“What about the blood?”

“It will be messy but I think it will be worth it in the end.”

Standing outside her classroom door later that same morning, Phoebe listened to the conversation of the midshipmen inside, horrified. After leaving Amber, she had raced to change and make it to her first class. Thoughts of the witch’s tree and that ominous rock clouded her mind, competing with thoughts of murder and satanic symbols, and now…now this!

“I want to hear it scream…like really scream.”

Phoebe dropped her shoulder bag and turned to run down the hallway. She needed to find Michael. Now was not the time to wonder why her first thought was to run to Michael for help but she did. At this very moment, all she could think about was running to him for help. He was big and strong and honorable and she wanted to feel his protective presence while they decided how to proceed.

“Professor Pringle.”

Stopping, she hazarded a look over her shoulder. “Yes?” she asked, her voice sounding weak and hesitant.

“I see you overheard our plans. You might as well come in and hear all the gory details.”

The midshipman picked up her shoulder bag and waited, expecting her to follow. Taking a deep breath, knowing she would never be able to outrun the midshipman, she had no choice but to enter the classroom. All the men turned as she walked in.

“Professor Pringle, you are just in time. Do you have any good quotes from Shakespeare about murder or death?” asked Thomas.

“Men, whatever it is you’re planning—”

“I don’t think Shakespeare would be appropriate. It should be something from a Native American author,” offered Chris.

“No. You both have it wrong. It has to be something from the Bible, that makes more sense,” piped up Joe.

Several classmates called out their agreement to Joe’s idea.

Phoebe couldn’t take it a moment longer. Without another thought to her own safety, she cried out, “You have to stop! Please! You can’t do this!”

“But, Professor Pringle, it’s tradition,” complained Thomas.

“Tradition! Murder is tradition?” What the hell had she gotten herself into?

“Well, yeah,” said Chris. “Every twenty-fifth of October.”

Raising her hands protectively in front of her, Phoebe took a step back. This was insane. This couldn’t be true. “You murder someone every twenty-fifth of October?”

“Well, in effigy,” corrected Joe.

“You are all mad. You need hel— Wait. What?”

“We murder someone in effigy. The Mad Monk.”

* * *

Forcing them all to close their eyes, Phoebe took a quick swig from the flask of whiskey she kept in her shoulder bag. It had been a gift from Henry. He said every true journalist should always have something strong on hand to help a source loosen their tongue when necessary…it also came in handy for other things…like thinking your entire class was involved in a heinous murder plot.

After getting over her shock, Phoebe learned the details of the Mad Monk tradition.

* * *

The Order of Saint John monks arrived in Buzzards Bay in the spring of 1665 to convert the local tribe of Algonquian Indians, the Wampanoag to Christianity. In the fall of 1666, Brother Phineas and Brother Godfrey headed deep into the extensive woods to seek out the winter camp of the tribe. Although misguided, they thought they were doing god’s work by converting the savages.

They never arrived at the camp.

Weeks later, Brother Phineas was found, naked, covered in blood, crouching over the partially consumed body of Brother Godfrey. Phineas’ emaciated appearance and wild ravings led the tribe’s shaman to declare he had become a wendigo, an evil spirit. Mythos among the Algonquian was that anyone who became lost in the woods and resorted to cannibalism forfeited all their humanity. They became violent creatures who brought death and decay with them along with an insatiable hunger for more human flesh. The only way to kill the evil spirit was to burn the wendigo alive and scatter its ashes to the four winds.

Brother Phineas, or the human shell of the man he once was, was seized by the Wampanoag. After burning him alive, his charred body was placed on the large rock in front of the tree now called the witch’s tree, the bones pulverized into dust and scattered.

It didn’t work.

The monk’s evil spirit continued to roam the woods at night on the anniversary of his death, claiming victims.

The legend of the Mad Monk was born.

Eventually, even the colonists began to fear the annual return of the monk’s evil spirit. So every twenty-fifth of October they began to recreate the shaman’s ceremonial killing of the wendigo by burning an effigy of the mad monk. When the military took over the monastery in the early nineteen hundreds and turned it into the Puller Academy, the midshipmen kept up the local tradition.

Dressing in black robes and carrying torches, they ran into the woods to chase each other around. The idea being they were scaring the evil spirit, corralling it towards the waiting effigy. Then at midnight, they would light the specially prepared bonfire, complete with a stuffed dummy perched on top to represent the Mad Monk.

Apparently, it was quite the celebration on campus and the highlight of the fall term. Their Halloween, really.

This year the midshipmen were planning on using a more realistic dummy with a cheap speaker placed in its chest so it sounded as if the dummy were screaming in pain.

One of the midshipmen approached the blackboard where he drew a strange symbol. “We are going to paint this on the dummy. Isn’t it awesome?”

Phoebe couldn’t believe her eyes. It was the symbol carved on both women’s chests. The one the police file said was a pentagram, a satanic symbol. She had always had her doubts but had not been able to find anything on the internet that more closely resembled the symbol. “What does it represent?”

“It’s the Wampanoag’s symbol for a wendigo.”

And the symbol left on her door a couple nights ago.