The Holy Maiden Keeps Marching.

Selina sprawled at the window, craning her neck to watch the parade in black and white uniforms, neat as chessboard lines.

“Look all you want, just don’t stick your head out,” Hedi warned, turning back to the couch. Then, as if a thought pricked her, she stared at the pale yellow wall. “Crap! I forgot to pay Orlina the final installment!”

“That witch?”

“No rush. I haven’t weighed the potion’s value yet, don’t know if she’s ready to take a butcher’s cut.”

“She seemed kind. She even let me sleep in the shop.”

“Maybe,” Hedi said, her shrug light as a fallen leaf.

She flipped open her suitcase and dug out a newspaper-wrapped sandwich. The two slices stuck together, cold as slate, flavor thin as cardboard, but enough to fill an empty belly.

She nibbled and passed the time gazing at the photo on the wall—autumn like a slow fire, red leaves in flight, swans playing on the river. The Holy Maiden, dressed in a white habit, crouched to stroke a swan’s head, soft as snow on feather.

Across the river stood a cylindrical Sacred Cathedral, and farther still, the cemetery’s corner, a shy gray tooth against the horizon.

Looking close, both ends of the bridge held stone structures fused to the span, each with small windows—silent eyes set into rock, purpose unknown.

The sky in the photo was an overcast lid, cloudless and heavy, a press of stone on the day.

Along the riverbank, a tidy line of small nuns seemed to be practicing a chorus; the harmony looked polished, like ripples combed by wind.

Yet Hedi felt a chill creep in. Autumn carries its own bleak hush. And for her, any glimpse of the cemetery sends a cold thread straight under the skin.

She shifted her eyes, and just chewed the bland sandwich, rain-ticking thoughts left aside.

“You really won’t go see the Priest and Sister Bertha?” Selina stepped back into the room. “Including the Holy Maiden who just marched.”

“Feels like your emphasis is on the second part,” Hedi said, the words landing like an arrowhead.

“I don’t know the Priest here… It’s the Holy Maiden. I want to know why she’s using your name.”

“Same name, same surname,” Hedi said, a coincidence echoing thin as a bell.

“Melvina is rare as a winter bird. And her hair’s ash-gray, like she’s copying you on purpose,” Selina argued, voice steady as a counted bead. “How many people match both name and hair? That urgent email in the inbox could be from her.”

“Mm… fine…”

“Really?”

Hedi finished the sandwich and crumpled the wrinkled newspaper into a ball, dry leaf to the fist. “If we don’t go, someone will keep muttering like drizzle.”

“Hehe.” Selina smiled, bright as lamplight, and swept Hedi into her arms, rewarding her like a well-behaved child. “That’s more like it. You’re never cold or cruel!”

“Because I’m a teeny tiny ghost!”

“What a line!”

A comfortable smile bloomed on Hedi’s face. She pressed close, tracing Selina’s chin with a ghost-light fingertip, soft as a cat’s whisker.

Outside, the downpour never relented. No howling wind—only rain falling straight like silver strings, still cutting cold to the bone.

In that tight curtain, the chill felt like the earth’s damp breath stored in soil. Deep in the rain, the cylindrical crown of the Sacred Cathedral showed faintly, a lantern smudged by mist.

No birds crossed the air; they must be tucked under eaves, wings folded like closed fans.

“Shall we go?” Selina asked.

Hedi shook her head lightly, neither yes nor no. Feeling slipped away like fog; only reflex moved her neck. She wore a mouse-gray coat, heavy as stone. Buttons climbed to her throat, sealing the white undershirt tight as a lid.

“Feels like there’s some…” Hedi groped for words, then fell silent. She surfaced like a long-held diver and gulped air. “I’m too ashamed to show my face.”

“Ashamed?”

“Think about it, I’m that heartless—”

“About that…” Selina cut in, then tested the music of her words with a pause, weighing them like an egg in her palm. “You must have something you won’t tell me, and it lines up with why you can’t visit the Priest.”

“Smart.”

“Wanna tell me?”

Hedi smiled. Could I tell Selina I study Dark Magic? She’s a believer. Books say if someone loves you enough, they’ll hold your flaws like flowers, thorns and all. It’s not doubt about her love, just… Her gaze slid to the photo, as if frames hid divine warnings, as if answers hung from a made-up god.

“If you don’t want to—”

“I’ve read Dark Magic texts. That’s why I can’t go see the Priest.”

“That’s— he’d suffer punishment in Hell in your stead.” By the time Selina heard herself, the words were already loose in the air, blending with the rain’s hiss. “I didn’t mean that… Some sects hate witches and use lines like that to warn believers.”

“Like your doctrine?”

“Mm.”

Hedi rose from the couch. No anger, no hurt; her face held a middle tone, cloudy glass between light and shadow.

“I didn’t say the Priest will be punished in Hell. It’s just—the Sacred Texts carve it that way.”

“You didn’t get mad when I ranted about the Church, and I won’t be hurt by your ‘punishment’ either,” Hedi said, balance held like scales at rest.

“Professor…”

“Feels better saying it out loud,” Hedi breathed, even if it was only about reading Dark Magic. “We’ll look at the Priest’s and Sister Bertha’s graves, then we leave.”

Selina nodded slow and followed Hedi out of the room where rain echoed like drum-skin. At the stairs to the first floor, Hedi stopped short. A brute-strong man nearly filled the staircase, a bear plugging a cave.

He was burly as a full-grown brown bear. His shirt dripped, beads sliding like river pearls. He lifted his head and met Hedi’s eyes, mouth muscle twitching. “Hello there, pretty girl!”

He smiled, baring brown-yellow tartar, stench sharp as a fish market at dawn. He raised his arm to match the greeting, palm brushing the ceiling with ease, and a raven’s skull glinted on his finger.

“Quiet!” another voice snapped from behind him, blade-cold. His bulk blocked the stairs, hiding the woman. “Don’t do anything extra.”

“Just saying hi, right? Pretty girl?”

Hedi stepped back a few paces, opening a path like parting reeds.

Her first impression knotted tight—malice and a glint of kindness braided like black and white cords.

Maybe it was the contrast: a child-pure face on a bear-sized body, doll-mask set on a bull.

The man climbed and went straight into the far-right room of the hallway. The woman behind him—at a glance, Hedi thought teacup dog—so tiny it made you suspect hormones had stunted the tree of her body.

Her eyes were ice-cold. She cradled a black cat, a coal ember with whiskers.

“So beefy!” Selina whispered once the odd duo passed. “Feels like he’ll burst his clothes.”

“One slap and my brains would slosh smooth.”

“I won’t let them hurt you!”

Hedi smiled and held her tongue, a fan closed against wind.

Those two were the kind you never provoke, thunderheads you skirt wide.