Horror

by Scribes Stories · 7 min read · 2 views

The Hollow Choir Father Desmond had accepted the assignment to Saint Aldric's remote parish somewhat reluctantly, the small rural church having sat without a permanent priest for nearly two years following his predecessor's abrupt, unexplained departure, a departure the diocese's records described only vaguely as "personal circumstances requiring immediate relocation." He discovered the reason for that abrupt departure within his first month, though he spent considerably longer trying to convince himself the discovery admitted of some rational, ordinary explanation. The church's old choir loft, unused since the parish's dwindling congregation had long ago abandoned any pretense of maintaining a proper choir, produced, on certain nights, sounds that Father Desmond initially attributed to wind moving through the building's numerous structural gaps, a reasonable enough explanation for an old, poorly maintained rural church. But the sounds, as he paid increasingly careful attention across subsequent weeks, resolved themselves gradually into something considerably more organized than random wind could properly produce. Voices, layered in what sounded, unmistakably, like actual choral harmony, singing hymns in a style and arrangement that predated, by his own careful musical assessment, at least a century of the church's actual documented history. "The old choir," said Mrs. Featherstone, the parish's elderly caretaker, when Father Desmond cautiously raised the subject during one of their regular conversations. "You've heard them, then. Most priests eventually do, given enough time in this particular building." "You're familiar with this phenomenon?" Father Desmond asked, considerably relieved to find someone willing to discuss it directly rather than dismissing his observations as simple imagination. "Familiar enough," Mrs. Featherstone said. "My own grandmother sang in this church's choir, back before the influenza epidemic took most of its members within a single terrible winter, nearly a century ago now. Eleven choir members, gone within barely six weeks, the church's own records still document the losses, though the diocese has always been considerably reluctant to properly discuss what happened afterward." "What happened afterward?" Father Desmond asked. "The surviving parish, considerably smaller and considerably more grief stricken, apparently continued holding regular choir practice for several more years, despite having lost most of the choir's original membership," Mrs. Featherstone said. "My grandmother always described it as a kind of collective, communal mourning, the surviving members singing not merely for themselves but consciously, deliberately, for the voices that could no longer physically join them. She believed, and I've come to believe as well, having lived beside this church my entire life, that something of that original devoted practice never actually stopped, whatever official records might suggest about the choir's eventual formal disbandment." Father Desmond found this explanation simultaneously comforting and considerably unsettling, the idea of grieving congregants deliberately singing for their departed choir members carrying a certain melancholy beauty, even as the persistent, decades long continuation of that practice, seemingly independent of any living participant's ongoing effort, suggested something considerably beyond simple sentimental tradition. He began, cautiously, attending the choir loft during the hours when the singing typically occurred, usually well after midnight, curious despite his own mounting unease to observe more directly whatever phenomenon was actually producing these persistent, historically anachronistic hymns. The loft, when he first arrived during one of these late night sessions, appeared entirely empty, exactly as his rational expectations had prepared him to find it. But the singing continued regardless, seemingly emanating from the empty space itself rather than from any visible source, voices rising and falling in careful harmony that felt, standing directly within the loft's confines, considerably more immediate and considerably more affecting than it had sounded from the church's main sanctuary below. "Who are you?" he finally asked, his priestly training providing him at least the composure to address the phenomenon directly rather than simply fleeing in the instinctive panic his racing pulse was strongly suggesting. The singing paused, briefly, replaced by a silence that felt, unmistakably, attentive rather than simply empty, before a single voice, distinct from the previous choral harmony, finally responded. "We are what remained," the voice said, carrying a quality that sounded genuinely aged, genuinely weathered by considerably more time than any living voice could properly account for. "The survivors who continued singing, long after our own natural lives should have properly concluded, because the grief of losing so many beloved voices within a single terrible winter felt too enormous to simply set aside once our own physical presence in this world eventually, naturally ended." "You've continued for nearly a century," Father Desmond said, genuine wonder beginning to temper his initial fear. "Why? What are you actually waiting for?" "We are not entirely certain ourselves," the voice admitted, something plaintive entering its otherwise steady tone. "Perhaps we simply cannot properly release the practice that gave our own grief such meaningful shape, during those difficult years immediately following the epidemic. Perhaps some portion of us remains genuinely uncertain whether the departed voices we originally sang for have ever truly, properly heard us, and we continue, decade after decade, in the persistent hope that our devotion might eventually, finally reach them." Father Desmond considered this explanation carefully, recognizing something in it that touched on considerably deeper theological questions than his seminary training had ever fully prepared him to properly address in such immediate, direct circumstances. "Perhaps," he finally said, choosing his words with considerable care, "your devotion has already, long ago, reached exactly where it was always intended to reach. Perhaps what actually remains now isn't a continued searching, but simply the difficulty of finally allowing yourselves to believe that the searching has already, genuinely succeeded." The choir loft fell silent for a considerably longer pause this time, and Father Desmond found himself holding his breath, uncertain whether he had somehow offended whatever presence he was currently addressing, or whether his words had perhaps touched on something considerably more significant than he had initially intended. "You believe our devotion has already been properly received," the voice finally said, something in its tone carrying a fragile, uncertain hope Father Desmond found genuinely moving despite the phenomenon's inherently unsettling nature. "I believe," Father Desmond said, drawing on considerably more genuine conviction than his earlier fear would have suggested he currently possessed, "that a century of continued, faithful devotion, sung in memory and in love for those you lost, could not possibly have gone unheard by whatever divine presence properly attends to such things. I believe you have already accomplished exactly what you originally set out to do, all those decades ago, and that what remains now is simply your own permission to finally, properly rest, trusting that your devotion has already reached its intended destination." The following silence stretched considerably longer than the previous pause, and Father Desmond remained standing in the empty choir loft, uncertain what, if anything, his words had actually accomplished, until finally, almost imperceptibly at first, the silence began filling once again with singing, though this time carrying a quality considerably different from the plaintive, searching harmony he had grown accustomed to hearing across his previous weeks at the parish. This new singing felt, unmistakably, like genuine celebration rather than continued mourning, voices rising in a joyful arrangement that gradually, gently faded into a silence considerably more complete and considerably more peaceful than any silence Father Desmond had previously experienced within those old church walls. The choir loft remained entirely, permanently quiet after that night, no further singing ever again disturbing the church's late night stillness, and Father Desmond, reflecting on the experience in the years that followed his eventual transfer to a considerably larger urban parish, came to believe he had witnessed something genuinely rare and genuinely precious, a century old grief finally, properly allowed its long overdue conclusion. "Some hauntings," he would tell younger priests, whenever the subject of unexplained parish phenomena arose during his later career, "aren't actually about malevolence or unfinished harm at all. They're simply about devotion that hasn't yet received sufficient permission to believe it's already, fully succeeded. Sometimes the most important thing any of us can offer such lingering presences isn't fear, or exorcism, or even elaborate ritual. Sometimes it's simply the honest reassurance that their love, however long ago given, was never actually wasted, and was always, eventually, properly received."