Streams of sludge wept under their feet as they neared the hilltop. Behind the trees’ jagged silhouettes – black against a burning sky – stood Tír Mallacht’s church; deconsecrated, defaced, but by no means abandoned. Not on this night.

Through the church’s fallen ceiling the misty air was aglow.

There were voices chanting in harmony, and in the lulls between their lament could be heard the one leading the ceremony. The man’s words echoed too high and fleeting to make sense of at that distance. But his conviction was without dispute. No volume of voice could ever reach the heights of his faith.

The walls of the churchyard were a mass of briars, alive in the dying light of day when slight, insignificant things masquerade as something more, their wispy arms seeking to snag any who stepped too close.

Ben knew they couldn’t afford to delay. But until he knew what was happening, it was safer to remain undetected. The art of secrecy – the villagers’ time-worn mantra since their lives were cursed – was now their own safest option.

The path led his eyes within to where firelight flickered and dark bodies stood. The doorway was too narrow and the shadows too enlivened by the many flames that burned there to make sense of anything else. The last of the daylight was dying, like a candle’s wick without wax. Ben looked back at Chloe and pointed to the cemetery on the northern side. It was there that a section of masonry had collapsed outward, not far from the altar. He led the way, tugging aside branches and stomping down on clots of weed until eventually he tripped into the open.

The mismatched gravestones each held their own ungainly shadow. They loomed low in the dusk like an army of forgotten oddities. Ben crept by the church’s wall. The fallen rubble was lacquered in a thin gloss of firelight. It guided him through the darkness, inch by painful inch. Whatever bones he could still feel were pulsating as though their very marrow was being furiously churned.

The chanting intensified when they reached the fissure. Ben aligned his back against the cold stone and peered inward. There he saw the wasp, standing alone at the altar, his body wrapped in a black cloak or habit with a loose hood pulled over his head.

Ben drew back out of sight, convinced in that terrifying second that their eyes had met.

It was his voice they had heard.

The night was too close for the Tír Mallachts to observe their curfew. If the village in its entirety had turned out for some celebration, then surely the curse had been lifted.

Chloe held a hand to Ben’s shoulder, helping him stay upright on his haunches as he angled again towards the opening. This time he looked back into the roofless nave where the flames burned brightest.