Shadow in the Dark

by Antony Barone Kolenc

  “But what do the visions mean?”

  Brother Andrew shut his blue eye but kept the brown one open as he reflected. “Perhaps the man was a . . . Nay, I shall not guess.”

  “Please, Brother, no more secrets. What else do you know?”

  “I cannot—” The monk paused and put a hand to his clean-shaven chin. “Yet there is a place, Xan—a place of danger; one that may spur on more memories. Come, I will show it to you.”

  7

  Homecoming

  They walked in silence until they arrived at a winding root that stuck up across the trail, high and round like a serpent’s back.

  “Ah,” Brother Andrew said. “This is the place where danger overtook you that day.”

  Xan inched toward it. No present danger—just a root. No reason to fear. It wouldn’t strike at him like a real serpent; how foolish to even think that. Yet this was the very place that had stolen his life away—his parents, his home, his memory.

  “This is where I fell?” he asked. “Who found me here?”

  The monk shook his head. “Never mind about that. Just thank our Lord we did find you.”

  So, there were even more secrets. But what difference did it make who had found him?

  He gazed at the root, with the dirt path on all sides of it. Even if he had tripped on the root, how would he have injured his head? That scarred man from his visions had held a mace high, as if to strike. Strike who? Maybe Xan hadn’t fallen and banged his head at all.

  He put his finger to the sore spot on his skull.

  “I was attacked here, wasn’t I?” he said. “Struck by the man in my vision.”

  Brother Andrew didn’t answer for a long moment. “That gash on your skull was not caused by simply falling and banging your head, my son. You must have fought him off bravely.”

  So the monks always had known about the attack. Brother Andrew must believe he’d fought off a fearsome attacker and survived. “That’s why you called me Alexander.”

  The monk nodded. “Well done.”

  “But why would anyone attack me?” He was just a peasant boy, a wheat-thresher.

  Brother Andrew shrugged. “Try to remember.”

  Xan knelt by the root and touched it. He must have tripped over it. Maybe he’d been fleeing a band of forest thieves. Or he might have found a killer’s hideout and needed to escape.

  Try to remember.

  But no more memories came.

  The monk moved close and placed a hand on Xan’s shoulder. “Come, my son. There will be other chances for you to remember today.”

  He rose slowly and followed Brother Andrew. Seeing Hardonbury might help his memory.

  They spent the next while hiking the woodland trail, but no matter how often he thought about his attacker—the jagged scar, the bent and swollen nose, the horse, the men with shovels, the powerful mace—no other memories would return.

  They continued until the sun shone directly above. Brother Andrew abruptly dropped to his knees on the trail. He moved his hand in the sign of a cross—to his forehead, heart, and both shoulders—saying, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

  The monk motioned for Xan to do the same, but he just stared back.

  “’Tis an ancient prayer, Xan. When we make the Sign of the Cross, our words call upon the Blessed Trinity while our hand identifies us with the cross of Christ our savior.”

  Except they needed to get to Hardonbury to find his parents and his memories.

  “Must you teach me to pray right now, Brother?”

  The monk pointed to the sky. “’Tis midday, the sixth hour—a time of prayer at the abbey. When a monk is away from home at prayer time, he must pray the psalms on his own. Kneel, my son.”

  Xan obeyed while the monk pulled out a small leather-bound parchment secured in his belt. With arms raised to Heaven, he recited a psalm. Other words and prayers followed.

  Xan’s hands fidgeted.

  When Brother Andrew finished praying, they stood together.

  “Trusting our Creator in prayer will carry us through life’s darkest hours,” the monk said. “He wants us to seek His help in our lives.”

  Except he didn’t know any of the monks’ prayers.

  “But what if you don’t know the right words to say?”

  “Then say whatever is on your mind, my son. Speak as to a dearest friend. God hears.”

  Of course, God hears. But does He listen? Would He answer?

  “Now come, Xan. Hardonbury is not much farther now.”

  Brother Andrew led Xan a while longer as the trail headed down a gentle slope toward the end of the woodland. They stopped only briefly to eat a bite of bread and cheese.

  Eventually a clearing arose between the trees.

  “We have arrived at Hardonbury Manor,” the monk announced.

  It had been only a few days, but it had felt like an eternity. Now the wait was over. If he were from this village, someone would probably recognize him. He would learn his true name.

  They exited the woodland next to a pasture filled with lush grass. Sheep grazed peacefully in groups of four or five, but no one tended the animals.

  A few yards more and they entered a wide field of wheat, with tall rows of golden stalks stretching down a hill and surrounded by a wooden fence. No one was cutting or threshing the wheat, even though it was ripe for the harvest.

  Had he worked in this exact field? If his parents saw him in the distance, would they rush the field and take him in their arms? His heart was sprinting now—faster than that charging boar.

  Brother Andrew pointed toward a hill to the north of the field. “Hardonbury Manor is ruled by its lord, who lives right over—” The monk gasped.

  On top of the hill lay the remains of a large stone house, charred black by fire, with its roof entirely destroyed. It had a similar style to some of the buildings at Harwood Abbey.

  “What is that?” Xan asked.

  The monk recovered from his surprise. “That is—that was the manor house. Someone has brought it to ruins.” Brother Andrew’s face paled. “Curses and evil days! The parish church has been destroyed too. Who would harm the temple of God?”

  A stone church, smaller than the one at the abbey, stood charred and ruined a small distance from the manor house.

  “What about my parents? Where would they have lived?” Probably not in a manor house or a church. They’d be the ones working these fields, but no one was here. Where was everyone?

  Brother Andrew put his arm around Xan’s shoulders and pulled him closer, supporting him with his strength. “Lord have mercy. Prepare yourself, my son. There is the village.”

  At the bottom of the wheat field, a few cottages with thatched straw roofs stood in a row untouched by fire or destruction. Beyond them lay little else but charred wood and debris, as though a great dragon had swept over the village and burned most of the cottages to the ground with fierce streams of fire. The village seemed entirely deserted of human life.

  “But—where did—” The black bread loaf Xan had eaten nearly came back up. With so much devastation, his parents must be gone. Or dead. There would be no brothers or cousins or uncles here for him today.

  A tear escaped his disbelieving eyes. Then another. Nay—boys weren’t supposed to cry, were they? He breathed in and willed the tears away. But why shouldn’t boys cry? Everyone cried.

  “Be brave, Xan. Keep up hope. Let us go down and find out what has happened.”

  The monk led him by the arm on a sorrowful march through the golden meadow and past the row of abandoned cottages that had not been destroyed. The full devastation of the village surrounded them, the pungent aroma of smoked wood and smoldering hay still in the air. Only a handful of cottages with thatched roofs had survived the blaze, scattered throughout the charred blackness of Hardonbury like the last leaves of autumn on a dying tree.

  What would he do now that Hardonbury was destroyed? No wonder his parents hadn’t come f
or him. They’d probably fled far away, perhaps thinking he’d died in the fire.

  “Who goes there?” a man’s voice shouted from inside one of the few surviving cottages.

  A guard pushed open the cottage door, holding a spear and shield straight out in defense. He wore a chain-mail shirt, a helmet with a strip of iron that protected his nose, and thick black pants.

  “We come in peace,” Brother Andrew said in greeting. “May the Lord bless you. I am Brother Andrew and this boy is Xan.”

  “Strangers are not welcome here,” the guard replied, pointing the spear toward the monk.

  Brother Andrew did not flinch. “This boy is no stranger, friend. He has lost his memory, but we believe he lived in this village with his family. We have come to find them.”

  The guard pulled back his spear and stared down at his boots, soiled with black mud. “There are none what are left here to find, Brother.”

  “What happened to this place?” the monk asked.

  The guard’s face contorted into hatred. “Godless, heartless, ruthless bandits. Filthy swine attacked without a bit’a warning. Burned the lord’s manor house, then the rest.”

  “And why are you here?” Brother Andrew said.

  “By order of the lord of the manor, I watch over this cursed disaster ’til the clean-up starts.”

  “Then take us to your lord,” the monk ordered.

  Maybe there was still hope. Surely the lord of the manor would know who Xan was and where his family had gone. As ruler of the manor, the lord must know all those things.

  But the guard was shaking his head. “Nay. The lord will never come back to his . . . his manor house.” He pointed toward the ruins on the hill.

  “And what of the priest from the parish church?”

  “He left with the manor lord. Both have abandoned this cursed place, never to return. Them what did survive this disaster will serve a new lord when they come back.”

  Xan’s legs wobbled. Brother Andrew held his arm and squeezed it supportively. “Have faith,” the monk whispered.

  But what faith could remain? His village was destroyed. The manor lord and all his people had fled. Even the priest. His parents might never return, even if they could.

  “And what of the survivors?” the monk asked. “Where have they gone?”

  “Them what survived fled to their new lord at Chadwick Manor,” the guard said.

  The monk grinned. “Lord Godfrey!” He turned to Xan. “This is good news, my son. Lord Godfrey rules over Chadwick Manor. Actually, he is lord over many landed estates, but Chadwick is the nearest. It borders the woodland north of Harwood Abbey.”

  Xan lifted his face from the desolation and studied the monk’s eyes. Like a smoking ember in a suffocated fire, there was still hope in them. It seemed to glimmer in his blue eye especially.

  Maybe his parents were survivors. Perhaps they’d fled to Chadwick with the others. That would explain why they hadn’t come for him. They might even think Xan was dead because he’d disappeared. If he could find them, imagine their joy at discovering their lost son had survived!

  “Aye,” the guard said. “Them what survived will be back after Lord Godfrey’s men show up to clear away all this muck. Them crops still need a harvest, you see.”

  The guard pointed to the golden fields, which hadn’t been touched by the disaster. How odd that almost the entire village should be burned down but the fields spared. Why would the bandits do that? At least those crops would be available to benefit Lord Godfrey, the new lord. Maybe he would share them with the survivors of Hardonbury who had fled there.

  “May God go with you,” Brother Andrew said, raising a hand to bless the guard.

  Nay, they couldn’t be leaving already. There could be clues in this debris to spark more memories or even confirm that Xan’s family had survived.

  “Wait, Brother.” Xan turned and addressed the guard. “Please, is there anything left to help me learn something about my family? About who I am?”

  The guard refused to meet his eyes. “There is a place, but—” He stopped.

  “But what?” Xan said. “Can you take us there?”

  The guard looked to Brother Andrew. “It could be hard on the lad.”

  Brother Andrew nodded, as though he understood. “Be at peace. You may take us there.”

  The guard led them slowly toward a hill near the south meadow. The way the guard walked, and the way the monk moved his lips silently in prayer, they must be taking him to a burial ground.

  As they approached the hill, three rows of wooden crosses rose up on small mounds of dark earth—burial plots. Someone had carved a name into each brown cross.

  “There they lie, the bodies of the slain,” the guard muttered. “Lord grant ’em peace.”

  The guard left them alone in the dead quiet; not even a hint of breeze rustled a falling leaf.

  Brother Andrew approached the crosses and whispered a prayer for the departed. “May perpetual light shine upon them,” he concluded, making the Sign of the Cross.

  This could be the moment that would end all moments. Did some of those crosses belong to his family? Would he even know it if he could read the names written on them?

  The monk took Xan’s hand. “You cannot read these, can you?”

  Xan shook his head. This probably wasn’t a memory problem, though. Somehow, he knew he had never been taught to read.

  “If you wish it, I will teach you to read one day. For now, do not be afraid. I will read to you the blessed names on these crosses. Try your memory again.”

  Maybe this was the time to pray. If God wanted, He could make Xan remember. He reached in his leather pouch and took out the cross the abbot had whittled. Help me remember, God.

  Xan knelt as the monk read each name aloud—a total of thirteen. After each name, he closed his eyes tight and concentrated. He could do this. Please, God. Help me remember.

  The more he tried to force the memories, the more he seemed to scare them away. He threw his arms up. “I can’t! I tried to pray, Brother, but it didn’t work.”

  The monk placed a hand on his shoulder. “Do not think you prayed in vain, Xan—God reveals the truth to us in His own time and for our own good. Trust in His holy purposes.”

  Why bother praying if God was going to do what He wanted anyhow? Or was that the point: that by waiting for the answer to a prayer, a person learned to trust God more?

  Xan stood. “I know what we must do, Brother.”

  The ember of hope from the monk’s blue eye seemed to have taken hold in Xan’s heart.

  “We should go to Chadwick Manor,” Xan said. “We must go see this Lord Godfrey.”

  8

  Death

  The next morning was Sunday—Brother Andrew had called it the Lord’s Day—a day of rest. That meant no chores for the boys, no harvesting for the servants, and no journey to Chadwick. The abbot had approved their plan when they’d returned from Hardonbury last night, but he forbade them to travel until Monday.

  Though it was the Lord’s Day, Brother Leo still had screamed at two of the younger boys who hadn’t made their beds properly. Then he’d escorted all the boys to Mass at the marvelous abbey church with the high-arched ceilings.

  Everyone was there: the monks and the novice boys, the nuns and the girls. And Lucy.

  Maybe God was answering one of Xan’s prayers already. He’d wanted to see her again.

  Standing with Joshua in the wide-open center of the church—there were no chairs or benches—Xan listened to the monks’ chanting. Candles of beeswax shimmered near the stained-glass window. In an alcove, a statue on a pedestal drew him in: a woman holding a young child in her arms. That must be baby Jesus with His mother, Mary. Her eyes seemed so lifelike. The infant in her arms held out his hands in a sign of peace.

  A few monks stood near the altar. Those must be the priests Brother Andrew had told him about yesterday. Priests could do special jobs the other monks could not, such as saying Mass.r />
  A short monk stood and read from an enormous book filled with beautifully drawn squiggly letters and colorful pictures. Then the chanting continued, followed by Sacred Scripture readings.

  Surely the boys couldn’t understand the words chanted in Latin—the strange tongue of the Holy Roman Empire. According to Brother Andrew, the Church’s prayers and rituals had been passed down in Latin from century to century because of that empire.

  The prior stood to speak. He preached a long time, calling Jesus the “Resurrection and the Life” and explaining that one day every Christian would pass through death into eternal life. “We are all mortal and destined to die,” he said. “But death is not the end. Remember the example of our dearly departed friend, Father Joseph. May we all face our deaths with his faith and trust.”

  A boy coughed down the row—John, smirking and gloating as though the prior had just proved the Shadow had come for Father Joseph’s soul the same night John and David had seen it.

  Still, could it be possible the stories were true about the angel of death walking the earth in the night, claiming the souls of those destined to die? Like those thirteen poor souls at Hardonbury. Even if the stories were true, that didn’t mean John and David had truly seen the angel.

  When the final chant had ended and everyone started streaming through the soaring doors, Xan dropped back from Joshua and allowed people to pass on both sides. Soon Sister Regina and the other nuns passed, followed by the girls from the convent.

  How would he start the conversation with Lucy when it was her turn to pass? She might go by him without even a greeting, as all the others had. Perhaps he should trip over his feet in front of her to get her attention. Nay—then she’d think he really was Sire Clumsy.

  “Good morrow, Xan.” Her soft, sweet voice spoke at his left shoulder.

  “Oh! Lucy.” He moved to the side. “Good morrow.”

  “My goodness, where did all the other boys go?” she said. Her lips turned up. She was teasing him, knowing he’d fallen behind to see her. But there was no harm in making a friend with someone who was kind and gentle.