People are buried beneath the mound over which my little children tumble. Kings and queens, knights and priests, they all raise a contemptuous wail when my pretty ones cartwheel and roll down the side of the mound.

All the while, the smile my children think is for them is actually for the souls they cannot yet feel beneath them.

These souls began to visit me months ago in my sleep. Pagans and faeries haunted my slumber, tempting me with blasphemous thoughts about my God. With tooth and nail I fought these urges in my dreams, until I found a way to slight them in the daylight.

My babies think I’m quirky for wanting to lounge upon a sacred stronghold. They listen to my stories of the heretical heathens with horrified delight, and beam with relief as I end each story with how Heaven’s gates are forever shut for creatures such as they.

The voices assault me with a cacophony of slurs and insults, attempting to drown me in their outrage. But my little ones tug my hand. It’s my turn to cartwheel over the dead.