The solemn, monodic tolls of the iron bell escorted the sun on its silent descent and departure, marking yet another day turned to dark. Dusk had fallen, and the streets of Mystvale had drained of people.

As in all days before, each toll was heavy with grim expectations, and the callous acceptance of fate, but today it seemed as though there was a quiver in them of a confused, forgotten longing, like died-out embers roused again from ashes. Today, the bell sounded... like hope.

The black visitor watched with intent eyes, as he leaned out from the second storey window of the chapel. The old priest appeared behind him, having descended his steeple. He was breathing heavily, but not from mere labour of bell-tolling. As was his habit, he lit no candles, and jumpily eyed the open window, hesitant to ask to have it closed.

‘... Did the Church send you?’ he asked, expectant.

The visitor turned to look at the old man. He thought it an amusingly thought-provoking sight, that even men so otherwise lawless might count upon providence to salvage them.

He smiled and shook his head. ‘No.’

The answer seemed to drain the spirits from the old clergyman. ‘...I’d thought that God had finally heeded our prayers’, he faintly sighed. ‘My predecessors have sent their petitions to the Church many times before— but I should have known... Nobody cares about an insignificant parish—in the middle of nowhere.’

He collapsed into the small chair behind him with a sunken thud.

‘That doesn’t mean that I can’t deal with your ghost.’

The old man tentatively raised his head. ‘Are you... an exorcist?’

‘... For all your intents and purposes, yes.’

‘Then you’ll get rid of the witch for us?!’ The old man straightened in excitement.

The visitor raised a single finger.

‘For a suitable price.’

The realistic notion startled the priest, and woke him from fantasies of fateful deliverance. ‘How much?’ he hesitantly asked.

‘... I have heard that the town has had a good harvest recently,’ the visitor hummed, softly pacing the dark room; ‘so how about... half a crop’s worth?’

‘We can’t afford that!’

‘I believe that you can’, he smiled. ‘You have to remember, this is already a very generous offer, taking into consideration your... unique circumstances. Such a figure would be rather modest... elsewhere.’

The old clergyman couldn’t say anything to this. He had enough knowledge to be aware of the disparity between Mystvale and the rest of the world.

The visitor came up to his side and patted his tired shoulder.

‘Do not worry’, he said congenially. ‘You can pay in whatever currency available to you, and I’ll only charge after my services have been... fully provided.’

The old man looked up at him. ‘I’m not in a position to promise you anything’—

‘I have little need for promises’, interjected the visitor plainly.

He gulped. ‘... I’ll take you to the mayor.’

The visitor smiled softly. ‘That’s perfectly fine—and you can tell me everything you know to start.’

He gingerly lifted his hand from the priest, and the tensed-up old body finally slackened.

‘Yes, er… What should I call you, Sir Exorcist?’

The black visitor stood back and reclined into the enveloping darkness.

‘... Mr Exorcist, is fine.’

Then he nodded at the old priest.

‘You could begin by telling me about the ghost.’

The priest’s eyes darted uneasily toward the open window. A cold breeze was blowing.

‘... Could we please close the window first?’

•••

‘...The town of Mystvale wasn’t always like this. It was actually a town back then, before the population dwindled. I’m not old enough to have seen it for myself, but there was a time, long ago, before my father—and even his father—when things were, Mystvale was, different. Back then, everything wasn’t so—so…’

‘...Bleak?’ offered the exorcist.

The old priest sullenly nodded. ‘The North has always been a cold host, but Mother Earth had suffered man his means—looked after us well enough, kept us fed, clothed. Nowadays, wherever you look is grey and dead, but back then, there was green!—the groves were alive—there were thickets of berries, and good patches of grazing‘—

‘What happened?’

The priest paused, and nervously glanced at the window he had insisted to have shut. There was no light, save for that of the moon and the stars, leaking through tiny crevices. It was next to pitch-black, but the accustomed eye could make out shadowy images that lent a troubling eeriness to the atmosphere.

‘...The witch happened.’

The exorcist patiently tapped a finger upon his woven hands. ‘... And whom, might I ask, was this witch?’

‘It was a woman, from further up north, with fire for hair and frost for skin. She came and settled, and brought with her famine and death.’

‘... How?’

In the blinding darkness, the old man looked up at him with wide, blank eyes.

‘Frost-poison!’ he said.

‘With her evil magic brew, she slowly fed the land with sickness, until the crops all withered, and the people starved.’

With manic excitement, the old priest began moving his hands, as though stirring an invisible cauldron. Comparing his practiced narration to that of the bard of the tavern, the exorcist realized that the people of Mystvale had had a tradition of their own of passing down their fateful origin.

The exorcist raised a hand. ‘... How long did this famine last?’

‘Seven!’ said the old man excitedly.

‘Seven?’

‘Seven deadly years, of course!’

‘Right… And in what way... did it benefit the witch to poison everybody and everything?’

‘She wanted to eat their souls’, replied the priest matter-of-factly.

The exorcist blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘She was crazy!’ explained the annoyed priest, eager to continue the story, a story the exorcist realized he would need to take with many pinches of salt.

‘Very well… Please, proceed.’

‘... Half of Mystvale had been lost, never even knowing the witch’s wicked nature. The remaining half would have soon followed, simply by the rotting miasma from their bones, if not for the sagacious priest who had seen through her disguise.’

‘... A priest?’ the exorcist faintly repeated. ‘An itinerant inquisitor?’

‘Our local pastor at the time,’ the old man explained, with pride and admiration, putting his hands solemnly together, ‘Father Edmund, driven by his noble sense of duty. May his sacred soul find rest.’ He then proceeded with a long-winded prayer of colourful descriptions.

The exorcist was mildly surprised by this clerical entry into the tale, but after a moment’s consideration, he realized that with it, the structure of the story had smoothened itself out. There had to be a priest, for it would have been otherwise incredible for mere townspeople to obtain ultimate victory over the magically-endowed. He had to remind himself: this spirit had supposedly possessed powers, before it had become a ghost. The question then was…

‘... What did Father Edmund do?’

The old man promptly interrupted his prayers for the deceased reverend mid-sentence, and enthusiastically resumed his narrative. He might have actually made a dignified priest, if he hadn’t already dedicated himself to the art of dramatics, thought the exorcist.

‘... Father Edmund led the survivors in glorious retaliation, and after much bravery and sacrifice, they captured the witch in her very own lair. Being ever the compassionate soul that he was, Father Edmund offered to guide her damned soul to redemption yet, if only she would undo her evil magic upon the land. But the witch refused his kindness, and insisted on spewing yet darker curses with every foul breath within her. It forced the kind Father’s hand, and he had her placed upon the guillotine.’

‘There’s a guillotine?’ asked the exorcist incredulously.

The priest morosely sighed. ‘I hear it had to be sold away afterwards, to recover from the damages suffered. If not, it probably would have been a relic for the ages.’

Then he turned to a more plaintive whine. ‘They had no modern sense of business, truly!—and immoral wretch was the merchant who swindled it from them! Had they kept it for exhibition purposes, I’m sure it would have drawn in revenue—Hell, it might have even kept the witch in her grave that she wouldn’t have had the guts to rise from the dead!’

As the old man went on to lament the sale of the guillotine, openly conflating matters of faith and interest, the exorcist kept to himself in a quiet corner of the room. Immersed in his thoughts, he reorganized the details of the case. Dramatic aggrandisement aside, there were all of the basic elements of a haunting, and more, with the unexpected appearance of Father Edmund.

He hadn’t expected to have an encounter with the Church proper, even this remotely, so far removed from the heart of civilization, the part-time pastor before him not counting. He was only slightly curious which bishop had given the permission to the Mystvale priesthood to perpetuate itself. Mostly he felt complicated about cleaning up after another one of their messes. For however celebrated and qualified an ecclesiastical representative Father Edmund might have been, whatever he had done to suppress the revenant had surely failed.

On a more personal note of academic curiosity, he wondered about the methods of the deceased priest. After all, it had been a different time, with perhaps different practices. Also, considering the possible influences his environment might have had upon him, the esteemed father might not have been an immaculately by-the-book individual himself.

The exorcist decided, however, to concentrate first upon the matter before him. He recounted the unholy trinity of the unspoken arts…

There was Life…

There was Death…

And then there was Undeath...

‘... When was the ghost first risen?’

‘Only after Father Edmund’s passing!’ the old man spat, cut off from his sour rambling. ‘The coward.’

The exorcist considered something. ‘How long did Father Edmund live, after the original event?’

The priest frowned. ‘Only roughly more than a decade. He was... younger then, than I am now.’ He gazed upward. ‘The good die young.’

‘And in that first period, before the ghost appeared… did the damage caused by the curses… recover at all?’

For the first time within his narrative, the old clergyman was caught unprepared. He shot the exorcist a look reserved only for those that have asked the redundantly obvious.

The exorcist paid no heed to his reaction. ‘Please,’ he persisted, ‘it is important you answer me surely.’

The old pastor couldn’t ignore such an explicit request. So he gave it a brief moment’s reverie, and turned back to the exorcist in firm voice:

‘It did.’

‘But not completely’, he shakily added. ‘By the time Father Edmund died, things hadn’t picked up to the way they were, before the disaster. And all remains... slow progress still.’

This made the exorcist pensive. It wasn’t as telling an answer as he had hoped for, but it did suggest that his suspicions were in the right direction. Gently feeling a black feather in the palm of his hand, he thought back to the description of the spirit.

‘Did Father Edmund... do something to the head?’ he asked himself.

The exorcist had expected the answer to have been lost to the torn-off pages of oblivion, but here again the old pastor turned around with puffed chest, preparing to showcase his knowledge.

‘The head was‘—

It was then that a most horrible sound echoed throughout the entire town of Mystvale. It was an unholy screech that punctured through the very fabric of the soul, and shattered the spirits of every person who heard it.

It was the ghost. Or rather...

It was the witch.