The sun was back in the sky. The storm was still far, yet my head pounded as if the tempest was there inside my skull. I heard choking and snarling. Wilbur was holding my wrist and his other hand was on Woodrow’s neck. He had pulled us apart. “Wilbur, he can’t breathe!”

Wilbur released him and positioned himself between us, facing Woodrow. He held a sharp stone behind him. Woodrow coughed and gasped, sucking in lungfuls of air. Once he recovered, he furiously looked at Wilbur. “What the hell was that for?!”

Wilbur held my wrist up. “You attacked Erin.”

We all looked at my wrist. It was an ugly mark, not the usual kind of mark left by rows of teeth. It was a concave of dots, not slants, with two larger holes at the edge. My blood was still leaking there. Then my flesh sealed it. I gasped.

It was already bruised; an ugly blotch of blue, purple, and red. It was like I was bitten by a feral dog weeks ago. I was speechless. I swallowed, then said to Wilbur, “you can let go. It doesn’t hurt.” He released me and I touched it tenderly.

Woodrow stared at it, wide-eyed. He was coy and witty, charming and sweet, mischievous and seductive. A genuine emotion of shock and shame was alien on his face.

“I…” He looked wildly at me, then at Wilbur, then at me again. “Erin, I didn’t mean to, I don’t know why I—” He was crawling towards me when Wilbur blocked him, the sharp stone on his throat.

“Wilbur, no,” I said. I held him back.

Woodrow paused and eyed the crude weapon touching his neck. “I did not mean to. I swear. I would never hurt, Erin.” He raised his hands up. “I would never hurt him.”

“Perhaps I was wrong to bring you along,” Wilbur said coolly. He immediately hounded Woodrow. “Why would you spill Erin’s blood? Nay, why would you drink it?”

“I don’t know what happened!” Woodrow screamed and hid his face from us. His hands grabbed strands of his hair. I noticed it had regained some of its luster.

To hear silky-voiced Woodrow shake with grief unsettled me. When I woke a moment ago, I thought he was going to attack me. I was right, but he wasn’t there when he did it. The green eyes were blank orbs. The body moved without the mind. Blake was himself when he murdered those men.

Whatever sunk its teeth in my arm was not Woodrow. I approached them slowly, my knees and palms flattened blades of grass.

I slowly placed my hands on Wilbur’s taut arm and slowly lowered it back to his side. I approached Woodrow, shaking and curled up on the apple tree’s base. Wilbur’s eyes warned me. If a stranger would see us from far off, we would look like we were posed for a portrait. A story of three terrified monks. Desperate for a solution, I appealed to simple logic.

“He was not himself,” I began. “He was already weak the moment I regained consciousness. His arms were already drooping. And why would he attack me in front of you?” I soothed Woodrow’s back. “Ever since I opened my eyes, I saw him wasting away. He looked like me, Wilbur.” I emphasized to let him digest how strange that was. It has to mean something. “His veins showed like mine. Briefly. You said it yourself, his power must have taken its toll on him. He collapsed.” I patted and pressed Woodrow's tense muscles. “As for the blood, well… maybe we can figure it out later, as was the plan. We will go to the monastery. All three of us, together.”

My eyes were steady on Wilbur. The weapon was still clamped under his fingers. Woodrow felt sick again under Wilbur’s accusations. No words flowed from his mouth. His bottom lip only quivered. How can he defend himself when he wasn’t certain of his intentions? How can we all? We were all mysteries even to ourselves. Mysteries with missing memories.

I gasped aloud. Memories! This time I did stand up to my full height. “Stop this, Wilbur. I saw… something.” I shook my head. I shouldn’t care how silly it sounded. “I had a vision. I think.”

I told him. I described the candle, the hands that held the candle, the candle that showed a crying infant, the infant whose soft head sprouted fine, copper hair, and whose eyes were as green as the grass on this meadow.

And then I remembered something else. “When Blake attacked me… there was a glade.” Utter confusion replaced the edge in Wilbur’s face. I closed my eyes, finding my way through the cracks of my memory. I remember sloshing through mud. I remember flying and falling. I remember the giant with the gentle face. I looked up at Wilbur. “We have another brother.”

Wilbur lowered the stone. Even Woodrow stopped shaking; his eyes peeked between his fingers. “Does this brother have a name?”

I was already trying to search for the letters, tried to string them up from somewhere. They rolled around my tongue and flew from my mouth before I even registered them. “Ealhstan!”

They simply stared back at me. The name faded in the air. “He was strong. Boulders were nothing compared to his might. He was built like a mountain himself.” Nothing. Even with those feats, I might as well be describing an imaginary friend. “He was close to us, Wilbur. You were there, too, in the memory. He showed you red moss in the swamp.”

At the mention of red moss, his eyes bulged. Wilbur immediately chucked the stone away and began to search the many bottles littering the ground. His hands hovered on a small bottle. He grabbed it and pressed it so close between my eyes that I had to lean back. “Moss like this?”

There was no mistaking it. I grabbed it with him. “That’s the one!” I didn’t imagine it. This Ealhstan existed, and he could be out there in the world.

Wilbur analyzed it. “This was inside that explosive bottle. The one I threw.”

“He must have known what Blake really was.” A hundred possibilities raced in my mind. “Maybe you two discovered what he was and planned to escape somehow. Or maybe he was just guiding you. Maybe he was afraid that he might put us all in danger if he shared what he knew.”

“Fat lot of good that did in the end,” Woodrow said. His tone and expression were blank. I realized how shrill I must have sounded. The thought of someone else looking out for us filled me with sudden joy. The two monks beside me did not share this.

Sorrow dripped on Wilbur’s voice when he spoke. “If I can forget a dear friend just like that… if ever he truly was a friend. What happened to him? Where is he now?” I did not know. I shrugged helplessly. “To think that we might have shared a meal with him. Confided in him. That he was part of this blasted brotherhood for years! That we must have walked the same path and not a faint echo of his footsteps can be heard. Not in the cloisters. Not in the kitchens or dungeons. You say that we walk shoulders touching?” He touched the round of his shoulders, then. “It was like he was never born. Wiped away from existence. The shape of him. His voice. His ways. His strength. Gone.”

Wilbur spoke of him as if he was already dead. My lungs deflated. Who could escape Blake? Who could escape Swithin?

“They must have ambushed him. They must have discovered what he was up to. Maybe I was the one who ratted him out, who knows? How quickly things change. Maybe Wilbur was right, after all. Maybe I am a spy without myself knowing.” Wilbur didn’t respond, but he didn’t disagree either. His knees shook. I pleaded with my eyes for Woodrow to stop. “Don’t give me that look, Erin. Why would we trust each other? Maybe this Ealhstan is alive, but he left to save his own skin, abandoned you as a sacrifice to slow the wolves down.”

How horrendous to never be remembered by anyone. I suddenly felt jealous of the dearly departed. At least they left corpses to be washed and buried and laid to rest inside coffins. At least their loved ones wept for them, wailed as they were lowered to the ground. Women beat their breasts as gravediggers shoveled dirt after dirt. They called their names, still, long after they had decomposed, in prayers and in mourning. If not those, then the unclaimed, unwanted dead still served a purpose laying on top of our dissecting table. They may save the living as we harvested and studied their organs.

“At least we know one thing; whatever mysteries swirling around us, the root cause of all those was Blake. He took something from us. All he does is take. He must have taken our lives and the many memories we’ve lived.”

Wilbur and Woodrow were hugging their knees, unaware that they copied each other. They looked at me with tired eyes.

Shapeshifting and oblivion. Powers that Blake kept secret from us. Did Knox know? He is his right-hand man, just like Swithin was his primary henchman. The rabid dog that he let loose. Yet, shapeshifting and oblivion weren’t even Blake’s true power. It was fear. It was chaos. He made you feel so powerless that you yourself pushed away the possibility that he can be defeated. Not by anyone and certainly not by you.

Yet, for one moment in that field, he was afraid. He was afraid of that artifact—a mirror of all things. A mirror that can harm him. Woodrow was right, how things change. Quick, like how a bird darts in the water. As my brothers lost their hope, I gained some spirit.

“Blake is not invincible, or else why would he set such strict measures on our way of living? Why would he go to such great lengths to keep us hidden from the world?" It suddenly just washed over me that all I ever knew was a lie. We were not real monks. "If Blake did contain such immense power, why would he bide his time?"

“Perhaps he likes to play with his food,” Woodrow suggested.

“There has to be something more. Ealhstan wouldn't risk his life if he thought it was hopeless. You can charm them, can’t you? You charmed Knox and managed long enough to fend them off. Wilbur can stop him with a loud boom. For goodness’ sake, the barking of dogs can stop him from casting illusions." I traced back our steps to the spot where it was most familiar. "We always go to the poorest village, or those just starting to grow. We helped raise it from the ground up. We help them... multiply."

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the word. We gave them food and shelter, we stitched their wounds and gave them bright, happy days before we moved on, or so we thought. I was now certain that the stories of destroyed villages were our doing, all the places we've raised were reduced to rubble. I'd like to think that some people escaped somehow, and were now warning the rest of the world. That, or just trying to survive. They would be in worse condition than when we found them. And they wanted us dead. From gratitude towards us to hatred. Burning hatred. Hatred in their eyes, hatred in Blake's eyes. Blake's red eyes. And blood. So much blood. Blood and strength.

I knelt down on the ground now, closing myself off from the world. The thief said they were hunted like animals. Woodrow just now was like a wild one himself. And Swithin was a furry beast rampaging with Blake, because he was possibly connected to his bloodthirst.

The words felt like they were placed in my mouth at the same time that I spilled them out. "We are raising them to be cattle." It was like my mind traveled far to bring me that statement. I told them all what I guessed.

Wilbur closed his eyes. he must have guessed the same. When he was worried, his mind went in every direction. There was plenty of time on the road to dwell on our past activities, especially those that led to this disastrous outcome.

"Blood?" Woodrow said. "Blood."

"Blood and strength. Blood and memories." Wilbur toyed with the words. He will experiment later. Perhaps his journals will show him the way.

"We need to stop him. That artifact he mentioned can harm him. I saw it, that must be why he was forced to flee. The way he said it somehow alluded that there was more than just one."

"Erin, we don't stand a chance." Woodrow got up and paced around, looking at the brewing storm.

“Blake never let a day pass by that I was not reminded of my worthlessness. He threatened to banish Wilbur if I didn’t follow his wishes. He is powerful, yes. But he is not all-powerful as he led us to believe. We all aren’t. Look. He’s not following us.” The clouds were still far off in the distance. They coiled and rumbled and flashed, but they did not move. “He is afraid of what we can do. Maybe he is afraid of the villagers. There may be more of them that carry those enchanted torches.”

“You think he is planning his next move?” Wilbur probed.

I stood, and when I did, their gaze followed me. Bright green and warm hazel. “Yes. That is why we should stick together.” I held my hand down to Woodrow. The one he just bit. Except that the marks had left my skin, gone like Ealhstan. Yet another mystery that needed to be solved.

He did not take my hand. He did not even want to look at me. "We might attack you. I might bite you in your sleep.”

“Not if I give you my blood first.”

“No!” Wilbur stood up, back to his strength. My brother Wilbur. My guardian, my noble protector. “I forbid it!”

“And I won’t allow myself to do it! I’d rather be kept in chains.” He gulped. “I’d rather disappear.”

“Then it’s settled. We don’t use your powers for now. And we find whatever we can to fight him.”

Woodrow approached me. He stopped right in front of me and right beside Wilbur. His eyes bore into mine.

“You are going to get yourself killed, Erin.” Then, Woodrow let out a humorless laugh. “I will stay with you if only to protect you from needless harm. Maybe I can use the last of my powers to buy you two some time to figure out how to stop them for good.”

“Don’t say that.”

“If anyone can stop Blake, I suppose it is you. You’re completely immune to him. As far as we know, anyway.” Then he stretched, limber as a cat. “Is it so wrong to say that I feel much better?” He tentatively looked at us.

Wilbur said nothing. And then he reached for Woodrow’s shoulder. I thought he was going to hit him, but his hand went to his forehead. He was checking for Woodrow’s temperature. “I am sorry that I did that. To be fair, when I saw my brother biting the arm of my small charge, all judgments left me. I had no time to think it through, not with what just happened with Blake.”

Woodrow was still as Wilbur examined him. He smiled when the latter called him his brother. But the smile slowly creased back into a frown. “Wait.” Wilbur stopped and placed his hand back to his side.

The shock and fear of my revelation had finally worn off. The short piece of my recollection finally hit Woodrow. “When I bit you…” he began slowly, “when I bit you… a baby, you say? The features resembled mine?” I nodded. I repeated what I saw. When I was done, he was yet again pale, and he clung to Wilbur’s cowl. When he realized what he was doing, he stood straight.

He shook his head and tried to be strong. He would process it later. He did something unusual, then. He placed his hand on my cheek. He looked at Wilbur quickly, then back at me. “I do not blame your guardian over there. He means the most to you. This… baby. I know nothing of it, Erin, but my heart is banging with dread. I hope that it isn’t what I think it means.”

“But what do you think it means?”

He shook his head. “To give words to it might make it come true. We do not know yet." Woodrow's hands were still on my cheek, he looked at me but he directed his speech to Wilbur. “If ever I do that again, kill me. I will not mind. In fact, I will be glad of it.” I was going to protest, but Woodrow stopped me. “Better to die than hurt you.”

He released me and we stood facing each other. The breeze circled around us, weaving this new brotherhood together. After a moment, I turned forwards. “We should avoid that smoke,” I said. They both agreed. “No one is safe while we’re here.”

Which was quite unfortunate, because that was when we heard the bells and the boy. We spun around. The boy had been staring at us from down the mound. His hand was tight on his walking stick, and was about to scream for help.