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I need a doctor, I thought, looking down as I ran to notice the trickle of blood seeping through my fingers. But where? I don’t even know where we are! There are trees high as the heavens on both sides, and the moon barely lights our path.
I hoped we’d eventually run across a trader or another cart. Who in their right mind would stop for a blood-soaked, ghostly looking brigade like this, though? I wasn’t about to let these madwomen kill innocent people in their eagerness to escape captivity and Nottinghamshire.
A snowball of insanity had rolled through each of their minds, breaking them, turning them into a torrential mob of unfathomable possibilities. These were the kinds of people who would, eventually, lose the wind in their sails, realize they were freezing and starving and lost in the middle of nowhere, and most likely commence eating each other.
At least that’s what happened in the cautionary tales Mama and Father had told me. I’d never been quite sure what the morals of those gruesome stories were.
I couldn’t think. I could only push on, grinding my teeth and wincing the entire time. We crossed over bridges and winding roads without seeing a soul in sight. The only constant was the whirring trees on either side of the road.
Until a structure came into view atop a hill in the distance, like a shining beacon of light. My eyes widened when its slanted ridge appeared over the tops of the silhouetted trees.
One of the girls in the mob pointed. “There! There! Safety!”
Oh God, I thought, hurrying to keep up with them in my injured state. Please don’t let us bring death to this house.
And then I recognized where I was—the familiarity of the structure. Shit. That’s Rufford Abbey!
“Wait!” I wailed. My voice was drowned out by the whooping and hollering of the ecstatic girls. “Don’t go there! Rufford Abbey is not safe!”
“It’s a holy house, everyone! We will be safe there!” one of the girls yelled.
I ran after them, churning my legs until my thighs burned something fierce and every muscle in my body hurt.
We started up the hill as a unified throng of bodies in white-and-red shifts. Guards stood at the apex, and when they heard our wailing they formed a line at the front door of the building.
My skin felt pallid, clammy. I couldn’t keep voicing opposition because I could hardly speak. Memories of Rufford Abbey swarmed me. This is where we rescued Emma. It’s where we killed soldiers and they killed poor Liz.
Emma, Ada, and Liz. Girls likely headed toward the same fate as this group, until the Merry Men intervened. And now the freed captives were running right for it, unaware of the malevolence of this place.
They thought this holy house was their salvation—their temple of healing and survival. I knew it was a death trap. An institution that would bring them from one cage to another. A lie with a cross on top that symbolized amnesty and safety, yet was actually a den of sin and corruption.
Anger pushed through me when I realized there was nothing I could do to stop the girls from running straight into the arms of their captors, because this was the only building with warmth and a hearth within miles.
If I can’t stop them, maybe that will, I thought, gazing up at the line of a dozen soldiers stationed at the front of the abbey.
It appeared Abbot Emery had reinforced the abbey’s presence of soldiers since our debacle. The guards drew their swords, speaking in loud voices to each other that I couldn’t hear over the din of wailing women. They looked unnerved, and I completely understood the sentiment: It wasn’t every day nearly a dozen ghostly girls dressed in bloodied rags appeared from the foggy tree line and sprinted for your establishment.
“Stop and look!” I screamed, using every ounce of energy I had.
Finally, thankfully, the girls slowed. They heard my anger and retribution. Now that we were halfway up the ridge, they glanced back and saw me pointing uphill at the armed and armored soldiers who waited for us to approach so they could do their worst.
Abbot Emery showed in the doorway, along with another man I recognized, but only vaguely. A familiar tint to his pale skin and rotund frame.
The abbot screeched to his guards and waved a hand down at us. His voice was terrified as he yelled, “Hellions! Moon-touched succubi sent from Satan to slay us! Cut them down!”
No, no, no!
I rushed past the girls, who had now stopped completely, their faces masks of confusion and horror. They couldn’t understand we weren’t welcomed here, because they had only ever known priests, abbeys, and churches as places of worship and goodness.
“There is no justice for us here!” I told them, and felt ashamed I hadn’t been able to snap them back to their senses earlier.
Because now it was too late. Now, the guards were hesitantly marching down the hill toward us, advancing in a shield wall that looked menacing and intimidating.
I was the only one here with a sword, so I shielded the girls by putting them behind me, and bared my teeth. I suppose this is as good a place as any to make my last stand. At least I won’t go down a coward.
I had tried. God knew I had tried. I hoped He would come down and smite this wicked, heartless abbot and all of his soldiers.
I knew it was hopeless asking for God’s help. Worthless, even. What has He ever done for me?
