The Snow Wold (incomplete)

by Karen Goldrick

Your Grace,

It has been many months since I have been stranded amidst the relentless snow of the Carpagna mountains. I wait with as much patience as the good Lord can spare for the first sign of Spring, however Mayday has come as gone, and there is no sign of the thaw.

I came by horseback, my beast more a mule than a gallant steed, to Bacau, a small village perched precairously on the foothills of the mountains. In Winter it is surrounded by snow drifts too deep to course, as I have since found.

There are tales of the Strigoi here, undead who take the form of animals at night to haunt the countryside and terrorize the villagers. They have an unnatural fear here of the barn owls, whose raucus screech is enough to wake the dead, if you will pardon the expression sir. It is said by day the Strigoi take the form of a person with ginger hair, blue eyes, and two beating hearts. However, the only redhair in Bacua belongs to yours truly, and perhaps this will explain the strange absence of attendance in the small chapel I have established during my enforced stay.

There are but five in regular attendance. So cold is it within the stone walls of the chapel, their faces wrapped in fur and wool and I cannot make out their appearance.

The eyes of one, however, stand out over all else.

So dark are they, a colour I can barely describe. Maybe deep violet, as the last of sunset, or blueblack as the winter sky. I find my own eyes drawn to these, each Sunday, and so well do they hold my gaze that there are times my words slip away from my tongue. Oh what must my small congregation think, their priest struck dumb as if by God, or perhaps by the devil.

Forgive me sir, I forget myself. I hesitate to tell you more, but I must. If ever, Sir, you needed proof that I am still am not worthy, then perhaps this will do. I confess my fascination with those eyes stopped not at mere gazing. After a few distant meetings, if these can be called such, I took to following my brethren as they left the relative warmth of the chapel.

As you are aware, your Grace, it is custom in France for the priest to bless his flock as they leave the church, and this provided me the opportunity to study these eyes These eyes at closer inspection were neither blue nor violet. It was as if their colour had been spirited away.