The Psalm of Ashen Silk

I go for my son.

A lie, whispered to God and myself every Friday as I lead Quasimodo from the sanctuary of Notre Dame to the sin of the street faire. I go for his smile, for his enjoyment. More lies.

I go for her: The Embermage.

She is temptation. She is forbidden. She is sin—yet one I cannot resist. Her fire calls to a darkness deep within me, stirring feelings and urges that must remain buried. For months, I've watched from the safety of the crowd: to look, but to never, ever touch.

Until one night, when I'm far too close. She perceives me, beckons to me... then touches me, leaving her scarf as a favor of the occasion. I should discard it, surrender it to my priest at my next confession, or Hell, even burn it. But I don't.

I allow her name to fester on my lips, a wretched, sinful psalm, and desire one thing above all else, even my God's forgiveness:

The night she'll scream my name, not His.

The Psalm of Ashen Silk is the prequel novella to a series of sapphic retellings of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of Notre Dame series: where Hunchback collides with The Phantom of the Opera in the streets of gothic Paris. These LGBT+ dark fantasy romances are as steamy as they are twisted, and are intended for a mature adult audience.

Please note: while Claude and Esmeralda remain the main characters of every book, they will add partners of various genders to their consensually polyamorous relationship over the course of the series.

Claude

Father Laurent was late.

Or perhaps I was early, too anxious to pay proper attention to the time. I counted my heartbeats, then the faint tolling of Notre Dame’s bells: two quick pulses, a hush, another two. Quasimodo would be up in the belltower now, serving his afternoon shift before being released to spend the evening with me. It was that knowledge alone that kept me from spiraling.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” The hollow words caught in my throat. My existence was perhaps the greatest sin of all, but that was why I was here—to pay my penance any way I could. Inhaling deeply, I willed my racing thoughts to be still, fixating on the mesh of the confession booth grating.

The door creaked open, and whether my flinch was from surprise or anticipation, it was hard to say. Father Laurent settled on his side with the weary resignation of a man who bore daily witness to Paris’s most abject failings, and I was one of them. The curtain between us fluttered, the scent of Laurent’s pipe tobacco mingling with the incense residue seeped in the wood.

“Speak, child,” he said at last.

I bit my tongue, tasting blood, and recalled the progression of sins I rehearsed. Not the real ones, of course. The safe ones: pride, envy, anger.

“I… I have harbored thoughts again,” I said, and Laurent exhaled through his nose.

“Of what nature?”

Ah, yes. The familiar test of concealing the truth in acceptable words. “Of the flesh,” I said honestly, and wanted to die from shame. Just this morning, I shooed the choir woman I took to my bed last night from my chambers mere hours before dawn. “I have tried to fast, but temptation—”

“Temptation is a demon with many faces,” Father Laurent interrupted. “Do not think you alone are plagued by it.” His tone was cautious, as if the devil himself had rules for how much sympathy to extend to a creature like me. I clenched my fists, feeling the crisp edge of my sleeve against my knuckles.

“Go on,” he prompted, quieter. “What do you wish to confess?”

What I wanted and what I should confess were two entirely different beasts.

I should confess that every Friday, the moment the cathedral’s shadow swept over the river Seine, I returned to my office and locked the door, letting my mind—and too often, my hands—slip into forbidden territory. I should confess that my thoughts of The Embermage had grown more obsessive, possessive, and lustful. I should confess that every waking moment, I pictured her captivating smile.

And God, I wanted––I wanted her so badly it hurt. I wanted to touch, to taste, to let her devour me––if that's what she wished. I envied the way she commanded a crowd with nothing but a flick of her wrist, her confidence, her laugh. The Embermage's very existence was so at odds with my own, yet it made me wonder what it would be like to break free. To leave behind the doctrine and vows by which I lived my life, and step out, wholly myself, into the world.

Such want was not just dangerous. It was impossible.