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Not shadows.

Nothing.

I can’t see my hands. Can’t see the doors I just walked through. Even the screams and crackling fire outside have disappeared, leaving me trapped in a silence so complete, I can hear my own breathing.

Then a candle ignites.

A tiny flame flickers several feet away.

Another answers farther down.

Then another.

And another.

Flames spark to life one by one, spreading through the darkness until hundreds of candles burn around me.

My breath catches.

The barn is gone.

Or maybe this is what was always underneath it.

Long wooden tables stretch across the room, disappearing into the flickering candlelight. Every inch of them is buried beneath food. Loaves of dark bread split open at the center. Bowls overflow with apples, pears, and grapes. Roasted meat glistens on heavy platters while butter melts over steaming corn. Dark wine fills dozens of glasses, so red beneath the candlelight it looks almost black.

Everything is warm.

Fresh.

Waiting.

And there isn’t a single person sitting at the tables.

I know this place.

Not because I’ve been here.

Because Ezra described it.

The feast.

The tables.

The night everything went wrong.

My skin prickles. “The original Communion.”

The words barely leave my mouth.

Then I see her.

At the center of it all, between two endless tables, stands a woman.

Mercy.

But not the thing that crawled from the Earth.

Not gray skin stretched over bone. Not roots twisted through rotting flesh. Not two hundred and thirty-five years trapped beneath the soil.