𝙴𝚁𝙾𝚃𝙸𝙲⠀& 𝚁𝙴𝙻𝙸𝙶𝙸𝙾𝙽 ͏ ♱⃬ ͏ ͏
⠆ ͏ 𝓜𝙸𝙳𝙽𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃 𝙼𝙰𝚁𝚃𝚈𝚁 ¿
⠀❲⠀⠀♱ Vincent Rien wasn't just a man of God.
He was a wolf draped in a shepherd's cloak.
In the quiet corners of Spring Falls, the devil
could spe...
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❝ It's a pleasure to meet you, Jacqueline ❞ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
♱
In Spring Falls, Texas, the days crept by slow as molasses, one glistening and bright, the next wrapped up in a haze like the morning mist hanging over the hills. It was a place where the heat felt like an old quilt, heavy and familiar, pressing down on the earth with the weight of a hundred years of secrets. Folks in town moved at the pace of the sun, their lives unfolding against a backdrop of whispering trees and cracked, sun-bleached porches, each step sinking them deeper into the soil.
The heart of Spring Falls was St. Mary's Church, a sanctuary standing like a stern-faced old woman, its spire stretching up toward the blue dome of sky like a crooked finger pointing at God. The building looked as if it had been there forever, its stone walls streaked with damp, ivy clutching at its surface like a desperate lover. The church bells tolled out every day at noon and six, marking time the way only Spring Falls knew how to count it, slow and steady, like the drawl of an old man spinning yarns on a warm afternoon.
Perched up in the tangled limbs of the old oak tree, Jacqueline Cain sat hidden from the world, her white cotton dress clinging to her legs in the humid air. She had her Bible balanced on her knee, the book a shabby thing with a leather cover rubbed smooth by years of handling. She whispered scripture like a spell, the words tasting of dust and old paper. The light filtered down through the leaves, dappling her face with soft patches of gold that flickered like a thousand tiny fires in her dark eyes.
She hadn't read but a few verses when the familiar crunch of dry leaves and snapping twigs brought her attention downward. Mantis, her best friend since they were both small and wild as stray cats, was scrambling up the trunk with all the grace of a possum, her grin as wide and crooked as ever. "Jackie, I got somethin' for ya," Mantis puffed as she settled herself on the branch beside Jacqueline, "Big news. Ain't nobody talkin' 'bout nothin' else."
