It was that moment that things eventually started to become clear. Those nuns didn’t just disappear, they’d never got themselves killed! Somehow, sometime, they had founded this village, and for the last one hundred years, they had been birthing descendants, who were, even now, carrying on the village’s horrendous activities! That surely explained why the village didn’t have a church, and why there was no vicar servicing it. They didn’t need a church because they were making all the sacrifices out in the woods! They must have been in hiding even during the Second World War, and even during the 1960s, the Boer Wars, everything. A tear rolled down my cheek at the thought of the poor evacuees who had been sacrificed here. Hurriedly, I did some more scrounging for answers and I found a ledger. I grabbed it from the shelf, but unfortunately it was too heavy for me to lift, and it fell to the floor.

I picked up the ledger and hurled it onto the table, inhaling like mad. Reading it, I discovered that it did, in fact, contain some sort of tally for all the sacrifices that they’d been making over the last few weeks. There were lists too. If they’d been about anything else, I’d have found them boring, but they piqued my interest at that age. I flicked back to the list relating to the years 1939-1945, and I found that, much to my surprise, only a couple of soldiers had been sacrificed. No evacuees had even been mentioned in it! There were no children listed! Evidently they hadn’t accepted someone like me before then, but perhaps that’s because they probably didn’t even know this village existed. I flicked through the remaining decades of the present century, and I found that, as the decades passed, the lists of sacrifices became slightly more frequent: some hippies, some unfortunate musicians – in particular, an entire rock band was noted to have been slaughtered – and some American tourists. It was like some form of demented census, except instead of assessing the number of people living there, it assessed the number of people who had been killed.

Of course, this didn’t come as a shock. All of a sudden, everything started to make sense. Everything! Ah! I felt as though I’d been plunged into a well of insanity, like I was going bloody mad from the delusion, and they were all being swept up in the current. This wasn’t a story about the differences between West and East, it never was! The cult here had taken things too far – if it could be called a cult. In both of the sightings in the forest, those that were done in the light of the waxing moon, it had never even been the case that those cultists wore the robes one would expect. I immediately began to feel sick. I spun around, desperate to find a toilet, and I eventually found a conveniently placed little cell with a toilet seat inside it, which I then proceeded to vomit into. I don’t think I’d ever be able to recover from the horror I experienced in that moment.

I ran out of the library afterwards, and I went down to find Mrs Nollys. “My headdress needs re-doing!” she snapped. I was too terrified to listen to what she was saying afterwards. My heart was beating like mad, and I was frantic, and desperate to get back. I needed to escape. That much I knew. Someone had to know about this. I’ll take the book! I thought to myself. I’ll take that ledger down to London right into the hands of the Metropolitan Police. Hopefully, they’ll be able to have these people arrested. I clutched at my chest. Mrs Nollys eyed me, looking angrily and annoyed. She then looked up the street and, once she did that, she began sweating profusely on her forehead. “You’ve been in the library, haven’t you?” she whispered. Her tone betrayed some kind of fear embedded within her.

“What? No! No, why on earth would I do that?”

“Eighe-e-e-e-e!” cried Mrs Nollys. It was a cry of shock and horror, and the very second she let the wail loose, I jumped. She staggered backwards from me, panting like a maniac, and then ran down the street and out of sight. You can tie your own hairdo! I thought, contemptuously. Afterwards, I returned to my usual labours. I watered Mr Harris’ plants, and I cleaned the village hall. As usual, it was a struggle to hold the broom at such a young age, and I kept stumbling and letting go multiple times. I accidentally knocked over the bucket, spilling water all over the floor. My hands trembled as I held the broom. Every single thing I’d seen had really done a number on me.