by H.B. Diaz
Sister Agnes was dead to begin with. Let there be no doubt whatever about that. This fact must be understood before we can introduce young Mr. Sorrell, a man of few prospects and fewer friends, who found himself without engagement this Christmas Eve. The deacon had locked up the church after evening mass. Sorrell’s cousin, who lived in a cottage on the hill, turned him away, as did the inn keeper, for there were no more rooms to let. In a threadbare coat soaked by snow, his wanderings led him at last to the gates of Briar Abbey.
The skeletal figures of oak and yew flanked the pebble drive, sentinels in the frozen night. He paid no mind to the legend as he heaved open the bleeding iron door and stepped inside. The specter of Sister Agnes, fated for all eternity to grieve her lost lover, frightened him less than the thought of spending the night out in the cold.
Sorrell’s footsteps scattered rats and shadows alike across the narthex, the naked moon gleaming like silver on the debris-strewn floor. He settled down in the corner of this liminal space with a stake of holly in his heart.
As he shivered, nearly napping, he felt the gentle touch of a woman’s hand upon his cheek. With a hideous cry, he shrunk back against the stones. Raw flesh and weeping blisters knotted together to form her face. Sunken eyes peered at him from beneath her veil, and her mouth cracked apart in a curious expression of recognition.
William, she spoke, though her disfigured lips did not move.
He did not correct her, for his heart was touched. Her fingers landed upon his breast, and he knew her at once. She bestowed upon him all that had befallen her, and he saw it as clearly as a memory.
“She killed your lover,” he whispered. “The abbess. She pushed him from the library window.”
She found us that night in the cloister, Agnes answered, her head listing to one side. You had to be punished.
“Your face,” he muttered. Deep inside his mind, he watched the abbess lift a pot of boiling water and cast its wretched contents into Sister Agnes’ face. Seared skin slipped down over her jaw, exposing the muscle beneath, her scream so ghastly that he covered his ears.
My beauty was a sin, she said, drawing him back. I am pure now.
With pity in his heart, Sorrell reached for her, and he saw her as she once was. The ruined skin stretched across her cheeks like a bolt of silk, leaving behind only the blush of passion. Locks of golden hair tumbled down over her wrinkled habit, full lips parting softly to speak.
I have been waiting for you a long time, William.
“I am here,” he answered, but he did not know his own voice.
H.B. DIAZ is a gothic mystery writer whose short stories have appeared in publications by Ghost Orchid Press, Flame Tree Press, Horror Tree, and others. Her gothic romance novel, The Ghost of Ravenswood Hall, is forthcoming from Literary Wanderlust. She is a member of the Horror Writers Association and lives with her family in a historic, and likely haunted, town on America’s east coast. You can find her at www.authorhbdiaz.com, on Twitter @hollybdiaz, or on Instagram @h.b.diaz.