Genre:
A pair of dark oak doors, masterfully carved with six different panels, came into view. Winged creatures, with horns and pointed tail, appeared in every panel terrorizing humans who fought against them with pitchforks and fire. The tale was of a fierce battle set in a field not far from a village. Large snarling dogs assisted the humans in fighting off the agents of the Devil. The carnage recreated in painstaking detail had dead men and dogs with gashes across their middle, spilling their guts onto the blood-soaked ground. The bottom panel showed the forces of good overtaking the fiends and driving them from the battlefield. But it was the last panel that unsettled Durra.
This carving depicted the dogs that survived the fight. They gathered around a fiery pit and pushed the dead monsters into a vast hole, returning them to hell.
Durra touched the carved figures. “What story is this?”
Monica put her hand on a door pull of a wolf’s face with a brass ring through its mouth.
“The Battle of Cadizia. It’s where man and his faithful dogs first drove back the agents of the Devil.”
“Cadizia?” Durra furrowed her brow. “I never read about that in the Bible.”
Monica pulled the heavy doors open. “Nor will you.”
“But what—?”
Monica nodded inside the doors. “It’s time to pray.” She walked beneath a stone lintel and entered the abbey.
Durra followed, a million questions running through her head, but when she stepped inside the abbey, all her apprehensions faded away.
Thick columns with capitals of more winged creatures, their pointy tails directed at the altar, complemented the mural painted on the panels of the ceiling.
The story was the same as on the door, but the details emphasized the role of the dogs. Silver-backed, with thick dark coats and bright glowing eyes, the beasts appeared like magical beings while confronting the demons. They stood, surrounding a gaping pit filled with a lake of fire, snarling and driving the winged creatures back to hell. “That’s scary.”
Leida stood next to Durra, gaping up at the ceiling.
Sister Monica appeared in front of them and took their hands. Her face contorted in an angry scowl as she whisked them to the back of the abbey.
Monica pointed at a bench, “Stay.”
Durra took her seat while scouring the six stained-glass windows, eager for more on the strange
dogs, but all she found were images of a woman in a black nun’s habit, carrying a large wooden staff. The figure had different animals gathered at her feet, and the kindness of St. Gertrude contrasted sharply with the violence of the painting on the ceiling. But the windows had no portraits of dogs, only squirrels, birds, and, of course, cats.
Emily nudged her and then pointed to a white linen altar, sitting before a carved figure of Christ on the cross. The odd-shaped skull atop the altar struck her as grotesque. “What is that?” Emily asked.
“Wolf,” Leida whispered. “You can tell by the flat part from the top of the skull to the tip of the nose. A dog’s head has a steeper angle.”
Durra regarded the girl with a newfound appreciation. “How do you know that?”
Leida demurely folded her hands in her lap. “I told you—I grew up with them. My family used to hunt them.”
“A wolf hunter in our midst.” Emily nodded. “That might come in handy.”
“Shh.” Monica stood in front of their bench, her cheeks red with anger. “Have you no respect for the house of God?”
Durra eyed the skull once more. If this is a house of God, what’s a wolf’s skull doing here?
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