Then, the sound became a chant.
Hum-drum. Hum-drum. Hum-drum.
Slowly, I lifted my head and watched the fire.
At first, there was nothing more than the dancing of the flames, but eventually, my eyes adjusted so I was able to make out the movement of shadows around the outer ring. The same shadows I’d seen before.
They were nimble and quick, kicking legs and flailing arms around the fire the way I imagined cavemen would have done. The movements seemed archaic and savage. Uncivilized in every respect.
The last light of the sun had turned everything a deep blue, but I knew the figures around the fire wouldn’t be able to see me when they were so close to the flames. Their vision would be compromised. Everything else to them would be darkness. As long as I was careful not to get inside the fire’s ring of light, I’d go unnoticed.
With that small assurance of safety, I raised myself to my elbows and knees and began crawling forward.
Long grass tickled my chin and nose, and I had to fight back the urge to sneeze, but painstakingly, I made my way down the other side of the hill and onto a flat stretch of ground. Only then did I dare to get to my feet and move in a low crouch. My legs burned from the effort, but I kept my eyes trained on the figures dancing around the fire, watching as they grew larger and larger.
The closer I got, the more I realized the figures were not inhumanly small or large. They were perfectly average-sized, which was a slight comfort. Though, I would have preferred they be small as fairies. The closer I got, as well, the better I could hear their chant and recognize it as an imperfect chant.
From a distance, the echoes off of the hills and craggy rocks made the hum-drum sound otherworldly. Now, though, I could hear that there were two voices crying out into the night, and they didn’t always start and stop at the same time. Occasionally, their chants overlapped with one another or one stopped chanting long enough to cough. That, too, was a small comfort. If they had to cough, it meant they could be weakened. More so, it meant life. I couldn’t be entirely certain, but I didn’t think ghosts felt the urge to cough.
Twigs and leaves cracked and crunched under my steps, but it hardly mattered. The fire roared with destruction, popping and sparking so loudly no one would ever be able to hear me approach.
I moved until I was ten paces away from the circle of the trees. Yet still, I couldn’t see anything definitive about the people moving around the fire. I couldn’t make out anything beyond the sway of their dark robes and the way they bled like inky puddles into the dark ground. I wanted to get closer, but I didn’t dare. Not when they’d possibly attacked my sister and attempted to attack me the last time I’d gotten close.
As it turned out, I didn’t need to.
The consistent chanting had become nothing more than a background whirr like wind in my ears. I’d grown accustomed to it. So, when it stopped, my body grew alert. Everything felt quiet and still, despite the continuous crackling of the fire, and I held my breath lest the shadows hear me.
One of the shadows stopped and threw up their arms. Their voice was low enough that I couldn’t make out exactly what they said, but they seemed to be addressing the moon in reverent tones.
Immediately, I could tell the voice was female, and it startled me in its humanness. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but it hadn’t been that. I hadn’t even expected English. Yet, I could detect a familiar accent.
After a moment, the second voice joined in.
This one was also female and recognition began to dawn somewhere in the back of my mind. A faint tickling of memory.
I shook my head against the image forming there of the elderly women I’d sat with over tea, of the women I’d helped jar and preserve apples, donning robes and dancing around an open fire in the middle of the moors. It couldn’t be true. I knew the Wilds were strange, but this went beyond. Didn’t it? Maybe I believed they could be capable of dancing around an open flame, but did I really think they could hurt my sister? Would hurt me?
It seemed that the Wilds sisters had gone…wild. They’d gone savage on the moors, running around fires, speaking to the moon. Maybe Catherine had stumbled upon their ritual just as I had and for some reason, they’d attacked her.
Though, as the story went, Margaret and Abigail were the people who found Catherine in the marsh. They brought her back to the house.
However, they’d done so as themselves. Surely, someone would have mentioned it if the women had been dressed in black robes.
So, perhaps, they attacked Catherine in their cloaks, obscuring their identities, and then changed into ordinary clothes before coming back to “find” her. But none of that made sense with what I knew of the women. They were strange, but kind. They were eccentric, but honest. They made no effort to hide their beliefs from me or anyone else, so what shame would they really feel at Catherine discovering them?
Perhaps, it had something to do with Catherine’s resemblance to their departed sister. Catherine had told me the sisters believed her to be the reincarnation of Dorothea. Could it have been that in their desire to see their sister at rest, they were overzealous and hurt Catherine?
Possibilities swirled in my mind until I felt dizzy, and I just wanted to get away. I’d learned and seen more than enough for one night, and it was high time I found my way back to the house. I could discuss
