Bellwitch Saints

The rain had been falling since supper.

By midnight, Clara Ventris had decided it was personal.

It struck the roof of the Morlins’ cottage hard enough to shake loose bits of old thatch. Water ran down the windows in crooked streams, and every few minutes the wind shoved against the walls as though demanding to be let inside.

Clara sat on the edge of her bed and listened.

She had never liked storms.

That was not something she admitted often.

At seventeen, there were certain fears people expected you to have outgrown. Thunder was one of them. The dark was another. Monsters under the bed had stopped being acceptable somewhere around the age of eight.

Clara was not afraid of thunder.

She was afraid of what sometimes came between it.

Silence.

She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

Another flash filled the little room with white light.

One.

Two.

Three.

Thunder rolled across the village.

Clara relaxed.

“See?” she whispered. “Perfectly ordinary.”

Something scratched at the window.

Clara jumped.

She stared at it.

Nothing.

Then a wet branch dragged across the glass.

Clara frowned.

“Very funny.”

The tree offered no apology.

She climbed from the bed and crossed the cold floor. Her room was hardly large enough to require a journey. A bed occupied one wall. A chest stood beneath the window. Three dresses hung from wooden pegs. A shelf held several books she had borrowed and forgotten to return.

Mrs. Morlin knew about two of them.

Clara preferred to keep it that way.

She pushed aside the curtain.

The village of Briar Glen was almost invisible beneath the storm.

She could make out the road running between the cottages and the dark outline of the smithy. Beyond that stood the chapel, its narrow steeple leaning slightly east after a lightning strike three winters ago.

Its bell hung motionless.

Clara looked toward it anyway.

Another flash.

Nothing.

She let the curtain fall.

Then she heard it.

Dong.

Clara froze.

The sound did not come from the chapel.

It was deeper.

Much deeper.

It rolled through the night with enough weight that Clara felt it in her chest.

She waited.

Rain hammered the roof.

Thunder followed somewhere far away.

Clara stepped back to the window.

“Mr. Vale?”

The village bellkeeper lived beside the chapel.

Perhaps the fool had decided midnight in a thunderstorm was an appropriate time to ring the bell.

It would not have been the strangest thing Mr. Vale had ever done.

Last spring he had climbed onto the chapel roof to prove he could still stand on one leg.

He could.

Getting down had been the problem.

Clara opened the window.

Rain immediately struck her face.

“Oh.”

She pushed wet hair away from her eyes and leaned outside.

The chapel remained dark.

The bell was still.

She could see it clearly when lightning crossed the clouds.

“Then what was that?”

The wind answered.

Clara started closing the window.

Dong.

She stopped.

This time there was no question.

The sound came from beyond the village.

Beyond the forest.

Beyond even the hills.

Yet it sounded close enough to touch.

Clara stared into the darkness.

There was nothing out there.

At least nothing she knew about.

Briar Glen stood at the end of a minor road that most sensible travelers avoided. To the north were farms. To the east were woods. The southern road eventually joined the King’s Way.

West was mostly hills and old ruins.

There were no bells.

Certainly none that sounded like that.

Clara’s hand went to her throat.

Something moved beneath her nightdress.

She looked down.

“No.”

The little chime hanging from the cord around her neck trembled.

Clara grabbed it.

It was an ugly thing.

Mrs. Morlin called it silver, although Clara had always suspected that was kindness rather than fact. The metal was too dark and never tarnished. Small markings ran around its rim, worn nearly smooth by years against Clara’s skin.

It had no clapper.

That was the part Clara had always found strange.

A bell that could not ring.

She had worn it for as long as she could remember.

Mrs. Morlin said it had been with Clara when she came to them as a baby.

No letter.

No family crest.

No explanation.

Just Clara and the chime.

Now it shook between her fingers.

“Stop.”

It didn’t.

Clara pulled the cord over her head.

The instant the chime left her skin, it became still.

She stared at it.

“Absolutely not.”

She placed it on the chest.

Nothing happened.

Clara waited.

Rain came through the open window and began soaking the floor.

She noticed.

“Wonderful.”

She slammed the window shut.

When she turned back, the chime had moved.

Only slightly.

Clara stared.

It had been near the edge of the chest.

Now it sat closer to the center.

“No.”

She pointed at it.

“You are a piece of metal.”

The chime remained unimpressed.

Clara picked it up.

Warm.

Not hot.

Warm.

Another flash lit the room.

Then came the thunder.

Clara waited for the strange bell.

Nothing.

She released a breath.

Perhaps she had imagined it.

Twice.

That was possible.

Not particularly comforting, but possible.

She slipped the cord back around her neck.

The chime settled against her chest.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then it rang.

A tiny, clear note.

Clara screamed.

The bedroom door flew open.

Mr. Morlin appeared holding a fireplace poker in one hand and a lantern in the other.

He wore his sleeping cap.

Clara would have laughed under different circumstances.

“What happened?”

Mrs. Morlin appeared behind him.

“Clara?”

“I’m fine.”

Mr. Morlin looked around the room.

“Someone here?”

“No.”

“Then why did you scream?”

“I didn’t scream.”

Mrs. Morlin folded her arms.

Clara sighed.

“I screamed a little.”

“A little?”

“It sounded louder because of the storm.”

Mr. Morlin checked beneath the bed.

Clara stared at him.

“Really?”

“You never know.”

“I actually think I do.”

He straightened.

“What frightened you?”

Clara looked down.

The chime hung quietly against her nightdress.

She touched it.

Cold.

Completely cold.

“Nothing.”

Mrs. Morlin studied her.

That woman could tell when bread had gone bad from another room. Lies had very little chance.

“Clara.”

“I heard something.”

“Thunder?”

“A bell.”

Mr. Morlin looked toward the window.

“The chapel?”

“No.”

“Then where?”

Clara hesitated.

“I don’t know.”

The Morlins exchanged a look.

It lasted perhaps a second.

Clara saw it.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Mrs. Morlin said.

“That wasn’t a nothing look.”

“There are different kinds?”

“Several.”

Mr. Morlin lowered the poker.

“The storm is playing tricks. Get some sleep.”

“I heard it twice.”

“Wind carries sound.”

“From where?”

Neither answered.

Clara noticed that too.

Mrs. Morlin crossed the room and shut the curtain properly.

“Morning will make everything less frightening.”

“I wasn’t frightened.”

“Of course not.”

Mrs. Morlin kissed her forehead.

Mr. Morlin followed her toward the door.

Clara watched them leave.

Just before the door closed, she called after them.

“Have either of you ever heard a bell from the western hills?”

Mr. Morlin stopped.

Mrs. Morlin put a hand against his back.

“No,” she said.

Too quickly.

The door closed.

Clara remained standing in the middle of the room.

“That,” she whispered, “was another look.”

She climbed back into bed.

Sleep did not come.

The storm continued for another hour.

Clara listened to every gust.

Every branch.

Every roll of thunder.

No bell came.

Eventually the rain softened.

Her eyes began to close.

Then the room became completely silent.

Not quiet.

Silent.

The rain disappeared.

The wind vanished.

Even the old cottage stopped creaking.

Clara opened her eyes.

Her chime was warm again.

She sat up.

Far beyond Briar Glen, something moved through the darkness.

She could not see it.

She could not explain how she knew.

But she knew.

Clara wrapped her fingers around the chime.

“Who are you?”

For a moment, nothing answered.

Then somewhere beyond the forest and the western hills, an ancient bell rang for the third time.

Dong.

Clara’s chime answered.

Ching.

And beneath both sounds came something else.

A voice.

So faint she almost mistook it for the wind.

One word.

Her name.

Clara.