The sun touches the grass, reaching through a hole dug into the cow’s belly. The grass is green, bloodless. The cow is gray on its insides, bloodless. Still warm from the life inside it just this morning. The hole itself. Perfectly circular. Flawless geometry—laid on vellum and viewed from the side, it would circle in every direction forever.

It’s the first dead cow Columb has come across in his time at the monastery. He’s shocked by the intrusion of it. The brown flesh interrupting the green void of their pasture. The sun’s setting and the ruins of their shitty dwelling by the sea are casting a long shadow, threatening, or daring, to reach toward and maybe even touch the dead animal.

Columb wonders how to explain the death to Father Mochan. Dead livestock are easy. Livestock die. But, this is an embarrassing absence of reason. A quiet humiliation of life.

He’d tell him after the spirit walk tonight.

Father Mochan begins — Think of the Angel. Make an image of its hair, the way I described it to you. See which way the wind blows the locks and follow that direction. It’ll show you where you need to walk. Follow it like I taught you. Breathe deeply like I taught you. I’ll come get you with the bell.

Columb doesn’t see the Angel. No hair. No wind. On these spirit walks, he normally just sees his days. He sees himself milking the cows, prodding them to move on when he’s done. Fothud, he’s busy at work, erasing scriptures from the Bible in the dungeon, repenning words and phrases, images and curses, blessings from Father Mochan’s Angel. He never sees Father Mochan on a spirit walk. But he always looks for them both, pressing, inquiring of his spirit to wander to the peripheries of their world by the sea, lifting up folds of being, looking underneath them for the Father or the Angel, always wondering if they might be hiding in some sort of non-space together, speaking non-words, hearing nothing but the shape of the letters forming each other’s thoughts. He’s always reprised by the familiarity of the non-space.

Tonight, he sees the only other monk besides Father Mochan. Fothud’s standing in their ruined monastery—the empty room with a wall torn through that opens up to the night. A room that was surely must have been for taking naps, for fucking at seaside, for staying within the bounds of your castle. Fothud holds his lip, folding it downward, exposing its inside to the moonlight.

There’s a letter on his flesh, colored with purple, green, golden inks—the kind you’d find at the beginning of a chapter from the Bible in the dungeon. It’s damp and alive with saliva. Awful hybrids swim in the delta of the letter, drowning it, breathing in the filigree. Columb can see the breezelessness around Fothud’s body. The air is dead. Perhaps so that the letter will live. Fothud stretches his lip down further. The image of the letter sharpening in the moon’s glow.

It’s moving. All of the design—the filigree, the animal abominations, they turn clockwise, counterclockwise, both ways at once—deepening to somewhere past Fothud. Maybe even somewhere past Angels. Columb hopes there’s a place beyond Father Mochan’s Angel.

The bell rings and the spirit walk is done. Columb waits to tell about the cow in the morning.

— It had a hole in it, Father. There’s nothing we could have done. How do you even protect something against…  From nothing? I just found it there, Father. Nothing we could have done.

The library’s a stone room with a small shelf of scrolls cornered by the window–waves crash at a distance within the stone square. Fothud whispers to Columb about the Angel.

He’s thought out a whole yarn. How the only reason this Angel shows up to Father Mochan is that it must have gotten the boot from heaven. Beating himself off in the clouds and Saint Michael chopped him down with a spear. Landed in the sea to bash against a cliff for the rest of forever so he wouldn’t even be able to bash himself anymore.

Columb holds in a laugh, strikes the stone wall with his eyes squinted. Fothud smiles at the floor, clearly planning out his next bit. And the image of Fothud from Column’s spirit walk drifts back into his head. He imagines catching a glimpse of the colors as Fothud spits out a laugh, having barely breathed out the punchline. The next spirit walk, he’ll look at the letter again.

Another dead cow. This one has a hole bored through its back and out its chest. The same absence of blood. The landscape still has no idea. Columb dreads telling Father Mochan, and still doesn't understand the sensation. Strides back to the monastery for his cutting tools.

Father Mochan’s explaining the sonic mechanics of his bell, how memory itself is the shape of a bell. Fothud, having just made his nightly return of the Bible to the shelf in the dungeon, pulls his eyebrows together, trying to understand, fidgeting, like he’s surprised at his own interest in the subject. The old man’s knuckles wave athletically through candlelight. Straightening, halting. Waving just slightly to show the upward direction of the sound. Fothud follows the motion upward to where there was once a ceiling.

Neither of them notice Columb’s standing at the table. There’s blood drizzled from his wrists to his neck and he sighs an apology over their food.

Sometimes, Columb blacks out. Mostly on the days when he finds one of the cows dead, getting close to a loss every other day now. With half a sense of reverence, he rolls them over the edge of the cliff, imagining in the sound of the wind and the torn-apart waves what the limbs sound like as they break the surface of the water.

That’s where he stands inside his head, just above his eyes. Arms packed with cattle parts that end in hooves. Dropping them down into the tangle of his sight and thought. Bloodies the blackout. Opens it with the weight of the dead animal.

But, it comes back eventually, always. Like long thin hairs reaching through the tangle of his brains, adhering themselves to his eyes, rolling them back into his head.

Fothud just waits. Stands still until Columb’s eyes return as he relays the number of dead cattle he’s found in the field, some of them cut through more than once. Columb cries as he explains the progression, how the holes are bored through different areas of the body, a different angle, a different width, some of them more than once. Never any blood—at least, not until he begins to saw off the limbs. Before that, it’s only the exposed strata of the cow’s insides. He thinks about the animals from the spirit walk instead. The way they spiral down the image painted against Fothud’s lip. Boring themselves deep into the colored tunnel that begins with a letter.

That night, he wakes up what must have been an hour before the spirit walk. There’s a great sensation dwelling inside his body, taking up so much room it forced the sleep out of his skin, loosed it to the night. He knows, in the way that he knows he has a skeleton or a right hand that's stronger than his left, that there’s something beneath him. Keeping itself beneath his straw mat. The sea, crashing at the bottom of the cliff, agrees.

But, Columb’s familiar with this feeling. He knows the sensation he’s experienced may very well be nothing more than guilt. He often wakes up stricken. Maybe the only thing different about this moment is that his dread has localized itself. Found itself, made itself known beneath him. Under the straw mat.

Fothud lifts and drops his chest silently on the other side of the floor. He’s always so anchored in his sleep. Columb can never decide if his roommate is spirit walking while dreaming or just lying in the blackness. There’s such peace behind Fothud’s skull, night after night. But right now, it’s not enough to counteract the feeling that something is underneath Columb.

The scrape of the mat on the stonework floor. Moving slowly, he slides the mat over by a few inches, revealing what’s been beneath him. Inside him, the same feeling as when he finds one of the cows dead. The same feeling as waking up from a wet dream—his straw mat damp, the sound of the sea louder than usual.

It’s a hole. The size of his head, maybe his torso if he sawed off just a small portion of his shoulder. Cut neatly, a perfect circle. It’s dark as ink. He slides his hand across the stonework, feels for solidity as his reach grows closer to the hole in the floor.

It’s immaculately carved. Like the floor simply ceases to exist for a brief moment and space. Where his hand hovers over the dark opening, there’s a sense of still. The idea of a breeze or a dust mote wandering aimlessly by has also been cut through in this circle.

Next, he slides his other hand to the hole, allows his fingers to extend over the edge as he pulls himself over the gape. Column stares downward at nothing. He wonders if Fothud could spirit walk over the hole or if he’d also be cut through. He wonders why he isn’t cut through. How he’s able to take up space in spacelessness. He feels sick, thinks of the bell tower that used to crown the castle, the warning clanging it would crash across the fields, how there’s nothing in the now monastery that resembles a bell or its tower, just Father Mochan’s words saying what was once there.

Down the hole, he keeps looking. It must be where the words go when Fothud scrapes them from the vellum.

Sliding the mat back over the hole, he closes his eyes as tight as he can. Father Mochan enters their room only a few moments later to wake them for their nightly spirit walk. Blinking, Fothud leaves the room before Columb, his thin blanket draped around his shoulders, following Father Mochan into the dark.

In the dungeon, Father Mochan runs his fingers over the leather of the Bible. He mostly keeps it closed, but always feels its cover before a spirit walk. Columb and Fothud orientate themselves by the rust-colored stains on the floor and take their usual spots. Seated, shivering deep underneath their skin, just slightly. The bell clanks in Father Mochan’s pocket, muted.

He clears his throat – Tonight, you think of a mother’s love. How it’s a possession. A presence that takes up residence in the woman’s body. The way a demon sees back a thousand years, the mother sees back a thousand years more. She sees her grandmother, how she fed her child by the fire. And the heat of those flames is what keeps the demon beating its heart inside of your mother. It’s the heat that she would use against anyone to protect you. Bathe the scalp of your father in flames if it must be. You’re safe in her arms. And she knows this until she meets another like her. A man. He’s seen an Angel. And though she’s come to love her demon, feed the fire in its nostrils, she knows she owes it to you – a glimpse at the divine. And so, she hands you to another, knowing it’ll kill the demon in her, left with nothing but its ashes, and she paints them darkly across her face. But, you. You have the chance at breathing from the same heat as God.

This brings you here. You’re going on a walk now. Look for the Angel. You deserve a chance at seeing him. And perhaps tonight is the one in which he lets you approach. Go walk now. I’ll find you with the bell.

On the spirit plane, Columb goes to his vision of Fothud. He’s been waiting in one of the upper rooms, the wall battered diagonally with a shadowed view of the field below. The breeze whips salt all around him, drying the saliva off his lip. The letter stays imprinted where he first saw it. In the moonlight, he can make out the animal hybrids. A snake with antlers. A hooved jackal queen. A lamb with the jaws of a sea-colored bear. They tangle around one another, crying out into the wind. Crying as if a death is coming, until it all blends into a single note. Ringing over the stonework of the ruins.

Columb wakes to Father Machan’s bell. Tonight, he feels something like pride. It was a good spirit walk. And he goes back to bed.

Again, Columb returns to their cloister in blood splatter, faded a little more this time. He’d gone out to milk the cows when he found another dead one.

There’s a bag of bran over his shoulder, a bucket of fresh milk that’s making him feel sick with the way it mixes with the sting of saltwater in the air. Fothud’s still bent over his station, running his finger over the bristles of his quill, gazing out the small square window of the library. The waves crashing in, counter-acting, sending his thoughts in the opposite direction, carrying them to a distant current.

Columb twitches. He’s been twitching since he found the first cow. His hand splaying out in the shape of a claw. His head jolting to one side as his neck bends in another. Most days, he can hold it in long enough. Let these jolts purge themself from his skin when no one’s around. But this one was welling up. He pushed it down. Tucked the feel under some shadows in his brain, perhaps to float away. But it crashes out of him. A moment and it’s over in a twitch. The rustle of his robe just loud enough for Fothud to turn around.

As he twists in his chair toward Columb, the open book comes into view. Two sheets of vellum, one side dark with lines of new ink. The other side’s eaten away. That’s where their sanctification through work comes together. Columb tends to the cows. He sells them for meat. He milks them. Some of it they drink. Most of it’s for Fothud. He was brought to this crumbling castle for this. He mixes brand into the milk, slaps the paste against the vellum with a recklessness that only comes with muscle memory. Scrubs it down until the ink begins to become something else. Until he can scrape it off the animal skin. Leaving phantoms that were letters streaked across the page.

Over and over, he’s been told not to do it this way. Father Mochan taught the process with something more permanent. Grinding off the letters with a pumice mixture. A completely blank space across the vellum. All the letters lost. It’s clean – you can write over the opened page with no trace of what was written before, penning new truths from an Angel. You can erase the inked form of human legs, replace them with fins in the way Father Mochan likes. But Fothud believes the phantoms must stay. Each line. Each page. All things are written over another.

Columb, embarrassed by his entrance, asks — What are you spinning up now?

Fothud stands up from his table – It’s a good one, Columb. I’m liking where this one’s going.

– Thought the last one was pretty good too. Saint Michael’s dick and all.

– Well, you’re in for a treat on this one then. See, I’m wondering if I was wrong last time, honestly. What if the Angel wasn’t banished from God for yanking on his own spear? But, instead, there was someone else involved? A real who-yanked-the-spear mystery! Now, we both know how good Father Mochan is at spirit walking. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he could project himself all the way to heaven. What if that’s where he saw the Angel? And they fell in love! Or… something more carnal. Something so goddamned hot it would send you right to hell, or a stop on the way at the very least.

Fothud’s eyes craze themselves out the window at the sea.

Colmub laughs as he leaves the room. And Fothud waits for more bran, more milk from the cows. The text waits to be diminished and layered over. But, no one waits for Father Mochan as he seeks his Angel in some of the less ruined chambers above their heads. He descends to eat, to lead their spirit walks, to bring new words for Fothud to transcribe, run his fingers over yesterday’s dried ink. Columb milks the cows. He carries bran from its creaking delivery cart. He finds dead cows and tries to explain to the others. It’s the sea. It’s over and over again.

In the night, Father Mochan drones on. Fothud tosses knowing glances at Columb. Lighting is dim in the dungeon. Columb can’t make out the subtleties, only that Fothud keeps jerking his head in his direction. He thinks of his own twitches. Prays to Jesus that he won’t twitch.

But, he never prays to the Son of God. Only to the bastard child born from a young girl. A bastard, like himself, with holiness thrust upon him, erasing his conjugal beginnings.

Behind Father Mochan, there’s a splatter of holes born into the wall, letting in the darkness of the sea in perfect circles. Unaware of the holes’ presence, Father Mocan knots himself deeper and deeper into his speech. Columb doesn’t even have to count. It’s right there – the same number of holes as the dead cows, sees it instantly, without thought. He knows Fothud’s looking over at him, but he can’t see. The hair’s got eyes pulled back.

The spirit walk hasn’t even begun. Father Mochan still building up toward the send-off. But, Columb’s already gone.

He feels himself in motion, walking sightless, only the feel of ether and split hooves, claws spanning themselves gently across his skin. Blades of glass. The heat of the sun. Something roughly textured, scaled, wet, scraping, forming his flesh into something other than itself. Expanding, rounding, flattening, lengthening, drying, stiffening. Creating an absence in him. It begins in his belly, whatever’s doing it to him. The sensation moves to his head.

His insides feel the heat of the sun.

The sea makes a lamenting crash as he ventures to open his sight. It’s awful. He hates this fucking monastery. Columb tries to focus on the grass, the shadow of the ruins far from his body. Though it’s not his body. The body he’s possessing. The cut-through body of a cow.

He tries counting loose pieces of rubble, wondering what the shape of numbers might do for the trajectory of his spirit walk. But his eyes are pulled back. The hair’s latched back onto them, turning them inward into his head. But, this time, daylight remains. The hole in the back of his head, his cow’s head,  allows him to see what’s happening in the hole of his belly. Where there were once organs, Mochan’s Angel crouches, running fingers through its endless colorless hair. Pulling the strands that have spread themselves all through the body of the cow, strands leading  up to its dull collar bones. Mochan’s Angel has no head. The hair only hung from a thin frame of shoulders and torso of human flesh.

Thin patches of fish scales have broken through the skin and they shine in the sun in a way that reminds Columb of everything he’s ever lost. The Angel’s proud of its fish scales. The way it holds its body, bending at the anatomies where scales have burst past the flesh, it’s hateful how much adoration there is for its own form.

But, then there’s the woman. Her face painted in ashes with eyes that cut beneath all their tears. Running her own fingers through the Angel’s hair. Wrapping its locks by the handful, until she begins to pull, pulling until the sun begins to shine where the Angel’s body splits apart. Fathoms of hair, tangling and untangling, warming in the sun.

There is no bell.

He expected this, to bring something back to the dungeon. Columb kneels on the floor with a perfect circle eaten away in his stomach. Knowing that if he looked down at the hole, he could count the number of tiles behind him. Instead, he gazes out the holes in the wall, the sea reminding him, with fondness, of everything he’s ever lost.

What he doesn’t notice is Father Mochan, his cloven head, his body splayed bloodlessly in two. Or Fothud choking over sobs that he should have warned Columb, how many times he’d written the Angel’s words and could have thought to warn Columb. The sound of his words taking on a distant curve.

There is no bell.

Caleb Bethea is the author of DISCO MURDER CITY (Maudlin House ‘25). Their horror stories have recently been anthologized in Found 2, Encounters, and Brave New Weird. You can also find their work in HAD, X-R-A-Y, hex, Bruiser, ergot, Vlad Mag, and elsewhere. They live in the forest with their wife and four goblins.
Sometimes, they’re on Instagram: @caleb_bethea_