Page 25 of Malady

The chanting swells.

A dozen arms swing down.

Leather strikes flesh. Fresh blood scatters across the snow in bright droplets before running in thin lines down their sides.

One of the men stumbles mid-stride. His bare knees strike the ground, but he doesn’t stop his droning. He drags himself upright, raises the glass-studded leather, and brings it down across his back with enough force to open a fresh line of red.

Of course this is happening. Why wouldn’t it be? A potential demon currently resides in Doctor Taylor’s cottage. It’s only fitting that a dozen strangers have arrived to whip themselves to pieces in the snow before I’ve even had my breakfast.

Within minutes, half the parish has spilt onto the road behind me, trailing several paces back while the men make for the churchyard, their bare feet stamping bright crimson prints into the slush.

The first man passes through the gate, the others following two abreast. Then, without warning, the entire procession drops to its knees. More than a dozen bodies strike the frozen ground together, heads bowed and bloody scourges hanging limp from their hands.

A heartbeat later, the church doors swing open. Gideon steps out, with Brother Leon close behind him, both cassocks snapping around their boots in the wind.

Good. Tell them to stop. Tell the mad bastards to put the whips down before I’m expected to spend the next fortnight digging pieces of metal out of their backs.

Instead, Gideon descends the steps, both hands raised towards the sky.

Oh, no.

“Behold!” His voice rolls across the churchyard with enough force to silence the last of the whispering behind me. “The Lord has heard our despair. He has witnessed the suffering of this parish, and in His mercy, He has sent us those willing to bear the burden of repentance.”

“Who are they, Brother?” someone calls from behind me.

“They are the holy penitents!” Gideon cries, his eyes shining as he looks upon the men kneeling in their own gore. “Flagellants! Brethren of the Cross! They travel the afflicted roads to take the sins of the world upon their own flesh, and to beg the Almighty’s mercy that this pestilence might be lifted from our doors!”

It has not worked, Gideon. In twelve months, nothing has worked.

The man at the head of the procession slowly raises his face. Blood has soaked through the hair at his temples and frozen dark against his neck, yet there is no agony in his expression, nor the slightest suggestion that he finds anything remarkable about kneeling half-naked in the snow with his back torn to ribbons. He looks at Gideon with the unwavering certainty of a man who truly believes every strip of flesh hanging from his shoulders has purchased something from Heaven.

I look from the ruined backs of the penitents to the people gathered around me, expecting horror, disgust—anything.

Instead, Mrs Higgins drops her basket. Turnips scatter as she clasps her dirt-stained hands beneath her chin and begins to weep. Someone behind her bows their head. Another sinks to their knees, then another, until all the people gathered are crossing themselves as though salvation itself has just marched barefoot into Beswick.

They are mad. They are all bloody mad.

“The church is open to you!” Gideon shouts. “We will house you, pray at your side and share in your penance!”

I’m moving before Gideon can say anything else, pushing through the kneeling villagers and marching straight across the churchyard. I catch his sleeve and haul him aside before he can invite the bleeding lunatics across the threshold.

“Gideon.”

The fervour in his face gives way to irritation as he looks down at my fist knotted in his cassock. “Ophelia, not now. Release me.”

“You cannot bring them inside.”

“They have travelled⁠—”

“I do not care if they crawled here directly from the gates of Heaven. Look at them.” I gesture towards the penitents, lowering my voice as one of them shifts on his knees, leaving another dark patch in the snow. “Their backs are torn open; they’ve spent who knows how many days dragging those whips through road filth, and you want to shut them inside a church with half the parish breathing the air around them. What do you imagine those wounds will look like in three days? In five?”

Gideon’s jaw tightens. “They are holy men. They bleed for our salvation.”

“And what about when their wounds begin to suppurate, and the flesh turns foul? Will their holiness stop the stink from filling the nave?”

His expression hardens. “This is not about the body. You look at them and see sickness. I see men willing to suffer so that others might be spared.”

“I see men making themselves sick in a village that already has more than enough of it.”