The figure hummed to itself, and Ark hoped if he could creep past, the sound might cover his —

“I recognize those footsteps!” The voice echoed around the hallowed hall.

Ark stopped dead. He was discovered.

“Where do you think you’re going, my Ark?” The figure shuffled around, revealing a face wrinkled like a winter-stored apple. The hair was tied back in a messy pigtail. Only the eyes, without pupils, seemed lost, their white expanses roaming aimlessly within their sockets.

Ark had no choice. “Warden Goodwoody.” He bowed.

“I thought so. Delicately as you might move, my ears shall pick you out!” and the face was split in half with a grin as sweet as any winter-stored fruit.

Ark shuffled closer, nervously checking out the side chapels.

“Why the worry? What is it?” A hand reached out, sweeping the floor like a broom until the fingers found what they were looking for. The Warden used her elm staff to pull herself up, towering over Ark.

“Nothing. I came in. I wanted to …” He didn’t know what he wanted, why he was here.

“Catch a cloud, eh? Well, don’t mind me.” She motioned her head to indicate a set of stairs at the back of the kirk, hidden in a dark recess. “Go on with you, then.”

Ark wanted to stop and talk, but the urge was in him now. “Thank you,” he said.

“And if you find the Goddess up there, send Her my love!” The woman sighed and bent back down to continue her arranging.

Ark paused by the stairs, suddenly feeling like he was being watched. He turned uncertainly. A pair of eyes stared out at him from the dark. Ark almost stumbled backward in fright.

“Dendrans ignore the Raven Queen at their peril!”

How could Goodwoody have noticed what he was looking at? The eyes appeared alive, staring out from a dusty stained-glass panel disguised by a jumble of old broken chairs and rolled-up rugs. The figure was dressed in black. Ark peered closer. No. Not dressed in black, but wearing a cloak of black feathers that billowed out over a shadowy throne.

“Our pious men have forgotten the old ways,” the Warden continued, “but Corwenna is the true face of nature. Some say She is the other face of Diana. One cannot have light without dark….”