The whisper of incense mingled with the soft creak of wooden pews, the air thick with the stillness of the church. Katherine had awoken not long ago, blurry fragments of the conversation between Lucía and Elena bubbling through her mind. There was a lot to process.
Katherine now wanted answers. The woman who had raised her since childhood suddenly felt a sense of unfamiliarity. She needed to know what Elena was hiding. She needed to know who she was, and whether it was even true that Elena knew nothing of her origins.
"How much have you been keeping from me?" The question slipped from her lips before she could stop it, but Katherine did not regret it. She loved Elena, and although it had never been spoken aloud, she saw her as a mother. That made the sense of betrayal even harder to ignore.
But the nun, with her infinite patience, turned away from the question and shifted the conversation before Katherine could press her further. "Before you worry about what I have hidden from you, child, you should consider whether you want to get involved with Lucía."
The redhead frowned, clearly irritated by Elena's deflection. "Of all the things we could talk about right now, you choose to bring up someone who only entered my life yesterday."
Elena exhaled softly with her hands clasped over her lap. "I am afraid that does little to change your current circumstances. You and Lucía have already stumbled into the dangers hidden in Hertford. If you choose to remain involved with her, you will inevitably be drawn into her world. Have you thought about how dangerous that is?"
Elena did not let Katherine answer. "Katherine, this decision will change your life. Becoming involved with the supernatural is looking into the abyss."
Katherine rolled her eyes at the remark. She disliked how Elena refused to answer her questions about the secrets she had kept all her life, yet insisted on lecturing her about how to live. "And if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back. I have heard it before."
Elena did not appear offended by her attitude. She simply shook her head and replied. "No. This abyss is a fusion of malice, madness, and insatiable hunger. It will consume parts of you that you will never recover. It will tear pieces of you away and replace them with fragments of itself. If you are lucky, it will try to kill you. If not, your mind will be too shattered for you to understand the horrors that await."
Katherine swallowed audibly. There was something in Elena's voice, something in the trauma etched so deeply into her eyes. The nun who had always been warm and tempered was gone. In her place stood someone clutching the cross at her chest with a desperation that was painful to witness.
"There are things you cannot come back from. Things that, once known, mark you forever." Elena said this quietly once she had escaped the trance of her memories. Her fingers glided over the cross that hung from her neck, the comfort brought by her faith acting as a balm to soothe the pain of wounds carved into her soul.
Then Elena looked Katherine in the eyes. Worry, empathy, and vulnerability shimmered in her gaze. These were things the redhead was not used to seeing. "I was once young and reckless, like you. I believed I could face what lurked in the shadows. That if I were strong enough, clever enough, I could emerge unscathed. But I learned that some horrors do not merely want to consume you. They change you. They break you. And when you look back, you are no longer the same."
For a moment, her breathing slowed. Her tone was not only cautionary. It was a confession. For the first time in her life, Elena shared what she had only ever entrusted to God. She could not help it. Katherine was too important to her. She had to try to make the girl understand the kind of world she was stepping into, especially because Elena would not be there to protect her.
Elena sat still with the shadow of unwelcome memories passing through her gaze.
Katherine swallowed again. For the first time, she did not feel that Elena was only shielding her. She felt that Elena was pleading with her not to follow the same path. "Elena." It was all she could say. What could she possibly say to comfort her? Was that even possible? Katherine did not know.
The nun finally sat upright again with her tone regaining some composure, though her expression no longer carried its usual certainty. "Forgive me. It seems I wandered off a bit. Just take care of yourself, Katherine. That is all I ask. As for the secrets I have kept from you, if you truly want answers, I will give them to you. But not now."
Elena held Katherine's gaze firmly because this was a promise, not an evasion. "After your eighteenth birthday, I will tell you everything you want to know. Until then, the only thing I ask is that you decide whether you truly want to cross that threshold. Because once you do, there is no turning back."
The church fell into reverent silence as though even the stone walls understood that what had been spoken there was not a simple conversation. It was a warning wrapped in a wound that never healed.
Elena let out a quiet sigh. Her expression remained clouded by unspoken thoughts. But she no longer tried to shift the subject. She simply gave one last piece of useful advice to her beloved child.
"Stay out of trouble, Katherine. And if you cannot do that, stay close to Lucía."
The redhead looked slightly puzzled by how contradictory that sounded compared to the beginning of their conversation. "I thought you wanted me to stay away from her."
Elena shook her head and smiled with dry irony. "Not away from her, but away from danger. But if you are going to rush straight into trouble for whatever reason, at least I want someone there to protect you."
Katherine neither agrees nor denies her habit of getting involved in things she should not. Her past spoke for itself. She was too nosy and too curious for her own good. "Do you think she can protect me?"
Elena held her gaze with quiet certainty. "If anyone in this town can do it, it is her. Just as I was informed of her arrival, I was also told a few things about your new friend. She is very skilled at what she does and has a surprising amount of experience for someone so young. Besides, she seems to care for you. I am sure she will take good care of you."
Katherine did not answer immediately. The truth was that she had briefly forgotten that Lucía was hiding quite a bit about who she really was. Among those secrets was the fact that she seemed to be some sort of monster hunter or something along those lines.
It was ridiculous if she thought hard about it. Like something straight out of a comic book. A mysterious and dangerous hunter, unbelievably attractive, traveling from town to town, slaying monsters and rescuing damsels in distress. The realization hit her. "Wait. Did I just think she was attractive?" Katherine whispered to herself as the thought clicked, but her mind quickly moved past the slip without much ceremony. The idea of relying on Lucía for anything more than flirty conversations had not crossed her mind before.
But now, with everything Elena was saying, maybe having a bodyguard while she investigated the death of Jonathan Blackthorn would not be such a bad idea. They might no longer be close, but Katherine had not forgotten the good times they shared as children. Not to mention how tormented the ghost of the boy seemed. No one deserved that, and Katherine had no intention of staying idle while whatever caused it was still roaming free.
This was a chance not only to seek justice for Jonathan Blackthorn and prevent more victims. Deep down, Katherine saw it as an opportunity to prove the value of her gifts. To be more than just a misunderstood and alienated messenger between the living and the dead. A way to show the world that her existence had meaning.
"And to make her proud." Katherine added the thought silently while glancing at Elena. No matter how many secrets the woman continued to keep, she had cared for her and shown affection even when everyone else had turned away. Katherine wanted to prove she had been right to do so.