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“Don’t talk rot! That was woodworm. Give me that!” snapped Brother Loughlin, and grabbed the bellrope from Boland’s hands. He gave it a sharp tug, and to his satisfaction the bell above wheeled round and pealed the start of the last class.

“What in the name of God is wrong with you now?” shouted Loughlin above the noise of the bell.

Boland was cowering and had his hands clamped over his ears again. “It’s wrong! All wrong! There is a moldering!” He fled up the stairs to his cell. Dam-Age, Dam-Age, Dam-Age, the bell tolled in his head.

“Don’t come back down! You are confined to your cell. I’ll find someone responsible and willing to undertake bell duty! Do you hear?” yelled Loughlin. He harrumphed dismissively and gave the bellrope another pull for good measure before striding off to check on McDermott’s progress on the oratory repairs. Now he needed him to fix the refectory window too.

The monastery bell announced the end of the last class. Brother Boland got up from his cot and paced nervously around the narrow confines of his cell. He went to the window and stared down. He breathed in and out rapidly through his nose, the nasal hairs fluttering about like kite tails. In the distance he heard the dull murmur of the boys in the school corridors, and through it, cutting into his mind like a scream, came the sound of the monastery bell once again. It was being rung by a harsh, uncaring hand, a hand with no sense of echoes or resonances. It was being rung by that damned blow-in Moody! He could feel it! Boland moved to the window and gripped the sill to steady his trembling hands.

He shrank from the bell’s internal discord. Behind its peal he could hear the swelling hum of protest. The inaudible grace notes of wrongness nested in his chest and squirmed inside him. He stood up from his cot, sat down again, stood up again, and went again to his small window.

He watched the boys below pour out of the school and across the yard. The gray tide flowed slowly out into the world beyond. He looked through the grimy glass at the school building across the yard. He peered at its outline and held his breath. Was there an answer to the bell’s wrongness in there? He pressed his floppy ear against the glass and listened, its quiet coldness for a moment calming him.

He saw Dermot McDermott lock the gate behind the last stragglers and walk back toward the monastery. Boland leaned his forehead against the glass and closed his eyes. The wind gusted and the window sashes above his head rattled within the frame. He breathed deeply through his nose. Patiently he waited for the light to fade. He soon opened his eyes again and watched the cross on the spire of Saint Werburgh’s away to his left. Slowly it faded into the growing darkness. Somehow he figured the darkness would make it easier to sense the inner tremors of the school.

He went to his cell door and listened to the late-afternoon silence. He opened it a crack, half expecting to find Brother Tobin or Brother Walsh outside on sentry duty. Evidently Brother Loughlin had forgotten to post anyone. He slid out through the door and closed it silently behind him. He stood still and the sparse fuzz of what was left of his hair tensed and flickered. He looked like a very worried peach.

The wrongness was all around him now. It was sourceless, omnidirectional. He had no idea where to look for it. He had to go to the bell tower to get a better sense of it or he would never find it in time.

Suddenly, a wave of the wrongness made manifest boomed and whooshed through Boland’s understanding. Barely able to stay upright, he scuttled along the corridor toward the stairs to confront the unease howling down from the attic.

“Be careful not to splatter that all over the place.”

Dermot McDermott looked down at the floor beside his bucket and saw Brother Loughlin’s boots peeking out from under the hem of his cassock. As if the shit work wasn’t enough, he had to put up with orders from this fat fuck.

“Yes, Brother,” he replied tonelessly.