The Unfinished Antiphon

The autumn fair by St. Dymphna’s had been a blur of caramel apples and hayrides, but by the time the last booth shuttered and the fairy lights dimmed, the chill of October had settled into our bones. My brother Elias and I waited at the bus stop, our breath fogging in the twilight, when the heavy oak doors of the church—still ajar for evening prayer—offered a silent reprieve.

We slipped inside, the warmth of the votive candles washing over us. The nave was empty, save for the flickering ruby sanctuary lamp and the faint scent of old incense. We sank into a back pew, our shoulders relaxing. I glanced at my watch: 7:40. The sexton would lock up at eight.

Elias shifted, then stiffened. ‘Something touched my shoulder,’ he whispered, his voice taut. I rolled my eyes, a smirk playing on my lips. I recalled a silly urban legend from our childhood—a tale from a friend’s grandmother about a ghost tapping the left shoulder of a girl who looked and vanished. ‘Don’t turn around,’ I said, my tone mocking. ‘You know what happened to that girl in the story.’

The silence that followed was heavy, like the air before a storm. Then, from the direction of the altar, a voice—dry as fallen leaves—murmured words that did not belong to our tongue. ‘Melius widelint werebuntur.’ My blood went cold. There was no priest, no sacristan, no one else in the church. Elias shot up from the pew and bolted down the aisle, his footsteps echoing off the vaulted ceiling. I laughed, a nervous bark, but when I turned to follow, a figure stood at the altar rail—a dark silhouette, featureless, simply there.

I didn’t wait. I fled into the night, catching up to Elias at the bus stop, both of us breathless. We exchanged a look that said everything: we had heard it. We said nothing else, but the words gnawed at me.

Back home, I scoured the internet, my fingers trembling over the keyboard. The phrase was a mangled Latin, but I found a link: ‘Melius viderint verebuntur’—’They who see better will fear.’ The dark web page whispered of an old rite conducted at St. Dymphna’s, where an altar boy claimed to have seen a ‘face in the candle smoke’ and was never the same. The rite was meant to open one’s eyes to the ‘true choir’—the unseen congregation that sang the antiphons no one else could hear.

I realized, with a sickening lurch, that the phrase wasn’t a warning; it was an invitation. And now that we had heard it, we were part of that unseen choir. Elias began hearing things at night—soft chants, the rustle of vestments, footsteps in the hallway. I dismissed it as nerves, until I caught him standing at the foot of my bed one night, his eyes wide and unblinking, whispering, ‘The choir is missing a voice.’

Last night, I woke to find my own reflection in the bathroom mirror not moving with me. It smiled—a slow, deliberate smile—and mouthed the words ‘melius widelint werebuntur.’ I screamed, but no sound came out. The reflection reached out, its hand pressing against the glass, and I felt a cold touch on my shoulder—my left shoulder. I refused to turn. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed, but the chant only grew louder, a polyphony of whispers from every corner of the house.

Now, as I write this, Elias sits in the corner of my room, humming a tune I’ve never heard but somehow know. His head is tilted at an unnatural angle, and his eyes are fixed on something beyond the window. I don’t know how long I can resist the pull of that unseen choir. But I know one thing: when they ask you to turn, you must not. Because once you see them, you’ll never stop seeing them—and they will never stop singing.