They were walking unevenly on a loose gravel path, their newly polished shoes gradually becoming more dull as they kicked up clouds of fine dust. While Mary’s aunt and uncle were irritated by this fact, the young girl didn’t seem notice her increasingly dim heels as she eagerly paraded ahead of them. The heavy, dragging footsteps of Mary’s uncle followed much less enthusiastically, scattering pebbles in every direction as he walked. He was a rather stout man, plump but not grossly overweight, with so many bags and wrinkles on his face that whenever he frowned he resembled a pug that had just been deprived of a treat. Abigail, her aunt, walked meticulously beside the heavily breathing man, cursing each new scuff that appeared on her shoes. She smoothed a stray hair that had freed itself from its prison in the religiously secured bun atop her head.
Warm sunlight streamed through the canopy above the small party, offsetting some of the pleasant chill in the brisk autumn air. Like the tail of a cat dozing lazily on a porch, the leaves bobbed in the steady breeze. The path was becoming increasingly narrow, that fact exemplified by the overgrown foliage intruding over the quaint pebbles; the ends of branches and bushes gently caressed the hem of her dress like the tips of fingers as Mary passed by. She listened intently as she walked, not wanting to miss the secrets the trees were whispering to her in the breeze.
It had taken quite a while for the three of them to find out where the old monastery even was, two cab rides and a commute in a rather odd smelling trolley to be exact, and now this hike into the woods. Though some pebbles had snuck their way into her shoes and her stockings were starting to itch, none of it seemed to be capable of dampening Mary’s good mood. Aunt Abigail had told her about this place since she was little, a grand monastery where her parents had gone to work when she was just a baby. She could picture it now: the soaring pillars, the marble staircases, the fountains, the flower gardens, and the vaulted ceilings that had inhabited her dreams all these years.
“Come on, slow pokes! You promised to take me when I turned ten, and my birthday was like a week ago, so we’re already late!” Mary chirped as she turned and began trotting backwards, facing her less than enthusiastic relatives. Turning to face forward again, her right foot came into contact with something solid, sending Mary stumbling as she futilely tried to catch her balance on the shifting gravel. She landed hard on her knees, and caught herself with her hands as they sunk into the jagged pebbles. Hissing at the sudden pain, Mary looked at the damage done to her palms: some of the tender skin had been roughly scraped away, leaving behind pieces of rock, and the beginnings of blood.
“Mary, are you alright?” Her uncle called, quickening his pace.
A streak of orange amongst the gravel out of the corner of her eye drew her attention from her injured hands to the form beside her. Mary realised that it was fur. A fox was curled into a fetal position with its mouth hanging open on the path, the tongue was gone and the skin inside its mouth was as dry as leather, exposing bone where it had cracked. Its hip and back bones stuck out against the skin sharply like some grotesque piece of furniture hidden underneath a sheet. There wasn’t any smell emanating from the poor creature, decay having long since taken effect on its once elegant body. What she imagined had once been nimble and agile, was now stiff and unmoving. The crunching of pebbles underfoot got closer as her relatives approached from behind.
“Um, yeah. I’m fine,” Mary said shakily, taking her uncle’s hand that appeared beside her. On her feet, she brushed her hands off on the sides of her dress.
“This wouldn’t have happened if you walked like a civilized human being. What have I said about-” Abigail stopped, and her displeasure intensified when she saw Mary’s legs. “And you’ve gone and torn your stockings! If you think I’m going to mend those for the fifth time, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.”
Looking down, Mary saw that her aunt was right; the delicate fabric that had once covered her left knee was torn open, and becoming saturated with blood as well. She had a nasty scar on her right knee from when she’d leapt from the swing at its highest point when she was seven, convinced that if she did it just right she’d fly, and she did, even if it was only for a few brief moments. Mary mentally shrugged at her other knee; at least it was even now. Glaring at the large stone that had caught her heel in the first place, Mary opened her mouth, but before she could utter a word of the apology that had become a bit of a mantra, her Aunt made a disgusted noise..
“Get away from that filthy thing!” Her aunt said shrilly, pulling her husband away from the fox. “Just like a stupid animal to decide to die in the middle of the road.” Abigail wrinkled her nose at the scraps of fur and cracking bones before ushering him away from it. Mary looked back sadly at the dead animal for several moments before hurrying after her relatives.
When the building suddenly came into view, Mary slowed her once eager pace to a stop.
It was much smaller than she had imagined, and looked nothing like her aunt had said. Instead of fountains, there were the pitiful remains of an old well, and rather than grand staircases, there were crumbling stone stairs that led nowhere, as the upper floors had collapsed. Most of the building was in ruins; the pillars and some of the walls sat crumbling, ivy covering the fallen stone and climbing the walls that had managed to stay erect. It looked as though no one had inhabited this place for centuries, let alone ten years ago. Mary smothered the doubt that was beginning to niggle in the back of her mind. This had to be it. It just had to be.
When her aunt and uncle turned appeared around the bend, Mary saw them both still in disbelief just as she had.
“You couldn’t have found a place that didn’t look like it’s been blown apart?” She heard her aunt hiss savagely into the older man’s ear.
“It was the best I could find on such short notice, I’m not the one who made that foolish promise!”
Mary remembered the first time she found a dead rabbit laying in the grass of her backyard. The fluffy animals had always bounced gracefully around the front lawn of their house, and raced through the small flower beds nestled beneath the windows. That was until Abigail complained about them, and made her uncle set out poison. Mary stumbled upon the first dead one laying mere feet from the back door, hind legs sprawled out like a ballet dancer in midair. Its snow white fur and velvet ears looked incredibly soft, like she may not have even felt it if she ran her fingers over them. If she didn’t know any better, Mary would have guessed the rabbit had fallen asleep mid sprint, but the eyes shattered that hopeful illusion. Wide open and staring blankly, the lifeless orbs bored deeply into her own, their glassiness almost resembling tears. This was the closest she had ever been to one of these fleet-footed creatures, as Mary had never been able to catch one like she’d hoped, but now she suddenly preferred admiring them from a distance. After a while, the rabbits stayed around the edges of the property, darting in between the bushes and narrow tree trunks that bordered the clearing; if she looked hard enough, she could catch a glimpse of fur before it disappeared as suddenly as it came.
“Come now, let’s take a photo so we can remember this special trip,” Abigail said tightly, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. With a firm grip on her arm, Abigail led Mary to one of the few walls still standing and positioned themselves into between two pillars while her uncle retrieved an old camera from his bag.
Standing in what she guessed had once been a courtyard, her uncle fiddled with the old camera, his thick fingers twiddling with the device’s fragile buttons. Mary stretched her lips into what was supposed to be a smile, but she had little faith that it resembled one.
“Hurry up and take the damn photo already,” Abigail said through gritted teeth.
Mary’s cheeks began to ache the longer she held her smile, and she chalked up the tears welling in her eyes to be because of the chilly air. Her aunt huffed impatiently, and her disgruntled expression was what the camera ultimately captured when the flash finally went off.
“Wait, I wasn’t ready! Take it again.”
“Sorry, but that was the last bit of film,” her uncle shrugged, slipping it back into his bag.
“Oh of course it was,” she snapped, releasing Mary’s arm and dusting off her coat.
“Come on, girl, let’s go.”
Seeing that her relatives had already started back down the path, Mary warily followed. Her ankles wobbled precariously as she walked, the pebbles resembling awful piles of rotting teeth made walking in heels more difficult than she remembered. The wind nipped her face and chilled her exposed legs uncomfortably; the thorned bushes and low hanging tree branches clutched her clothing with hooked fingers that were reluctant to let go.
Following her aunt and uncle’s backs, she saw the dead rabbit laying in the field again, but this time it was stinking and rotting with maggots wriggling in its eyes and stale fur. It wasn’t a terrible thing, Mary realised, as it could not stare at her if its sockets were empty.