Interlude
INTERLUDE
“ G o. I will deal with the evidence.” The hooded figure swept his arm out. “Leave your robes.” When the room was empty, he slumped to the floor, allowing himself a moment to fall apart. How could it have gone so horribly wrong? He thought back to the beginning of the ritual…
The rumble of thunder was so loud it rattled the windows. The hooded figure’s palms were sweating as he adjusted the knot securing it to the iron ring embedded in the bell tower wall. His fingers slipped, and he readjusted it, loosening the rope just enough.
Above him, the bell began to toll.
One…two…three…four…all the way up to twelve. The final chime seemed to echo off the stones, accompanied by the howl of the wind. The figure could’ve sworn he still heard the cry of the eagle, whipped away by the wind.
The student who had been pulling the ropes that controlled the bell slumped against the wall, rubbing his palms together. “One of you can take a turn next time. My palms have been cut to shreds, doing this for the entire day. See?” He held up his blistered, bloodied hands, and the student closest to him shrank back at the sight.
“Enough,” the hooded figure instructed. Releasing the rope that snaked out of the window, all the way down the side of the tower to the ground outside, he moved to stand in the position he’d marked out on the floor in chalk earlier that day. “Come. Let us prepare.”
The members of the Brotherhood gathered around the chalk circle, each covering their heads with their hoods, as was the custom. Their leader held up an ornate knife, the blade glinting in the candlelight.
“In nomine iustitiae, omnia iustificata.”
As soon as he’d intoned the words, he sliced the blade across his palm in a shallow cut. Stretching his arm out into the centre of the circle, he let a drop of blood fall to the floor, then handed the knife to the person to his right. The ritual was repeated until every member of the Brotherhood had an identical slash of red on their palm, the floorboards beneath them stained with scattered droplets of blood.
“The initiation shall be recorded in the book.” The figure stepped towards the table, putting pen to parchment. When everything had been noted down, he raised his head. “When our initiate reaches the top of the tower, he will complete his part of the blood ritual and become a member of the Brotherhood.”
The members bowed their heads, chanting as one.
“So it is written. So it is decided.”
“It is time for the task to begin,” their leader declared, and the lamp was lit, signalling that their initiate should begin the climb.
Then, there had been the awful jerk of the rope, followed by the cry that would forever haunt his nightmares.
This was never supposed to happen. He had planned everything so perfectly. He’d been so sure that nothing would go wrong.
He hadn’t accounted for the determination of the initiate. He hadn’t accounted for the storm.
Footsteps sounded, and the figure scrambled to his feet. A member of the Brotherhood appeared in the doorway, panting, his eyes wild. “Hurry! The night watchman is making his rounds! We cannot risk being connected to the body.”
The body .
“P-pull up the rope and place it with the robes. I will burn them away from the school grounds, away from any risk of discovery,” the figure instructed hoarsely. “We cannot allow the accident to be traced back here.”
With trembling hands, the figure began to gather up the evidence as quickly as he could, hesitating a moment before tearing the incriminating pages from the notebook.
The Brotherhood would end tonight. No one could ever find out the part they had played in the death of John William Scott.
The part he had played.