Chapter 8: The Man in the Red Cloak
The first sign was the bell. Not the one Genevieve had fixed by hand, the one that chimed with the wind and swayed gently above the cloister courtyard. No — this bell was heavier, deeper, and rang from somewhere far below. It struck at dawn, a single toll that rolled through the monastery like a ripple through bone. Genevieve was already awake when it sounded. She had not slept well. The dream had returned — the one with the honeycomb walls and the shadow pressing behind the glass. But this time, there had been a voice. He's come. She sat up slowly, the sheets damp with sweat despite the coolness of morning. Elias was still asleep beside her, curled toward her like a question mark. She touched his shoulder, but did not wake him. Outside, the mist was lifting from the sea in long white bands. The monastery's stones steamed in the sun, as if exhaling after centuries underwater. The air held a strange stillness, the kind that follows thunder or precedes confession. By the time Genevieve reached the bell tower, she knew the sound hadn't come from above. It had come from below. There was a second crypt beneath the chapel. She had discovered it a few months ago while restoring the old mosaics — a sealed archway behind the altar, so covered in soot and salt that at first she had mistaken it for just another scar in the wall. It had taken days to open it. Weeks before she dared to descend. Now, as she lit the lantern and moved down the worn spiral steps, the air grew colder, thicker. The crypt did not smell of death. It smelled of iron, dried herbs, and something older — wet stone, ash, silence stretched too thin. The chamber at the bottom was circular, lined with alcoves. Each held an urn or an effigy or an inscription carved in a language neither Latin nor Greek. The air had weight here, and time no longer kept proper rhythm. She had come only twice before. She had never stayed long. This morning, something was different. A scent hung in the air — bitter and bright. Myrrh. And one of the alcoves was open. Someone had been here. Genevieve knelt slowly beside the hollow. The urn within was cracked. Ash spilled over the lip, forming a fine grey ring on the stone shelf. There were footprints in the dust. Boot prints. Different from Matthew's. Broader. Barely damp. Fresh. She stood quickly and turned toward the steps. And stopped. A man was standing at the top. He wore a cloak the color of blood and a wide-brimmed hat shadowed his face. In his gloved hand he held a walking stick carved with symbols that pulsed faintly in the dark. He made no sound. He did not move. Genevieve did not speak. The man tilted his head slightly, as if studying her through the veil of shadow. Then he turned and disappeared up the steps. Genevieve was after him in a flash, skirts hiked, lantern swinging wildly. But when she reached the chapel, he was gone. No doors had opened. No wind disturbed the hanging incense. No echo of footsteps lingered. Only silence. And the faint scent of myrrch. By midmorning, the mist had vanished entirely and the monastery gleamed like something newly unearthed. Elias found Genevieve in the garden, standing in front of the rosemary hedges with a look on her face he hadn't seen before. Not fear. Not exactly. Something more precise. Recognition. You saw something, he said. She nodded. Tell me. There's someone here. Not Matthew. Not anyone I know. He was dressed like a pilgrim. Red cloak. Black hat. And he was in the crypt. Elias raised an eyebrow. No one goes into the crypt. Exactly. Genevieve walked toward the fountain, its basin glinting with fish. She dipped her hands in the water. Cold. Grounding. I've read the monastery led pilgrimages centuries ago, she said. But they stopped suddenly. No record why. He leaned against the fig tree. Maybe because of him. She looked up. You think he's one of them? I think he's something older. Or something newer pretending to be old. Either way, he doesn't belong. Genevieve dried her hands on her dress. I need to go back down there. Not alone, Elias said. I don't want him to see you, she replied. You think he's dangerous? I think I don't know what he is. And that's dangerous enough. That night, the moon rose coppery and full. Genevieve waited until the wind had settled and the waves quieted. She lit the iron lantern again and descended into the crypt, this time carrying a satchel of salt, rosemary, and iron keys. The alcove was still open. But now, something had been added. A feather. Long. Black. Barbed. She picked it up gently. It was warm to the touch. And it pulsed. Her heart stammered. In the alcove next to it, something new: a book. Bound in faded red leather. Untitled. When she opened it, the pages were blank. Except the one in the center. One sentence, handwritten in ink the color of rust. I was here before the stones knew their names. Genevieve stepped back. The lantern flickered. Something shifted in the shadows behind her. She spun, but saw only the wall. Yet the scent of myrrh thickened. And the feather in her hand turned cold. She left quickly, closing the archway behind her. She did not sleep that night. Elias waited until morning before asking. What did you find? Proof. Of? Something waking. Genevieve paced the old refectory, now converted into a library. The windows were open, and the sound of gulls drifted in. She held the book, the feather wrapped in linen and tucked into her satchel. Do you believe in omens? she asked. I believe in patterns. What if the monastery wasn't just a sanctuary? What if it was a seal? A seal? To hold something in. Elias crossed his arms. You think this man—this figure—is what's behind it? No. I think he's the key. And what's the lock? Genevieve opened the book again. The ink had spread slightly overnight, as if the words were bleeding. I don't know yet. But it's not just him. It's something older. Deeper. Elias hesitated. Then let's dig. She looked at him. Truly looked. You're not afraid? Of course I am, he said. But fear is a compass. And right now, it's pointing to the crypt. They began their search with the monastery's oldest texts. Not the liturgical ones — those were preserved and public. No, they sought the margins. The footnotes. The journals kept by the lowest-ranked sisters. The records that were never meant for Rome. In a box marked only with the letter V, they found something. A single page. The ink was faded, but legible. The man in red walks the veil. He comes when the breath between worlds thins. We feed the seal. We do not speak the name. To speak it is to wake it. Genevieve stared at the bottom of the page. One word had been carved in the paper. Buried, not written. Hollowroot. Elias whispered the word aloud. And the room went still. Genevieve closed the box. Let's take a break. Outside, the sea had turned glassy. The tide was unnaturally high. And in the orchard, a second set of footprints appeared. Heading toward the cliff. But not returning.
To be continued... Let's continue.
The footprints in the orchard were strange.
Genevieve knelt beside them, noting their depth and spacing. They were heavier than Elias's, more deliberate. As if the walker had known she would find them. The grass hadn't had time to rebound, and the moist soil still bore the clean print of heels. She followed them past the fig trees and the decaying stone wall where wild honeysuckle bloomed. The wind pressed gently against her back, nudging her forward like a hand on her spine. She didn't like how quiet it had become. The birds had vanished. At the cliff's edge, the prints stopped. No return path. No signs of struggle. Just a solitary trail leading to a craggy overlook. Genevieve stepped closer. The drop below plunged into a violent pool where the tide shattered itself against black rocks. If the cloaked man had leapt, he would be gone. But something in her refused to believe that was the answer. He wasn't mortal enough to fall. Behind her, Elias arrived. They're deeper than mine, he said. You saw him? Only the prints. I kept watch all night. No one passed the gate. Genevieve frowned. Then how did he get here? Elias glanced toward the horizon, where the mist was reforming in thin bands. The same way he got into the crypt. Through the veil. Genevieve touched the necklace she always wore — a simple chain with a piece of sea glass, worn smooth. She had found it the first night she arrived, half-buried in the garden soil, where nothing had grown for years. It had always felt like a sign. Now it felt like a warning. They returned to the library. Hollowroot, Elias said again, as if the word might yield more if pressed with enough breath. Genevieve ran her fingers along the spines of the older texts. She had cataloged most of them, but some were written in ciphered languages or scripts lost to time. She paused at one volume bound in bark and twine, without title or author. When she opened it, the pages stuck together, brittle with age. On the third page, she found a drawing. A tree, twisted and dead. Its roots reached not into earth, but into skulls. Around it were tiny red figures, some kneeling, some bowing, all turned away from the trunk. And beneath it, in delicate black ink: From Hollowroot was born the silence. Elias peered over her shoulder. That's not a tree. What is it, then? He pointed at the base of the drawing. Look. Those aren't roots. They're veins. Genevieve's mouth went dry. The figure above the tree wasn't a tree at all. It was a heart. Inverted. Hollow. And bleeding. That evening, the air changed again. It started with the birds. Not their absence — but their flight. Entire flocks scattered from the cliffs, crying as they vanished inland. The sea turned red at the horizon, not from sunset, but from something stirring beneath the surface. And the old bell rang once more. This time from both above and below. Genevieve and Elias ran to the tower, but found nothing. Ran to the crypt. The door was open. Inside, the lanterns had all been lit. Dozens of them. Hung from hooks that hadn't existed the day before. The alcove where the urn had cracked was now sealed with wax, fresh and golden. And in the center of the crypt, standing beside the effigy of a faceless monk, was the man in the red cloak. You shouldn't be here, Genevieve said. He didn't respond. His face remained hidden beneath the brim of the hat. But his hands — gloved though they were — trembled slightly. Why now? Elias asked. Why return? The man lifted his head slightly. A voice came from beneath the shadow. Because the seal is weakening. What is Hollowroot? Genevieve asked. He turned toward her slowly. It is not a place. It is not a name. It is the echo that comes after. After what? He stepped forward. The light did not touch him. After forgetting. Genevieve took a breath. You were here before. Weren't you? The man said nothing. She pressed again. You were part of this monastery. Still no answer. Elias stepped in front of her. What do you want? The man tilted his head. To warn. Of what? The seal must be fed. Or it will open. And what lies beneath Hollowroot will rise again. He began to fade, like mist dissolving in wind. Wait, Genevieve cried. But the lanterns all extinguished at once. And the crypt went dark. When they returned to the surface, the monastery had changed. Subtly. But undeniably. The cloister walls had grown taller. The chapel's frescoes were different — scenes of saints now bled into images of red-robed figures kneeling beneath stars. And at the center of the garden, something had grown overnight. A tree. Its bark was black. Its branches bare. Its roots — bleeding. Genevieve fell to her knees. We're too late. Elias didn't respond. He was staring at the tree with wide, unblinking eyes. No, he said quietly. This is just the beginning. The underground chamber was colder now. Genevieve could feel it in her bones, not the surface chill of sea wind or damp stone, but the deep cold of forgotten things. The kind of cold that had teeth. She stood before the suspended heart. It pulsed slowly, rhythmically, as if it beat in time with something far away. The wires around it shimmered faintly, inscribed with markings she now recognized from the scroll. They weren't just symbols. They were instructions. The mirror behind her changed again. Now it showed the old monastery from above, but not in the present. The building was surrounded by monks in crimson vestments. Their faces were turned toward the sea, arms raised. A circle had been etched into the land behind the chapel, a spiral drawn in salt and something darker. At the center stood a boy. The boy's face was hidden by a mask. Genevieve stepped toward the mirror. Her own reflection hovered faintly in the glass, layered over the scene. The monks began chanting. The spiral caught fire. The boy screamed once. And the seal was made. She stumbled backward. The basin in the chamber darkened further. The fluid within began to swirl. A voice rose from it, thin and wet, like wind passing through lungs that no longer breathed. You were chosen. Genevieve spun. No one there. You are the echo that remembers. You must feed the root. The heart throbbed faster. Genevieve approached the basin. She saw her reflection again. But this time it wasn't hers. It was her mother's. Her mother, pale and ageless, lips moving in silent prayer. She remembered the photograph. The one tucked behind the lining of her mother's old violin case. Her mother, younger, standing in front of the cloister gate with the exact same pendant around her neck — the one Genevieve thought she'd found buried in the garden. She hadn't found it. She'd been called to it. And now it pulsed, warm against her collarbone. Behind her, the stone door closed. Above ground, Elias wandered through the new corridor that hadn't existed the day before. The hallway led deeper into the cliffs than he thought possible. The air grew warmer as he walked, thick with the scent of burnt lavender and rust. Each step echoed unnaturally. His flashlight flickered. When it returned, he was no longer alone. A figure stood at the far end of the hallway. Not moving. Not breathing. Elias raised the light. The face was his own. It stared at him without recognition, hollow-eyed, mouth slightly open. He stepped forward. The figure didn't move. Closer still. Then, all at once, the eyes opened wide. Do you remember now? The voice wasn't spoken aloud. It rang inside Elias's head like a bell. Do you remember what you left behind? The other Elias blinked. The seal was fed with your blood. You were the first and the last. The figure extended a hand. And Elias collapsed. In the hidden chamber, the pendant around Genevieve's neck glowed bright red. She gripped it instinctively. The voice in the basin spoke again. There must always be a vessel. There must always be a guardian. Genevieve clenched her fists. Tell me what happened to my mother. She remembered the notebooks, the ones her mother had kept hidden at the back of their attic. Pages filled with sketches of the tree. Names crossed out. A single phrase repeated dozens of times: It must not bloom again. The voice answered. She turned away from the seal. She remembered too much. What did she do? She tried to unbind it. Genevieve stepped back. And did she? The voice was silent. She felt a sudden tremor in the floor. Dust fell from the ceiling stones. The basin trembled. Above, in the monastery, the chapel bell rang again — twice this time. The heart in the air cracked. Just slightly. But enough. Genevieve ran. She scaled the well faster than she thought possible, emerging into the cloister, gasping. Rain still clung to the stone but the sky above had cleared. A single star had appeared in the west. She found Elias in the corridor where he had fallen. He was sitting up, dazed, eyes unfocused. They showed me something, he whispered. What? Another seal. Deeper than this one. Below the sea. She helped him to his feet. His hand was cold. We need to stop this. We need to finish the rite. No, Elias said. We need to break it. Genevieve stared at him. If we break the seal— Then we'll know what's beneath it. And we'll know if it's really meant to be bound. She shook her head. Everything we've read says Hollowroot grows in silence. In forgetting. What if breaking the seal gives it voice? Elias looked down at his hand. Blood had begun to bloom in the lines of his palm, thin and dark. Not from any visible wound — it was seeping from his skin. It's already speaking, he said quietly. That night, they prepared the rite. Not the original, as written in the scrolls, but one altered — one that would not feed the seal, but question it. They gathered salt, candles, a mirror, and the silver wire from the heart chamber. In the chapel, they carved the spiral into the floor, just as the mirror had shown. The old stone groaned beneath their tools. The air grew thick. The tree outside trembled. They lit the candles. Genevieve stood in the center. Elias read the words from the scroll. The light dimmed. The spiral caught fire. And Genevieve felt herself falling — not in body, but in memory. She saw a monastery buried beneath this one. A room with no air. A cradle carved in stone. And something inside it, waiting. The voice returned. You were chosen. You are the vessel. If you wake us, we do not sleep again. Genevieve screamed. And the tree outside bloomed. Red flowers. Dozens. All at once. Each one shaped like a mouth. Open. Waiting. And whispering her name.
We're inside the memory. Elias's voice was flat, almost mechanical. Genevieve looked at him, and for a moment, she saw someone else standing in his place — the same figure from the mirror, cloaked in red, eyes black with ink and shadow. She blinked, and it was Elias again. He swayed slightly, the old scroll slipping from his fingers and curling in the ash at his feet. The chapel had changed. What had once been wooden beams and stone arches now pulsed with a faint rhythm, a heartbeat hidden beneath centuries of silence. The spiral on the floor no longer glowed, but it had left a permanent scar in the stone — blackened, cracked, and warm to the touch. Around them, the red flowers of the Hollowroot tree began to fall, drifting through the air like dying embers. Genevieve turned to the open doors. Beyond the cloister, the garden was no longer just dying — it was rotting. The soil steamed, the herbs curled into themselves, and a thick scent of iron filled the air. The Hollowroot stood tall and twisted, its bark cracked and weeping dark sap, its roots visibly shifting beneath the earth as though trying to dig deeper. Elias knelt at the edge of the circle, hands to his temples. It's remembering me, he said. I don't know how, but it is. I see places I've never been. People I've never met. A hall of chains beneath the sea. A door carved from bone. Genevieve grabbed his shoulders. You're not losing yourself. Focus on now. He met her eyes. I think I was part of this. Not in another life. In this one. I think I was brought here to forget. And the seal — the rite — it was never about locking something away. It was about erasing the people who knew. Genevieve felt her stomach turn. The seal didn't just suppress a force. It buried memory. History. Identity. It wiped clean the minds of those who got too close. The monastery was not a sanctuary. It was a mouth. And she and Elias were already between its teeth. They returned to the library, hoping to find more of the altered scroll — some clue to how to stop what had begun. But the library had changed too. The shelves had shifted. Volumes were missing. Pages fluttered in a wind that had no source. And in the center of the room was a new table that hadn't been there before. Upon it lay a painting. Genevieve approached slowly. It showed the Hollowroot, in full bloom, red flowers dripping like blood from its branches. Beneath it knelt a woman with Genevieve's face, eyes closed, lips open in song. Behind her stood a man with Elias's face, but aged, broken, and blind. The signature at the bottom read only one word. Seraphine. Genevieve turned to Elias. She whispered the name. He stared at the painting, unmoving. That was the name on the first seal. The one beneath the sea. A chill passed through the room. The red-cloaked man was not a man. He was a memory of a memory. And Seraphine was not the tree, nor the seal, but the first to hear what lay beneath it. The first vessel. Genevieve gripped the edge of the table. We're reenacting something. We've been walking a path carved into the world long before us. She tore the painting in half. Immediately, the walls groaned. Elias gasped. Genevieve looked to the ceiling. The light had dimmed, the candle flames drawn inward, shadows lengthening unnaturally. The monastery wasn't just remembering. It was waking. And it was angry. Elias clutched at his side. Blood was leaking from his ribs now, as if something internal was trying to claw its way out. His voice cracked. There's another door. Below the garden. A root cellar, but it's not in the plans. I saw it in the mirror. My mirror. Genevieve pulled him to his feet. Then that's where we go. Outside, the moon had turned red. The sky was clear, but the light was wrong. It shimmered with the hue of bruised flesh. The ground pulsed beneath their boots. The Hollowroot's trunk had split open down the middle, revealing the suggestion of something hidden beneath — a shape, not yet fully formed. Genevieve moved fast. She found the root cellar behind the herb beds. A patch of ground that was warmer than the rest, dry despite the recent storm. Beneath it, a rusted trapdoor. She wrenched it open. A gust of sour air escaped, warm and heavy. Below, a stone staircase spiraled into blackness. They descended in silence, the air thickening with every step. The walls of the stairwell were covered in carvings — spirals, eyes, hands, hearts, repeated again and again. The deeper they went, the louder the sound became. A heartbeat. Not human. Not mechanical. Organic. Massive. Alive. At the bottom of the stairs, a chamber opened — round and vast, with no ceiling visible. The floor was covered in a shallow pool of water that reflected nothing. In the center stood a platform, and upon it, a sculpture of the Hollowroot tree made entirely of bone. Genevieve stepped forward. This was the origin point. The heart of the seal. Elias knelt before the sculpture. His hands bled freely now, and he pressed them to the base of the tree. The water rippled outward. The chamber responded. Genevieve stepped beside him. This is where the rite began, she said. He nodded. And it's where we have to finish it. She opened the last scroll. The symbols on it had changed. They no longer repelled her eyes — they invited them. She began to read aloud, the syllables scraping against her throat, too old for language. The sculpture trembled. The bone cracked. And beneath them, something stirred. The water blackened. The chamber began to collapse. Roots broke through the walls. The seal was breaking. But for the first time, Genevieve realized — it wasn't the monster beneath that frightened her. It was the memory of herself. Of what she had done. Of what she was about to become. And the Hollowroot whispered again. Genevieve.
The water turned black, then still.
Genevieve's voice fell silent, the scroll slipping from her fingers into the pool. It sank without a ripple. Across from her, Elias remained kneeling, hands pressed against the bone sculpture. Blood ran from his palms, down the roots of the tree, into the water. The seal had opened. Something shifted behind the sculpture. Not a sound. Not a form. A presence. A pressure so immense and ancient that it made the stone walls weep. Genevieve didn't breathe. She couldn't. The air in the chamber was no longer air. It was memory. It pressed into her thoughts like fingers through clay. It unfolded her life like paper. She saw herself as a child in the garden, brushing dirt from a fossilized root that pulsed faintly in the sun. She saw her mother standing behind her, afraid, but silent. She saw the pendant — not given, not found — but returned. The past was not a straight line. It circled. Always back to the beginning. The chamber darkened further. Elias looked up. His voice was shaking. It's not coming from beneath us anymore. He was right. The pressure wasn't below. It was rising inside them. Genevieve staggered backward. Her skin prickled. The blood in her veins pulsed wrong, too slow, too thick. She looked at her arms and saw veins blackening, branches growing beneath her skin. Not visible. Literal. The Hollowroot was taking root inside her. Elias clutched his chest. A thin cry escaped him. His eyes went white, then red, then nothing at all. He fell forward, striking the base of the bone sculpture, which cracked open like an egg. A light poured out. Not warm. Not cold. A knowing. Genevieve crawled toward him. His body twitched once, then stilled. His blood mixed with the water, and the chamber began to rise — not the floor, but the memory. Stone peeled away into images. She saw Seraphine. Not a name. A face. Not a woman. A vessel. Long ago, the first to touch the heart of the root. The first to speak its language. Not a priestess. Not a monster. A mirror. Seraphine knelt before a tree the size of a cathedral. It had no leaves. Only mouths. Dozens, hundreds, all silent. She placed her hands to the bark and whispered something Genevieve could not hear. Then she was gone. Burned. Scattered. And something took her place. The mouths opened. And the world forgot. The light faded. Genevieve was on her knees in the chamber, Elias beside her, his breathing shallow. We have to seal it, he gasped. She looked at the scroll. It was gone. But she remembered the words now. They were not words. They were feelings. Sacrifices. Names. She spoke her mother's name aloud. Elara. The chamber pulsed. She spoke Elias's name. The pulse grew stronger. She hesitated. Then she spoke her own. Genevieve.And the mouths on the bone sculpture opened. Three. One for each. They screamed. And the chamber collapsed. The water surged upward. The roots cracked through the stone. The ceiling fell. Light bled in from nowhere and everywhere. The tree above ground shuddered once. And bloomed black. Its red flowers fell. Its leaves withered. Its trunk split open. And then the sound stopped. Silence filled the monastery. Absolute and complete. When Genevieve opened her eyes again, she was lying in the garden. The moon had returned to silver. The Hollowroot was gone. Only a blackened stump remained, smoldering faintly. Beside her, Elias breathed. Alive. Changed. They didn't speak. There was nothing to say. Not yet. In the chapel, the painting had vanished. The spiral on the floor was unburned. The library was whole again. The monastery had folded itself back into reality, erasing the wound. But not the scar. Genevieve rose slowly. She looked at her hands. The black veins were gone. But the memory was not. It would never be. She turned to Elias. It's still down there, she said. He nodded. But it's asleep again. And we're the ones who remember. Genevieve looked out across the cliffs, toward the sea. The waves were calm now, but the tide had changed. She could feel it in her bones, in her blood. She knew the monastery had not given up its secrets. Only traded them. And she was the new cost.