caused the small inkpot to clink softly before the shrill, wooden scraping of the chair's legs echoed off the chamber walls like a cry of protest.

"ALAN!"

This time the quivering voice already carried the angry sound of a thread of patience stretched to the breaking point while rumbling footsteps led the way to the shallow side dresser.

"I've told you at least a thousand times to close the damn windows!" the old man clamored, "You know how much I hate it when it pulls at my neck!"

His fingers reached into the darkness, groping over leather covers and rough spines with inset letters. Something fell over, and a soft curse spilled muffled into the darkness. It took a few moments for the priest to leave the scanning path that led along the books. He turned downwards and followed the side edge to finally feel the desk drawer's metallic handles. Pulling the jammed drawer open amid the audible creaking of the old, warped oak took a little more strength. In the oppressive silence, even this tiny sound was reflected from the walls like a too-loud clearing of the throat amid devotion.

"Why only, O Lord, do you punish me with such an incompetent, useless altar boy?" the man complained, full of self-pity, as he finally pulled out the rectangular case of stiff paper from among all sorts of other trinkets. Only a little content, however, rattled inside. The fleeting feeling of success at having found matches was only able to please him briefly. Impatiently, he pulled the dented box and the small wood out of its container to pull it restlessly over the roughened surface with a short jerk. 

Once. Twice.

"Jesus Christ!" the old man's contrite voice grumbled, noticeably more frustrated with each unsuccessful attempt. Carelessly dropping the match, he seized the next piece of angular wood and pressed the half-round head against the rough surface of red phosphorus.

Chk. Chk. Chk.

Nothing. He pulled out one more, then another. But none would catch fire. Even the eighth or ninth time, his efforts were to no avail. So only the dull, grey-white rays that filtered through the tiny window continued to give him a little light in his loneliness. Nor did any footsteps of Alan, the young altar servant, approach, which would hold out the prospect of a change in this circumstance any time soon. It remained dark in the chamber.

"This can't be happening..." resigned snorts rolled into the semi-darkness. "Must have got damp..." he muttered, occupied as a strange sound made him stop moving. His fingers paused motionless with the small wood as he straightened his hunched shoulders a little and listened strained into the silence.

There was a smell of parchment and extinguished candle fire, a faint hint of phosphorus, and damp, fallen leaves as the calm autumn wind stretched shivering fingers inside from outside. Soft howling. An owl called somewhere in the distance. But nothing else. There was only nocturnal silence and the sound of his breathing.

With a furrowed brow, the priest turned to the box again. Finally, a small flame rose hesitantly and danced on the tip of the match. With a triumphant expression in his grey-green eyes, framed by numerous wrinkles, he hastily lowered the flickering flame onto the nearby wick of a small candle. Greedily, the fire spread to the wick. In the glow of the new light source, protecting it from the next gust of wind with his curved hand, he guided the flame into the safe shelter of a lantern. It tingled as the small metal window closed before he wrapped his fingers around the curved handle. 

Narrow streaks of white-yellow light cast the elongated shadowy figure of the old god's servant against the dark stone walls. His shadow hastily cowered behind its livelier anchor point. It remained there as a creak accompanied Father Ewan through the wooden doorway - following the cause of the strange sound into the nave.

With irritation and growing frustration, he had to realize that Alan had already gone home without signing out to him. The wooden gate of the church, with stone steps behind it, led to the path to the village and was usually always open to the souls of his small community, but it was locked. With a glance, he noticed that the brat had cleared the altar as ordered but had not swept the hall. Brown leaves that Sunday devotional visitors had carried in still lay scattered about, much to his chagrin. 

The unwelcome remnants in his otherwise carefully tended place of worshipping were easy to spot on the bright church floor, all the more so because the light of the lantern refracted on them and cast long, dark shadows. 'I'll box your ears tomorrow, lad,' thought the Father grimly, drawing the expression around his thin lips even harder. The morning had already begun angrily because he had to throw someone ungodly out of the house of God for the first time in his many years as a parish preacher. And now-

A crunching crack interrupted his rumbling memories as if someone had sensed his dark thoughts. This time, the sound was more evident and louder. So present, as if it were very close. A high groan, not like the groan of wood... but of glass. Searching for the cause, the Father raised the lantern higher. Rustling, the flowing robe accompanied his steps while the fanned sleeve drew the shadow of a black wing on the wall. Restless eyes searched through the darkness, gliding over the lined-up pews and grazing the numerous ornate paintings of saints and angels. 

The gold paint was already peeling in many places. Some parts of the once beautiful portraits had faded, or the plaster underneath had crumbled. The shadow play of the lantern thus drew new, sinister grimaces on the images of the saints that were so full of beauty during the day. In the veil of the approaching night, everything seemed more ominous. Even the usually resolute preacher swallowed a little harder. But he had nothing to fear. This was a house of God.

"Hello...?" he dared to raise his voice in the silence. "Is anyone there?"

But no answer followed. Instead, the priest's eye was caught by the strange play of colors that one of the side windows cast onto the floor. Shades of green, blue, and red mixed there with the grey-blue of the night... but that was not what attracted his attention. It was the structure, which resembled branches and ran out of place through those shades...

Stunned, the priest drew the air more profound into his lungs as his fingers groped in disbelief for the glass of the large, old stained-glass window. It showed a man on a noble steed, the eponymous Saint George, stabbing the dragon writhing at his feet with a lance. But significant cracks ran through the precious stained glass, which, since this shrine had been erected on the hill in St. George, had withstood many decades! 

"What the...!" the Father groaned in shock, his voice breaking from a mixture of anger and grief at the sight of this catastrophe—as, once again, the cracking and crunching right next to him dug new, deep fissures into the glass. Then, a loud bang rents the air.

Instinctively, the priest wrenched his arms in front of his face and threw himself to the ground. Glass shattered and burst into thousands of shards. The lantern fell to the ground, clattering, and its light was instantly extinguished. Splinters in all the colors of the once magnificent and sacred work of art rained down on the huddled figure of the completely overwhelmed clergyman, pelted the pews, slid across the floor clanging, and shattered into even smaller fragments on the stone slabs.

It took a few heartbeats, then a groan escaped from the figure huddled on the cold ground. Like a wild horse, the heartbeat hammered in the man's chest as he blinked hard, trying to understand what had just happened. For a few moments, he could do nothing but stare. 

Then, out of nowhere, a shrill, mocking laughter swung up simultaneously from all corners of the church—a distorted sniggering and ridiculing. The twisted sound was reflected in echoes from the sanctuary's walls and reverberated into the smallest corners of the place of worship. Footsteps scuffled, followed by the wooden, drawn-out scrape of a door and the squeak of old hinges. The preacher's gaze instantly latched onto the source. 

He knew the noise because he heard it every day. Therefore, his gaze jerked to the right side of the sanctuary, past the dark silhouette of the wooden pulpit, behind which was the ascent to the bell tower. A new gust of wind drove in through the cracked window, giving the receding laughter a melodious, ominous undertone. A cold shiver crept up the old man's spine... then seething anger seized him.

"You cursed brats...!"

Broken glass crunched as he pushed himself upwards and grabbed the fallen lantern. Frustrated, which only fuelled his anger, he found that, unfortunately, the candle no longer managed to burn as brightly as his rage. So it remained on one of the pews as he stepped firmly past the pulpit into the narrow stairway of the tower. Broad steps spiraled upwards along a stone pillar.

"I'm tired of your constant pranks!" the angry priest clamored as he climbed one after the other, soon breathless but driven by thoughts of catching the little toads soon and dragging them by their ears back to their parents!

"Bloody Hell... When I get my hands on you first!" he groaned more and more breathlessly.... when suddenly a flickering red-white light played to him around the bend, exposing the shadow of an evildoer not far ahead above the stonework, fleeing further up the stairs. Then, another hinge creaked. There was no other way down, and they would be trapped. 

A self-satisfied grin, almost too malicious for a man of God, slid across his lips as he climbed the next set of stairs. To frighten the disrespectful brats who had invaded his church, he pushed open the small tower door with a flourish before stepping through. Effortfully erect, as imposing as possible. For he wanted to teach in them the wrath of a servant of their master for this ungodly deed.

Instead, he held his breath.

The heavy body of the church bell hung in the middle of the stone structure like the lowered head of an eerie hooded figure. It was held in place by the thick beams of old but reliable, sturdy wood, and around it ran a relatively narrow tread along with the railing. Above him, the ceiling arched upwards in Gothic style, and to the sides, three large arched windows opened up a view of the nearby surroundings. Three times a day, he chased Alan to ring the bell in the morning, noon, and evening hours. 

Today, he had rung it for Holy Mass on the holy Sunday. The rope was still tightly looped around the mooring. But there was only so much to see up here and no place to hide in the tower. All the more irritated, the priest's gaze slid from one corner to the next. He was looking for a huddled figure, for the giggling or whimpering bundle he had seen and which was responsible for all this. For... for something.

But with a rapidly tightening heartbeat and suddenly wildly overlapping thoughts, he had to realize that there was nothing there. Just the big bell, the arched windows, behind which the dark forest loomed in the distance like a black silk shroud and the moon as a barren crescent in the sky. His trembling hands rested on the cold stone ledge; his eyes stared into the darkness as if the answer might be found there. Not far away, the village lay silent and peaceful. No one was to be seen. No cheeky shadows stole away under the cover of night, proud to have tricked him.

'Impossible...' he thought.

Cold seeped through his clothes, pricking his old skin all too suddenly like little needles. The frosty wind howled into the chamber, wailed, and tugged at the thin robe. A small cloud of his breath condensed rose before his lips and was carried away by the wind. He could barely reason, find an explanation - let alone think clearly. Then, the heavy groaning of creaking floorboards sounded.

Muffled footsteps are approaching.

Right behind him.

His heart pounded against his chest, and the wild roaring in his ears drowned out all other sounds.

Panic-stricken, the old priest wheeled around and faced the horror of his certain death.

The next day, when his shattered corpse was laboriously pulled from the wild thorn bush at the foot of the bell tower, his face was still a distorted grimace of bottomless terror.

Chapter artwork: The Chapel of St. George by TheKomor_San.
You can find all collected artwork in the chapter *ARTWORKS*.