Order of the Shattered Cross: Pt. 04

My new position at work will hopefully give me more free time. The last two years have not been the best for hobbies. A lot of readers have been asking about supporting me, and I've never really cared as I do this for fun. If you want to tip me a cup of coffee or something, the details are in my bio.

I'd like to thank Lastman416 for the edits like always.

--

August was accustomed to beatings, but it didn't mean he was eager to experience them. He was the smallest of the children in his village. The older, larger boys, three brothers each a year apart, targeted him because they could. There was hardly a day August didn't cross their paths. August attended his education in the city of Wurzburg, but his home was a small village to the south along the Mains River. Their village had a small school, but August's father had enough money to enroll him in the city, which required over an hour walk both ways each day. The other boys resented him for that.

The three sons of Hans, the village drunk, were rather horrid children. Their mother had died some years ago from an unknown illness. Hans fell to alcohol and lost any control or discipline over his sons. At first the boys would pickpocket and steal to merely survive as their father wasn't providing for them. Now they did it merely because they found joy and fulfillment in the endeavor. They assaulted the elderly or anyone unable to defend themselves. Families had learned to keep a closer eye on their young girls after the middle son took a maiden into a dark corner and committed an act she was too frightened to speak of.

Each day August would keep his eyes and ears alert to their presence. Sometimes they jumped out of the bushes and tackled him to the ground. Once they even leaped from a tree with branches stretching over the path. Sometimes he saw them first and ran. Most times they caught him and took turns pounding him in the dirt. Today was a day he saw them first, and so he ran.

When the first boy nearly caught him, August turned and threw his books at him. The hard spine connected flush with the boy's nose, giving August precious seconds. He leapt over a bush and took off toward the river. The other boys were in pursuit and pushed him as the bank of the river started, causing August to tumble down the hill. Feet from the river, August tripped as he tried to put his feet beneath him. He was grabbed by his shirt and flung to his back. The first boy jumped on him, allowing the other two to catch up and pin him to the ground.

"Throw him in the river!" the first boy shouted, his nose bloodied from the book.

August squirmed to free himself, but the three boys picked him up and carried him to the water's edge. He pleaded and cried as they began to swing him, counting down from three.

"Three...two...one." They released and dropped him into the water, and laughed as August splashed and struggled to find the edge to stop himself from flowing downstream.

As they laughed one of the boys spotted a girl sitting against a tree reading a book. She wore a green dress and had long flowing black hair that shimmered even in the shade. The boy nudged his brother who turned and saw the girl as well.

"What are you doing out here? All alone?" the first boy said as he started to walk over to her. The girl ignored him and turned the page of the book. "I'm talking to you."

"I'm not talking to you though," the girl replied. The boy cackled and snatched the book from her hands. The girl sighed and looked up at him. "Can you even read?"

"Can you? Wasn't aware they let girls learn."

"Who is they?" the girl asked. The boy laughed and tilted the book toward his face, but it was no longer in his hand. He looked toward his feet, wondering how he dropped it, and looked back at the girl who was reading again.

"How did..." the boy started, before grabbing the book and throwing it into the water. "Girls have no need for books." The girl stood up, flexing her bare toes into the grass. "You think she's bled yet?"

"Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed," another replied and lifted her dress to have a peek. "Who wants to go first?"

The girl slapped his hand from her dress and was backhanded across the face in return.

"Know your place girl. Hold her down, I'm going first."

The boy grabbed her shoulders to force her to the ground. The girl however didn't budge. He grunted as he struggled to push her, his feed sliding backwards across the grass.

"Let her go!" August shouted. One boy laughed as he turned to face him and was greeted with a tree branch against the side of his head. Another boy tried to punch August but a sudden gust of wind took him off balance, making him wobble backwards. August tackled him to the ground and started to punch wildly against his face.

The last boy continued to struggle before the girl stepped to the side, causing him to slip and fall face first into the trunk of the tree. All three boys now blooded, swore vengeance as they fled from August and the girl.

"I could have handled that myself," the girl said and picked up the book before sitting down. "Thank you though. Some men still know their role."

August was confused by many things. Firstly, he could have sworn that the book was thrown into the river. Second, his role?

"Men protect women. That's your role."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm trying to read."

August wished the girl well once more before departing.

The next day he found the girl at the same spot, reading a different book.

"Hello again," August said, leaning over from the side of the trunk.

"Still reading."

The next day he returned.

"My name is August. What's yours?"

"Still reading," the girl replied, turning the page of her new book.

Each day August walked home from school and each day he visited the strange girl who read under a tree by the river.

"Will you tell me your name?" August asked.

The girl lowered the book, annoyed and impressed in equal measure at his tenacity. She looked at the river before turning to him.

"Rivia," she replied.

Each day August visited Rivia, and she said she was reading. Rivia would hear his feet approaching and would sigh in anticipation of his arrival. Each day she would say more words than she had the day prior. Until one day he didn't come. Rivia looked at the position of the sun, and knew he was late. Later than he normally was. She lowered her book, leaning around the tree and only saw the wind blowing on the grass and trees. It irritated her that she had allowed this boy to draw her attention in such a way.

Rivia left the book by the tree and walked to the path she knew he would take to arrive. She didn't see anyone approaching and sat down in the grass on the edge of the path. After an hour she was thoroughly annoyed at his tardiness and made her way down the path. She found him just on the other side of the bend.

August was unconscious, bruised and bloody. Rivia went to her knees next to his face and placed her hand next to his lips. She felt his labored breath, so knew he was alive. The loose dirt around him suggested it was a struggle. As usual, August didn't take his beating willingly and had attempted to fight back. His own knuckles were cut open and bruised. A fresh wound was behind his head, and she tugged a piece of bark from the gash. The boys had struck him with a tree branch.

Rivia drew a circle in the dirt, then a five-pointed star. She sketched symbols on the points. The mother. Water. The horned god. She held her hand over August who was slowly lifted before drifting over the circle and carefully lowered to the Earth. Her hand remained over the pentagram which began to glow. His wounds began to heal as she walked toward his village.

August snapped awake after dark, gasping for air, swinging upwards, the last action he remembered doing before everything went black. No one was with him, and he looked around wondering what had happened. He questioned his own memory, wondering if he had truly been attacked that day. He rose to his feet, and started to walk to his village, the wind blowing the dirt away and hiding the pentagram forever.

August saw black smoke billowing over red and orange light when his village was close. Fire. He started to run. The village had gathered around one home that was entirely engulfed in flame. Villagers were digging trenches around it and running buckets of water to both put out the flame and saturate the neighboring buildings to prevent spread.

"Was anyone inside?" August overhead someone say.

"Yes. Hans and his three boys."

August spent that night watching the flames dance over the charred bodies of his tormentors. As he sat and watched, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. The girl was standing at the corner of a building. Even from a distance he could see the fire's reflection in her eyes which turned to face him. They locked eyes and he started to approach her. For only a moment someone stepped between them, and when they walked past the girl was gone.

August ran down the street, narrowly avoiding several passersby, and arrived at the corner where he saw her. He looked around the other side of the building and saw the flash of her dress and black hair flowing with the wind before disappearing around the next corner. He ran again, only this time didn't see her on the other side. He stepped backwards in confusion, thinking for a moment he only imagined seeing her. When he turned around, she was behind him.

August leaned back in shock but didn't jump or vocalize his surprise.

"Rivia," he finally managed to say.

"August," she replied.

"What happened?" he asked. "I wasn't here when it started."

"You no longer need to fear your walks. That's what happened," Rivia said, a small smile forming at the corners of her lips.

"They're dead," August replied in a half shout, and her smile faded. "They were children."

"As are you, and yet not a single soul in this village lifted a finger to protect you. They can torment you, harass the elderly, and in no uncertain terms mean to violate me simply because they could. When is a child responsible for their actions? Or more importantly, responsible for the consequences of their actions."

"So, they deserved to die?" August asked.

"Yes," Rivia harshly replied. "There was no moment of realization in their future. Never once had they felt an iota of resistance. Their father is to blame as much as they are."

"They lost their mother..."

"...I lost my mother. Everyone has lost someone August. Using a tragedy as an excuse for abhorrent behavior is a slap in the face to those we've lost. We piss on their graves when we invoke their memories to weaponize sympathy as a deflection, so we need not face the repercussions. Their mother being dead is not why they were filth. If they truly cared for their mother, they wouldn't have shamed her the way they did."

August wasn't sure what to say. He had no reason to believe what he did beyond his own instincts, and what he believed was that this strange girl had started the fire. He took a fearful step away from her, and the girl felt her heart sink into her stomach. All she wanted was to protect him. To make it safer for him to walk to her each day. It had been so long since she had anticipated someone's arrival. August had lowered her defenses and gradually she had let him into her world.

Rivia reached out to grab his hand, but August flinched back before turning around and running. She ran after him, but for only two steps, stopping so abruptly she nearly skipped on one foot. She wanted nothing more than to pursue him but couldn't unknow the truth of the endeavor; it never ended well.

It always started innocent enough. The first few years were always the happiest moments of her life. But when you live forever, a moment is more fleeting. They'd sit next to the river and talk. She met him every day, but every day, he'd get older, and she'd stay the same. He'd stop seeing her. When the loneliness of his absence would overwhelm her, she'd find him again. That boy would be a man, but she'd still be a girl.

That night she left that small village outside of Wurzburg with the fire to her back. She faced the village again when she was high above in the forested mountains. The fire was now nothing more than a swarm of fireflies taking off into the night sky. Rivia curled herself into a ball and watched the fire die out.

--

Having spent over forty years as Timothy Augustine's passenger, the little maiden had developed a knack for cleaning up messes. Magic tended to wreak havoc, but when used properly it could undo much of its own devastation. Objects could be mended with the snap of her finger. The pieces of a disorganized room could be returned to their rightful place with a wave of her hand. Saint Archangela's Home for Unwed Mother's looked as if Timothy Augustine had never arrived.

The mangled body of Sister Krista was something else entirely. The little maiden bent her bones back into place and hid the gaping lacerations and gauged eyes behind an illusion that would wear off well after she was buried. She was just an old woman who died of natural causes in the middle of the night. Nothing strange or abnormal about that.

Sister Frost spoke with the paramedics who arrived to collect her body while Timothy sat on the stairs leading up to the door. They carried her body on a cart, concealed under a thin sheet, but he didn't so much as lift his head from his shoes to see her off. Sister Frost watched from the door as her body was loaded into the ambulance and sighed a small prayer before kissing her cross. Her eyes drifted down to Timothy who hadn't said a word since last night.

"Best leave him be," the maiden said from behind her. "He needs time to understand what just happened."

"He needs time? I don't understand what happened and I'm the one it happened to," she whispered.

"Man was not meant to see angels," the maiden replied. "Be not afraid, but they were. I was afraid."

"Of me?" Sister Frost asked, and to her surprise the maiden nodded with sincerity.

"Yes," the maiden replied. "I'm the daughter of Lilith herself, my mother is one of the first beings created, and only once in my mortal life was I ever afraid of something. What you became, scared life back into me in a way I hardly have words to express. You terrified me. However, it was the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed."

"Was I scary, or beautiful?"

"You were both, and that's why it's so hard for him to process. I've seen angels. And demons. I've never seen both at the same time."

"It was looking upon death herself," Timothy said from the stairs. Both turned to him as he slowly rose to his feet. He kept his eyes forward and away from them. "She wasn't there for me, but when she looks at you, she tells you, without speaking, the time she will be there for you is fast approaching. You see your demise, not knowing when it will be but knowing every horrid detail of that moment."

"You saw your death?" Sister Frost asked.

Timothy turned to them and nodded. "I did."

"I'm sorry."

"That wasn't even the worst part," Timothy said and climbed the stairs to stand in front of her. "When the earth opened and hell reached up and grabbed your mother to drag her down, I heard something."

The Sister swallowed and waited for him to continue. When he didn't speak, she asked what he heard.

"Amongst all the moans and screams from the chasm, I could have sworn I heard a piano accordion," Timothy said, laughing out the last words, unable to contain himself any longer.

"Oh, good grief," the Sister, wanting to slap his arm, but covered her mouth to hide her own laughter.

"Told you it was literal hell," he laughed out.

"Is this really the time for light heartedness?" the Sister asked, still hiding her smile.

"We need to mourn the dead of course, but life goes on. It must," Timothy said gestured for his exorcist to leave the doorway. "We still have work to do."

"Where do we even go from here? We didn't learn anything about my mother, or my father. Anything," the Sister replied, and the girl shook her head with only Timothy noticing.

"Maiden?" Timothy inquired as to her disagreement of the Sister's statement.

"Your mother was a unique experience to me," the maiden explained. "Specters are powerful, don't get me wrong, but I typically swat them down like flies. Your mother overpowered me. She went from being a ghost to being a specter in a moment's time. That's not normal."

"Are you sure you're not just losing your edge?" Timothy replied.

"I'm an everlasting soul Timothy, my magic doesn't dissipate over time," the maiden explained. "While specters can interact with the physical world, they still need to interact with it. Touch it with their own hands. She didn't require that. She was without a doubt, a witch. A very powerful one."

"I'm a witch?" the Sister asked.

"No, you're not," the maiden said while shaking her head, "You have the genetic material to be one, but that didn't manifest in you."

"And we also know her name; Henrietta Moore," Timothy said, remembering it scorched on the floor after she was dragged down. "We need to learn as much as possible about her. If she was in a coven. Your grandparents perhaps. Who your father could have been."

"Do you think Nora would be willing to help you find out more about her?" the Sister asked.

"You're kidding right?" the maiden scoffed.

"Nora needs a little bit of time to cool off before I talk to her again. I know someone else who has done extensive research on New England Covens, and she's close to Boston. Only about an hour drive," Timothy said and started walking down the stairs and turned down the street toward where they parked. "Ever been to Providence?"

--

Katrina "Kat" Bialecki arrived home following her grocery shopping she did every Saturday morning. As she turned into her driveway her eyes tilted over her head to the pickup truck parked on the curb in front of her home. She opened the trunk by pressing the hatch release button before leaving her car and watched the truck as she walked around to retrieve her bags. There was no one in the truck that she could see. She walked parallel with her porch to see if someone was waiting for her.

"You look well Kat," a voice said from her porch. The voice of a man whose presence she wasn't entirely sure how she should feel.

"You look, exactly the same, Timothy. That's just not fair," Kat said with a small laugh. "Help me with these bags?"

Kat was hardly a woman when Timothy was assigned as her Fractured in 1972. She was a sheltered girl who never had experienced much in life before taking her vows. Her immediate attraction to him was something she at first did well to bury. Fifteen years ago, those feelings boiled over into her breaking her vows and then leaving the Church.

Kat was now in her early forties and far more worldly than she had been when she took her vows. She traveled the world, had a few more experiences with men, but found her way back to the Church as a teacher. She was always a beautiful woman, and age hadn't done much to expunge that. A few wrinkles and some strands of gray in her shiny brown hair, but she was the teacher the boys admired and the girls sought advice from.