Red Ivy

kin, tightening around his organs like a fist of thorned roots. He couldn't go back to the city hospital. The CDC would

gravel was now mud and blackened leaves. As he drove, red ivy coiled up around th

and ash, its bell tower caved in, crucifix split by lightnin

thick, humming wit

and over. On the altar, what looked like an open Bible was made of bark and human skin, stitched at

Father Tobias Lang,

ad. They gave us eternity. The First Garden grows beneath us, always hun

on Vex's

, something moved behind t

were patchworks of decayed skin and prayer shawls grown with moss

he wound where her scalp had b

hrough the roots that had grown into the

a man in priest ro

wasn'

ore

oss the bone. Its eyes were full of green flame. Its voice

, Vex. And yet you r

staff carved

the same flower he'd pul

mouths sewn shut as they were poured vines, hundreds

ened

exploded into p

vines ke

rolled down an embankment,

ree burst through its floorboards. Ivy cra

rest c

ots. Bark split to reveal grinning faces of

ed in unison

ring where the eart

cient and etched with red glyp

e it, the pain in h

underfoo

ion inside

as h

mething stirred. Vas

knew hi