Where There Is Nothing

Chapter

Not a bird nor a cloud shared the sky. The moon and stars remained alone.

The Reverent Father could not find comfort in his bed, and had only pretended to since lying down. His mind was consumed with idle chatter. The town had truly made a play of him. To be coerced into believing in fairytales once told to misbehaving children. It was absurd. To find any reason in it and yet he still lingered there in those thoughts. Perhaps deep down he found some comfort in their way of life. The storm tapping settled at the window, and from this height he could see farther than before. Down there, like an ant scurrying to a hide behind a platter, a slender body walked the garden. From where he was it was difficult to distinguish much else, certainty impossible to see a face, but it was assuredly a woman who was there. For even as far as they were from one another, the curve of her bare breasts ballooning in the frigid cold exposed her.

Her skin the color of milk. His heart began to race uncontrollably as he watched the waxy figure disappear behind the trench of pine trees that bordered the outskirts of the manor.

He stood there for a moment, catching his breath, and realized he was alone.