The Thirteenth Psalm

Florence Frightengale

Welcome back, dear listeners, to another grim tale from the Frightengale Files.

Unknown Speaker

Tonight’s story—oh, it’s not for the faint-hearted. I’d sincerely suggest, uh, keeping the lights on for this one.

Florence Frightengale

Indeed, because there are some whispers best left unheard.

Unknown Speaker

Oh, but, uh, we won’t be leaving them unheard—no, not at all. In fact, Florence, I’d wager this might be one of our most unsettling cases yet. A song that—not to spoil anything—but it quite literally gets under the skin.

Florence Frightengale

Quite right. And for those familiar with how the past tends to leave its imprint, I should warn you—it lingers.

Unknown Speaker

Oh, and lingers it does. Haunting, crawling. Ever heard a tune you couldn’t quite remember where—or why—you heard it? Think carefully about that question as we move forward.

Florence Frightengale

But hold tight to your nerves. Dr. Blackwood and I will guide you through tonight’s unsettling melody—even if some notes are best left unsung.

Unknown Speaker

Her name was Evelyn Harrow. A Sunday school teacher, quiet, devout, unassuming—the sort you’d imagine humming hymns softly as she tidied the pews. But when I first heard her story, it wasn’t hymns I thought of—it was that unsettling melody we spoke of, the one that lingers, restless and haunting.

Florence Frightengale

—something broken yet still reaching, yes? Struck in the square, left shattered, and wheezing like—

Unknown Speaker

—like wind forced through splinters—I know. The horse crushed her ribs clean inward. Her jaw, splintered. But the injuries weren’t what sent chills through the staff, Florence.

Florence Frightengale

No, it was something much worse. The kind of wrongness that lingers in the air before anyone speaks it aloud.

Unknown Speaker

Exactly. It began as a hum. Low, warbling, off-kilter. The staff swore it oozed from the chapel walls themselves, as if the mortar and stone were straining to speak.

Florence Frightengale

But Evelyn… she didn’t just hear it, did she?

Unknown Speaker

No. She sang it back. Matched it perfectly, Florence. A tune—no, more like an echo, threaded in something utterly human but wrong, too. It—it got under the skin. They said even the most composed nurse stopped dead when they heard it.

Florence Frightengale

And in that moment, the hum became more than just a sound. It was a presence, wasn’t it?

Unknown Speaker

Yes… And such a subtle presence at first. You know the kind, creeping unseen until, all at once, you realize it’s been there all along. This wasn’t just a chapel’s hum anymore—it was her voice that bent its shape into something else entirely—

Florence Frightengale

—something that wasn’t hers.

Unknown Speaker

Music, Florence—it has a way of burrowing deeper than sound should go, doesn’t it? That hum, Evelyn’s voice… it was as if it resonated not just in the air but in the marrow of the bones. And not all melodies should be allowed such reach.

Florence Frightengale

Resonate indeed. Though some find that resonance unsettling. Almost a vibration in the fabric of the unseen, wouldn’t you agree?

Unknown Speaker

Exactly my point! And this—this phenomenon, it brings to mind a field hospital I served in during the Crimean War. It was, uh—it was a dismal place, dim and heavy with things unsaid. The men there, Florence, they—they sang…

Florence Frightengale

…to ward off the silence?

Unknown Speaker

Yes. But it wasn’t the sort of singing you’d expect. These weren’t hymns or bawdy drinking songs—no, no. These were lullabies. Low, mournful, forbidden lullabies. Passed on in whispers, you see, songs no one could quite explain how they knew. One man sang of, uh, shadows that walked between tents, and before dawn, he was…

Florence Frightengale

—gone?

Unknown Speaker

Vanished without a trace. And when the others sang his lullaby the next night… well. Let’s just say the field surgeon after me swore the ward grew colder, shadows lengthened, and—

Florence Frightengale

—and not one soldier would dare sing again.

Unknown Speaker

Precisely! It—it was as if the melody had, I don’t know, summoned something. Something that didn’t leave once the singing stopped. And it—it wasn’t unlike Evelyn Harrow’s tune, was it?

Florence Frightengale

Not in the slightest. For what is a melody, after all, but a pattern meant to linger?

Unknown Speaker

A pattern. Yes. Yes, exactly! And this one—the one Evelyn sang—it…it wasn’t just a pattern. It was something ancient, something primal. It sounded as though she—

Florence Frightengale

—wasn’t singing to the living at all.

Unknown Speaker

Florence, the melody… it—it wasn’t merely a sound. It moved like a living thing, didn’t it? And in the chapel, when it reached its crescendo—well, the consequences defy even the darkest logic. Watching the natural world warp at the edges, it was like something ancient had been awakened.

Florence Frightengale

Say what you will, but it wasn’t natural by any stretch, Elijah. Not when the birds fell lifeless from the rafters, wings crumpling mid-flight as if gravity itself had forgotten its manners.

Unknown Speaker

And that nun—oh, poor Sister Mary. Woke up blind the next morning, didn’t she? Despite the physicians’ best efforts, they—they called it inexplicable. But we—we know better now, don’t we?

Florence Frightengale

We do. Because Evelyn’s voice was never just hers. Those voices, Elijah. Foreign, fragmented, speaking in tongues that no scholar on staff could decipher.

Unknown Speaker

But they weren’t hers! That—that’s what makes it all the more maddening! You see, those voices—they spoke of things no Sunday school teacher could ever know. Histories unrecorded, warnings stitched into shadows.

Florence Frightengale

And it was enough to send the staff trembling. Enough to prompt the authorities—the so-called rational ones—to take… drastic measures, wasn’t it?

Unknown Speaker

Drastic? Florence, they—hrm—they stitched her mouth shut. With thread like, uh, burnt hair. Can you imagine the corners of her lips splitting with every desperate movement to speak?

Florence Frightengale

Oh, I don’t have to imagine, Elijah. I’ve seen what desperation does to the body when it’s forced into silence. But did it stop her? Was there even a moment’s peace?

Unknown Speaker

No. Not one. Because of course it didn’t work. They rushed the paperwork, sent her away to bury the problem… literally. Anything to avoid questions, to avoid scrutiny.

Florence Frightengale

Quietly, they said. As if the truth would dissolve under the weight of their indifference.

Unknown Speaker

Exactly. But Florence—the truth doesn’t, uh, bury so easily, does it? Not when her lips still moved beneath the stitches. Whispering—

Florence Frightengale

“Come not in peace, but in the hush, where breath forgets, and bones grow lush.”

Unknown Speaker

Yes! Yes! And Florence—Florence, what do you make of that? Not peace, but the hush? It’s—

Florence Frightengale

—precisely what I’d expect from such a darkness. The marks it leaves, that uncanny aftermath—it doesn’t vanish, Elijah. It clings like a shadow that’s grown wiser than the light.

Florence Frightengale

Speaking of that lingering darkness, Elijah, it reminds me of an old ward—a place where, they said, the sound of a hymn could snuff out the lights. Imagine, despair so heavy it erased the very glow meant to guide us.

Unknown Speaker

Oh, you’ve got my attention. Tell me—you’re not suggesting some spiritual blackout, are you?

Florence Frightengale

I very well might be. Patients in that ward always claimed to hear low humming—or more accurately, one patient hummed, and the others would shudder as the lights flickered.

Unknown Speaker

Humming? That’s it? Florence, I’ve—I’ve heard some truly bizarre tales, but a simple hum—

Florence Frightengale

It wasn’t simple, Elijah. Not once staff noticed the pattern. Each time their voice strained, each note pressed onward, the lights would dim. By the third night, the electricity failed entirely, all at once.

Unknown Speaker

Wait, wait. Entirely? As in no power at all? Surely there were, uh, reasonable explanations for—

Florence Frightengale

None. The backup generators refused to start. Flashlights sputtered and died in nurses’ hands. Even candles burned low, struggling against some unseen weight pressing down… like the air itself rebelled against the light.

Unknown Speaker

Now that is disturbing. And let’s just, uh, say, for the sake of curiosity, someone went to check the source?

Florence Frightengale

They did. A young nurse ventured into the humming patient’s room, brave as she was foolish. She thought perhaps—

Unknown Speaker

—a radio, hidden somewhere. A trick. Standard deduction, yes? But, uh, let me guess, Florence—it wasn’t that simple.

Florence Frightengale

Not in the slightest. When she entered, she found the patient seated upright. The humming had stopped, but their lips still trembled as if… well, as if the song hadn’t.

Unknown Speaker

Stopped? But continued elsewhere? Florence, are you suggesting the melody extended beyond physical bounds?

Florence Frightengale

I’m suggesting it was never bound at all. When she approached—to wake them, perhaps, or pray for them—the humming returned. Not from their lips, but from the walls themselves.

Unknown Speaker

From the walls. Good heavens, Florence. And what happened to—

Florence Frightengale

She fled. As anyone would. But each step she took seemed to echo back at her, like the walls themselves were trailing the tune behind her.

Unknown Speaker

And the patient? They just… sat there, undisturbed?

Florence Frightengale

Unmoved. Though their face bore the strain of someone holding a scream beneath their skin. And then—

Unknown Speaker

—and then?

Florence Frightengale

The humming ceased entirely. By morning, the patient was gone. Not a trace left in that ward, not even their records.

Unknown Speaker

Gone? Florence, you mean to say they—

Florence Frightengale

Whatever haunted them, Elijah, had found another way through.

Unknown Speaker

Florence, what truly haunts me is this—when the patient vanished, leaving no trace, was it an act of mercy? Or perhaps something darker, a presence claiming what was never meant to linger in our world?

Florence Frightengale

I’d wager it means neither, Elijah. Not when the soul that was meant to rest is still restless, still searching. And Evelyn Harrow… well, her unrest wasn’t just palpable—it was deliberate.

Unknown Speaker

Deliberate, yes. Her lips—Florence, they moved beneath stitches woven so cruelly you’d think silence had become a punishment, a last resort. And what did she whisper? It wasn’t for peace. It wasn’t for salvation. It was a whisper meant to—and these are her words, remember—rend the veil open.

Florence Frightengale

“Come not in peace, but in the hush.” Those words, Elijah, they weren’t simply spoken—they were carved into the fabric of her final moments. Her deathbed wasn’t quiet. It was… waiting.

Unknown Speaker

Exactly! Waiting. For what, though? Some manner of, uh, crossing? Something ancient? Her lips barely moved, yet that whisper—it… chilled me. And worse, Florence—it lingered. Her absence wasn’t the absence of a soul at rest. It was the absence of a body left behind!

Florence Frightengale

And they buried her, didn’t they? An empty vessel placed beneath the soil. A ritual fulfilled, but devoid of meaning. Her family never questioned. Why should they, when grief blinds the logic of the moment?

Unknown Speaker

And that casket—so light, so devoid of human weight. I—I looked, Florence. I had to. Not out of callousness, but… necessity. I looked upon the empty space where her body, torn and stitched, should’ve been.

Florence Frightengale

And yet she wasn’t gone. Not really. Whatever whisper she carried beneath her lips had found another way, hadn’t it?

Unknown Speaker

Oh, it had. And that’s the terrifying part, Florence—it wasn’t fear, not in the conventional sense. It was understanding. A dreadful, aching clarity that this wasn’t death. This was migration. Her silence wasn’t an end—it was another beginning.

Florence Frightengale

And what haunts me most, Elijah, is her warning. That ragged, muffled chant beneath the linen. “Bones grow lush,” she said. What grows in the silence left behind? What thrives when the veil is torn but unhealed?

Unknown Speaker

A haunting thought, Florence. Do restless things ever stop, or do they simply, uh, adapt? Find new ways to exist, to persist?

Florence Frightengale

Restless things, Elijah, are rarely silenced. The ways they find? Let’s just say they’re never bound to the coffin, no matter how deep it's buried.

Unknown Speaker

Florence, considering all we’ve seen, I must ask—are rituals nothing more than echoes of some forgotten need? Performed no longer in understanding, but simply out of habit, even when the purpose behind them has long since slipped away?

Florence Frightengale

Oh, many times. Hospitals, Elijah, thrive on rituals—both for comfort and compliance. A nurse lighting a candle before a prayer, a patient humming on the cusp of anesthesia… These small acts feel harmless, don’t they?

Unknown Speaker

They do. Harmless—or so we assume. But what if… what if those acts weren’t harmless at all? What if they left—oh, I don’t know—a door slightly ajar? A way for something unseen to slip through undetected?

Florence Frightengale

A veil left untouched, yet whispering at its edges. Indeed, Elijah, hospitals are steeped in such contradictions. Rituals meant to heal, yet some hum so close to the threshold of the unknown that they… invite it.

Unknown Speaker

Precisely! And music, Florence—music. Think of it: frequencies, resonance, vibrations. These aren’t just sounds—they’re tools. Who’s to say that a certain melody, performed under, uh, peculiar conditions, wouldn’t act as… as a key?

Florence Frightengale

A key to what, Elijah? Or rather, to where? Beyond the veil? Beyond silence? Music has always been a curious companion to death and grief. In its simplicity, it lingers where no words belong.

Unknown Speaker

Yes! Yes, exactly. And, uh, history isn’t without precedent. Consider the Orphean myths, Florence—the power of a single melody to charm even death itself. But what if the charm wasn’t to soothe? What if… it was to summon?

Florence Frightengale

Summon or snare. Oh, Elijah, think of Evelyn’s tune. It wasn’t a melody meant to lull—it was one meant to seed unease. It twisted through the air like a vine searching for purchase, didn’t it?

Unknown Speaker

It did. It grew. It infected anyone who heard it. This sort of pattern—it’s not just sound. It’s not just music. It’s, uh, intent. A deliberate weaving of something more terrible than words alone could capture.

Florence Frightengale

And those hospital rituals you’ve mentioned, Elijah—I can’t help but wonder. How many of them skirt the same edge, even unknowingly?

Unknown Speaker

Oh, far too many, I’d wager. When something lingers long enough—an action, a song—a presence follows. Hospitals are, well, not just homes for healing, Florence. They’re crossroads for the living and the dead, rife with unspoken transactions.

Florence Frightengale

And unknowing participants. Rituals have meaning, Elijah, even when forgotten by those who perform them. A melody hummed by a nurse. A mourner’s final prayer whispered too deeply into the night. The veil doesn’t distinguish between reverence and routine, does it?

Unknown Speaker

Not in the slightest. That’s—that’s the chilling part, Florence! One moment, you’re humming a song you’ve known all your life—and the next, you’re realizing you never learned it. It—it simply arrived. And by then—

Florence Frightengale

—by then, it’s already too late.

Florence Frightengale

So, as we stand on the cusp of understanding these mysteries—these lingering songs and shadowed rituals—I wonder, Elijah, what threads we’ll unravel next? And to our dear listeners, I’ll leave you with this thought—

Unknown Speaker

—or perhaps, Florence, a warning.

Florence Frightengale

Quite right, Elijah. A warning, then. Be mindful of the melodies that nestle in your thoughts unbidden.

Unknown Speaker

For what hums quietly, unnoticed at first, may soon demand your attention—and not always gently.

Florence Frightengale

Ah, but you needn’t wander too far. After all, Elijah and I will be back soon with another story to haunt you just so.

Unknown Speaker

Indeed. So, keep your senses sharp, your doors secured… and your playlists, uh, carefully curated.

Florence Frightengale

And if you find yourself craving more of our chilling files, do visit patreon.com/FlorenceFrightengale. Who knows? You might unlock whispers best left unheard.

Unknown Speaker

Oh, and of course, Florence’s latest book—“The Frightengale Files: The Grimoire of Hollow Hill.” Brilliant work, absolutely spine-tingling. Available now on Amazon.

Florence Frightengale

Why thank you, Elijah. And with that, dear listeners, rest easy—or perhaps… don’t.