Neive

(Journal of Father Angelo)

May 18th, written in 1910

When I arrived in Neive, Piedmont, I was uncertain what I might encounter there. The Holy See had provided me with funds and minimal information. I expected plague. Consumption, my believed cause. A sickness of the lungs. The meager report wrote of expulsion of blood and dim pallor. This disease would fall easily within God’s jurisdiction. In tragedies such as these, I minister comforts and prayers to the dying. Neive was a calm place, one I had visited frequently throughout the course of my investigations. The vineyards tinged with the scent of wine never failed to bring me much-needed calm.

What I have experienced in this investigation, however, resists such classification.

Immediately, I felt grave unease when I entered the village. They did not approach, and I felt watched behind shut doors. I went to each home, checking for sickness and misfortune, offering prayers that were politely albiet painfully, received. In one home, a midwife grasped my wrist, pleading for me to stay away from the doctor. It was a fleeting moment, but the tremble in her grip and the wobble in her gaze undoubtedly shook me. Still, illness has ways of polluting an otherwise sound mind. Or at least, I told myself.

I would come to know that when one knocks in the dark, the dark knocks back.

The village had assembled a burial ground. All of the bodies… yes, all. Drained entirely of blood. The rate of these deaths left the living no time to grieve before their loved ones succumbed. The dead were carried out at dawn and laid to rest by dusk. The ritual of it was absolute. The physician insisted it was consumption. He was an intelligent man. Well spoken, polished. I believed his judgment. It was easier on the mind to settle on normalcy. I had chosen it.

That was until I examined the infection site thoroughly and determined the punctures were not caused by disease, but rather trauma to the skin! I observed a disturbing pattern: two puncture wounds, round and symmetrical, always located at the right jugular.

I stayed with Physician Leonardo to gather more information.

He was eager for my company. The man had been widowed and bore no kin. By all intents and purposes, a recluse. When he did speak, rarely, it was with the carefully slow cadence of a man who had learned that most words bore him great exhaustion. His home bore the marks of solitude. Everything orderly. No portraits or mirrors. His only mark of grief was his lack of hunger and rest. Gaunt and bordering on fragility. When he ushered me into his home, there was a distinct oddness about him. His wife, Liana, had passed away due to the mysterious illness that plagued the village. Yet he bore no signs of grief. He smiled, nodded politely, and remained upright in stature. Stiffened. An odd man. Very odd.

Liana.

It was the third night when I asked about her; he went rigid and refused to elaborate on the details of her death.

“Buried. With the rest,” he said only.

When I asked to see a portrait of her, he refused. It was only when Liana was mentioned that his tone became harsh and his eyes sunken as if he wanted to pluck the words from my throat.

“Are all priests so… personal?” he murmured. Before I could respond, he turned away and, after a pause, lowered his chin.

“Forgive me,” he whispered while he guided me back to my room. His hand rested on my back, pushed with soft pressure. His stature? Heavy, tired.

“Grief sullies judgment.”

I never saw Leonardo during the day; I suppose that should have been my first suspicion. He flinched while the sun stood high and grew restless as night approached. He moved in slow, uneven bursts. When I remarked upon his nocturnal habits, he dismissed them as the follies of a widower. Despite the chill I felt in his presence... I accepted this explanation.

May 25th,

It was at night, and only at night that I received conversation from him. We danced in this way. The plague worsened. Villagers disappeared over several days, and families grieved. The physician spoke little of the dying. I never saw him at the funerals. When I inquired further, he said his presence disturbed the families. Said they saw him as the reaper. I believed him. It was something about the way grief recoiled from him. No... consumed.

It was on May 25th that I noticed he would disappear during the night. I waited patiently for his return, only to be met with faint sunlight streaks. When he did finally return, his gaze was darkened and his stature one of exhaustion. Not the exhaustion of sleeplessness but rather one of great exertion. His patient visits dwindled. He was far too empty to aid anyone.

May 28th,

On the tenth night, Dottore Leonardo had invited me to walk with him. The night around him grew quiet, and he spoke little. He took me to the vineyards, though he did not check if I was following. No grapes grew that year, leaving prickly hollow rows of twisted vines.

“The roots themselves are rotten,” he said quietly. I nodded my head.

“Thinking about wine?" I humored. He was not amused.

“Why have you come, Angelo?” He finally croaked.

“You know the answer to this…to investigate the plague.” He was quiet, his back turned to me as he looked up at the moon. Full and bright. Knowing.

“Of course,” he muttered under his breath. I am not certain he was speaking with me.

We stood among the dead vines for some time. The moonlight cast long shadows between the rows, which I swore moved at the edges of my vision. And for the first time since my arrival, I understood the villagers' warnings. The land itself felt hollow, as if something beneath the soil had been feeding for years. I believe it was then that I first noticed it. The pounding beneath the ground was like a second heartbeat. I ignored it then. The steady pulse that resonated deep within my flesh.

“You should leave, Padre.” He stopped walking, his back to me.

“Pardon?”

“There is no saving, Neive.” He bowed his head. Shook it slightly, and I heard through the faint wind a whimper. Yes, a whimper. He did possess a heart after all.

“Leonardo…” I approached him slowly. His shoulders were tensed. Yet with each step closer, I felt a deeper unease. I felt as if he might leap upon me. It was a strange thought. Still, I placed my hand on his shoulder.

He did nothing, not even a flinch; it was as if holding himself still caused great effort. His breathing slowed, deepened, and his ear twitched slightly, as if he were listening to something beyond me.

“You miss her.” He stopped weeping and turned to stare at me. His shoulders were slumped, the muscles tensed and pulsing with each forced breath.

For a moment, I believed I had misjudged him. His eyes were wet, his mouth drawn tight. But the cold blue in his gaze was piercing. Assessing me as if he were some wild beast measuring approximate striking distance.

“I miss what she was,” he said softly.

What she was.

My hand fell from his shoulder, and all color had drained from his face.

“Leonardo,” I said, choosing my words with care, “where is your wife?” I stepped back, and the air shifted; the ground sank slightly beneath my boots as though it had been disturbed recently. I became aware of the sound I had previously mistaken for my own heartbeat. A thud reverberated through the soil itself. It was as if the ground itself were alive, feeding and waiting.

He tilted his head up sharply, tugging the scarf more securely around his collar, and from behind me I heard the crunching of slow, uneven footsteps. A breath of cold night brushed just at the back of the right side of my throat. His gaze turned steely, piercing, and unreactive.

“You doubt me, Priest?”