The Lord's Bride by Loki Renard

Author:Loki Renard [Renard, Loki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stormy Night Publications
Published: 2014-02-03T06:00:00+00:00

* * *

That evening, the convent was full of nervous women. Some managed to sleep, but many were still caught in thoughts of what could have been and what still could be if robbers and bandits began making regular incursions. Many thanks were offered in prayer for the unknown hero who had routed the bandits and to the sheriff for ensuring their subsequent capture.

When screams rang out around midnight, they roused the entire convent once more. Not all went out to investigate the cause of the cries. Some made haste out the doors and took cover in bushes and outbuildings, and one or two made a run to de Stafford manor, where the abbess was still visiting.

Those who were brave enough to come to the aid of the screamer found Sister Lucia beside herself, her hands trembling, her face pale. The reason for her fright soon became clear. There was someone in her bed. Someone dead. On closer, reluctant inspection it became clear that it was the body of the robber. Some prankster had decided not to let it rest in the chapel, but to move the grizzly remains to Lucia’s private cell.

“Mary did this,” Lucia declared. “It can be no one else. I will flay her hide for this, mark my words. This time she will not escape my wrath.”

“Mary is in the graveyard,” one of the nuns replied. “How could she possibly have done this thing?”

“Who else could have done it?”

“The devil?” Hushed whispers went around the nuns. With the abbess gone for the evening, the seat of sense had been left empty. Rumors began to fly, suggestions of demonic impulses and ungodly events.

“She cannot still be in the grave!” Sister Lucia screamed the words, her very last nerve having been broken by the horror in her bed. “Push the wood aside, and you will see she is gone!”

Some of the very bravest nuns made their way out into the graveyard to see if Lucia was correct, or indeed, if poor postulant Mary was still trapped in the hole of her own making. They bought lanterns with them, but they provided little light on that dark night.

Initial inspections confirmed that the wood was still in place and appeared not to have been moved.

“Mary? Mary, are you there?” A nun crooned toward the soil whilst others made signs to ward off the devil and any evil spirits that might have been lurking in the area. It was a very cool night, with mist floating above the ground, cloaking ankles in white froth.

“Mary?”

There was no response.

“Push the boards away.”

With great reluctance, the nuns moved the heavy wooden boards off the grave.

“Hello, sisters!” Mary’s cheerful voice rang out from the dark hole. “Is it time to come out now?”

Everybody agreed that it was certainly time for Mary to come out. Indeed, it was time for all to be safely barricaded away inside the convent.

“You all look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” Mary quipped as several hands helped her out of her subterranean cell.

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