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firmly upon the path to the church. It seemed my quarry
would not be allowed to survive the night.
I forced myself to slacken my pace and absorb the sights.
From the moon-frosted meadows, I could clearly see the
corpse of the town splayed out across the encroaching
forest. Suttercraft looked like some dead-brown and drying
serpent’s husk, its crooked gambrel spines occasionally
breeching the tops of the trees, revealing the places where
it had fallen so long ago. I tried to focus on Mr. Trill—and
the fresh changes his death might furnish the world—but
my father would tolerate no more delays, and I quickly
found myself thrust into the shadows surrounding the
church. Instantly, and almost by my family’s will alone, my
hunter’s silence spread out all around me, and my thoughts
disappeared into my sisters’ famished smiles.
The church was deserted—long since abandoned by the
Lord and his flock. I entered through the front door and
beheld the silence. It was old and unbroken, blossoming
from the desert of dust that lay across the altar and pews.
I moved to the rear of the church, leaving the silence as
I’d found it. The rooms in the back contained nothing of
interest save for the pleasant comfort of forgotten places,
having slipped quietly the boundaries of memory, tumbling
into oblivion. I moved to the cellar door, the cold of the
underground lapping at my feet. Strangely, it was nailed shut
from the opposite side. I wondered if Mister Trill had some
idea of my coming, having been warned from something
that walked the other side of the world—an opposing force
to that which had invited me to transform him. However, if
nailed-up doors were all he could offer in defense . . .
I returned to the exterior of the church, looking for a way
into the cellar. It took me some time to discover the entrance,
cleverly concealed beneath the ruins of an old shed. Opening
the door, a new silence overtook me. The sound of waiting—
the sound of a hunter—permeated everything. The darkness

26 | Mark Anzalone