Maeve D. Gealach

Gothic Fantasy

When the Monks Stopped Singing

Maeve D. Gealach

The bell in the crypt rang once, though no living hand had touched it in seventeen winters. Brother Malachy heard it through the kitchen floor while he was cutting black bread for the poor boxes, the knife paused halfway through the heel, crumbs clinging to the edge like little flakes of burnt peat. Above him, the monastery slept in its old arrangement: dormitory shutters breathing in the gale, chapel candles guttering in their red glasses, rain running in cold lines down the saints.