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The history tomes will never mention the walled city of Gresit. When scholars write about the time when Wallachia tasted a mere drop of the end times as foretold within the Book of Apokalypsis, they will mention that fated day in Targoviste. When Hell came to its streets and the gutters grew clogged with severed limbs and half eaten vital organs. Every gory, miserable little detail of how a once grand city feel along with others of its stature.
Historians only wish to be accurate, though some might find a sick pleasure in this work. The righteous may feel a sense of validation after enduring those Sunday teachings of their youth. But their ink will never spell out the word Gresit, a city whose very name dictated its destiny—the wrong city. If they do, it will be a footnote, a brief sentence if the writer feels generous.
There will be no talk of Gresit's former Bishop, whose body disappeared after searchers found his blood staining the very altar he held dominion over. No word of the final night raid where more inhabitants survived than succumbed to their grisly predetermined deaths. And there will be no thanks to three certain individuals who saved a city, then a country both thought to be long past salvation.
The priest is at peace with these revelations. He doesn't want those university taught historians and scholars combing through the streets, into people's homes and lives, tearing open scars that don't belong to them. Wounds they never had to bear on their own bodies or minds. Gresit was never meant to have a place in their books, and it never should. If its people can be left alone to heal and come to terms with what survived and what didn't during those dark times, then the priest will be a happy man. Content to offer a place of refuge that once festered with corrupt deeds while housing the very hands that committed them.
He wants to live a simple life, sweeping the floors of the new Gresit chapel with its white walls bare of any baroque indulgence and humble architecture. Sermons are over for the day and the last penitent soul left the confessional booth not too long ago. All who remain include himself, a few other priests more akin to night owls, and his broom as it cleans the entrance.
The chapel is quiet, as is his mind. Yet the priest knows that eventually when he lays his head upon the tough pillow of his bed, it will come to life. Visions of when he volunteered to create holy water after witnessing the worst of humanity and inhumanity. One brave act wasn't enough to stave off unwelcome dreams. So the priest works the nights away, taking care of his chapel, seeking comfort in his God's presence, dim as it may feel at times. Always hoping that the morning light will make sleeping easier.
"Are you staying, Father?" A cloistered brother asks the priest while others make their way outside. Their soft footsteps against the stone floors echo throughout and the chapel feels much larger, far emptier than in actuality.
"The candles still burn bright with God's light," he replies. "I will stay until they go out." It is true; things do seem brighter inside when daylight runs its due course. The dark circles and lines of skin beneath weary eyes belonging to himself and his brothers become clearer by candlelight.
“Come and rest, Father. I assure you the House of God will remain untouched throughout the night.”
“Yes, but that includes its cobwebs and dust.” The priest’s attempt at lightheartedness falls upon deaf ears. “One feels safer within its walls.”
“You concern yourself too much. There is nothing outside for us to fear anymore. This city and its people are safe.”
“It is not what might be outside that concerns me…” The priest lifts a fingertip to his temple. “But rather what might be inside here.”
“Retire to your bedchamber, my friend. Say your nightly prayers to Him and he will grant you peace throughout the night. In nomine Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sanсti .” He signs the cross over the priest before finishing the prayer with an “amen”. His words are genuine yet the priest cannot heed them, not yet, and instead watches him leave through the front doors. He is alone, but not entirely.
His heart beats wildly against its cage when he sees the darkly dressed figure sitting on one of the frontmost benches, closest to the altar. From a distance, he notices a long cascade of hair draped over the backrest along with two elbows propped up. They seem relaxed, somewhat slouched—not in the least bit reverent. Still, the chapel welcomes all. But what bothers the priest the most is how he never saw the stranger enter…
“I didn’t hear you come in.” He says, his voice elevated yet awkward. The figure’s gaze remains its fixation on the altar.
“I don’t like making an entrance.” The words come out smooth, low, and with a darkness to them.
“For a moment, I thought you were a ghostly vision.” The priest walks down the centre aisle, broom still in hand. Again, no turn of the head from his visitor.
“You believe in ghosts and spirits, Father.”
“I believe in many things.” Closer now and the priest at last notices the slight gleam of sharp steel propped up close against the stranger’s side. The sight of such weaponry doesn’t shock him, even in the House of God. In these times, it would be foolish of someone to not carry a dagger or rapier of sorts. But it leaves him no less cautious.
“Lately I’ve found my beliefs and teachings to be true.”
“So you felt validated when Hell opened up and nearly swallowed this country whole.”
The priest’s grip on his composure begins to loosen. “Never. Why would I feel validation or satisfaction in the suffering of others? To see those… things terrorize innocents?”
The stranger lowers his head, face obscured behind locks of golden hair. Too beautiful for one who makes bold accusations. “Not all of them were innocent.”
“Who are you? Why have you come here?”
“My apologies. I didn’t come to antagonize you. I don’t… usually come to these places at all.” His arms slide off the backrest, resting gloved hands in his lap. “I want to confess.”
The request catches the priest off guard. He’s heard it many times before; flippantly, with haste, sometimes through tears. There’s no emotion in the visitor’s voice, but the weight is no less felt. The priest is good at assuming a person’s character just from the way they speak the words “I wish to confess”. Even better at forgoing his own personal judgements when he hears them.
This is the first time a blank slate of a man has been presented to him.
“Have I come too late in the day?” The stranger asks, his face always obscured.
“Of course not,” the priest briefly stammers. “However I must ask... you said you never attend these places. Why seek reconciliation with God now?”
“I do not merely seek forgiveness. Nor do I fear eternal damnation.”
“But you are lost by sin all the same.”
A gloved hand clenches within itself. “I only wish to be heard.”
“Very well.” The priest places the sad broom along a nearby bench and gently gestures for the stranger to follow him. “Come. I shall guide you through this process.”
The supposed penitent one does not take his hand or look him in the eye but follows regardless towards a set of three conjoined rooms, each one covered by a thick curtain. The priest enters through the middle while the other man slips into the right sided one, separated by a thin wall with individual crosses carved out of the wood. His face turns even more distorted, barely helped by the candlelight below his chin.
Once both men are seated, the air turns cold. The priest, now close enough, can feel something emanating from within the opposite room. There’s anger, quiet yet burning, bitterness, and… sadness. Then the confessor speaks.
“What do I say?”
“You begin with ‘Bless me Father, for I have sinned’ and reveal how long it’s been since your last confession.”
“But I haven’t come to confess my past sins.”
“Then what have you come for?” This doesn’t seem right, but the priest will see this through to the end. He has never been one to reject a man seeking redemption and never will be.
“I am lost by sin, yes, but I seek no absolution for what I have done. Instead I want to be absolved for what I will do once I leave this box.” The priest hears movement from the other room, as though someone were pressing their lips against the separation wall. “Bless me Father, for the sin I shall commit.”
“... I see.” His voice is calm, despite the nervous wringing of his hands. “And what if I were to stop you from committing this future sin?”
“How would you go about that?”
“The only way I know—with words.”
“You would deter me off this predetermined path of mine.”
“That is what I meant by ‘words’.”
A dark chuckle, or rather a scoff. “And what if you can’t?”
“We cannot absolve everyone of their sins or wrongdoings, honest as our attempts may be, but we still try because it is His will. Have you already forgotten whose house you’re in, my boy?”
“My father used to take pieces of the very churches he desecrated and mount them as though they were trophies.”
The statement sends a sharp pain from the priest’s gut up towards his chest. He remains steadfast, taking notice of how much younger the stranger sounds the angrier he becomes. Maybe he is just a boy; a lost, confused boy.
“Your father was a conqueror, then? We may feel the call to become like our families, inherit all of their sins, but it does not mean we have to answer it.”
Something slams into the wall of the confessional from the inside; a fist perhaps, knocking the priest off his fragile equilibrium. He hears a growl beside him, low and animalistic, before it fades. He continues after hearing no other response in the hopes that he will sooth whatever personal demon he unwittingly agitated.
“Tell me more about your past sins. What did you do?”
“I shed human blood.”
“What was it over? Money? Anger?”
“I was manipulated, my trust betrayed. They held my life in their hands and trapped me into a corner so I did what I had to in order to save myself.” His voice wavers slightly; enough for the priest to once again recognize that lost boy.
“So you acted in self defence. All of God’s creatures react violently when threatened. It’s one of the many reasons as to how we humans have existed for so long. What else did you do?”
“... nothing.” He lies, but the priest won’t press on. The specifics of past sins are not the focus of this incredibly unorthodox confession.
“And this premeditated sin you speak of, what are you planning to do?”
“There’s this woman,” the stranger begins his story, pausing with no rhyme or reason, as though he were omitting certain details. “She accused my mother of a crime she did not commit. Now my mother is dead, executed because of that accusation, and the woman carries on with her life without consequence.”
“You plan on killing her.”
“You claim that God forgives murder under self retaliation. This woman hurt my family. I am acting in my own defence and the defence of others she might harm.”
“What you’re referring to is not self defence, it’s revenge.”
“You’re against it.”
“I am against all forms of murder, but revenge rarely brings us an outcome we desire.”
“This will bring me peace.”
The priest mulls over his next inquiry thoughtfully. “Tell me, did you feel any peace when you killed your own agitators?”
No answer, only a few hastily silenced stutters; words that are never given the chance to become fully formed. “If it is vengeance you desire, then why not bring this woman to those who will rightfully judge her actions?”
“Those very same people took her words as truth when she accused my mother. I will judge her myself.”
“Now you’re speaking of vigilantism.” The priest can feel him growing more frustrated with things he doesn’t want to hear. He knows he might be putting his own meager life at risk if he continues to speak. And still, the confessor never attacks, never puts his sword to use. This hesitance, this refusal, it all tells the priest enough about his character and soul.
“My son, you haven’t come here seeking absolution. You’ve come seeking validation and I regret to say that I cannot give it to you. It also makes my heart heavy to know that I cannot convince you otherwise.”
“So… you’ll let me leave. Just like that. You won’t tell anyone about this.”
“Whatever is said in this booth remains between me, the confessor, and God. I don’t believe you’re a murderer. Just someone who has been hurt and wishes to understand that pain but instead chooses to let it blind him. But you should not be shamed for it. I will pray that you find a better path for yourself, one that will let you heal.”
“... not many men of the cloth would say something like that.”
“Then I will continue to set a good example.” While the stranger was never asking for it, the priest will deliver him absolution. It may be in vain, but he will give it regardless. “ Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat; et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo ab omni vinculo excommunicationis et interdicti in quantum possum et tu indiges. Deinde, ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. ”
A moment of quiet passes before the stranger opens his curtain and steps out into the chapel, a series of careful footsteps following him. The priest emerges as well, a little bit rushed, and is granted a better view of his confessor’s back. His golden hair, seeming longer than when the priest first saw it, sways with every singular movement and drapes over his broad shoulders. He keeps the thin sword close to his side.
It’s a foolish thought, suddenly formed in his mind and one with little evidence, but curiosity is never a sin in the priest’s eyes. “One more thing.” The stranger stops, listening intently. “Months ago when this city was under siege, a group of nomads called the Speakers came here in search of a man they called the sleeping soldier. They believed in a prophecy that foretold of an unnamed saviour who resided beneath the catacombs, waiting to be awoken. Others thought it to be heretical nonsense.”
“What did you think?”
“Only a story. But people like me have always been known to believe in saviours, and it came true, but no one in Gresit knows what became of the sleeping soldier. What do you think happened to him?”
“... I heard he died.”
The stranger leaves without ever showing his face.
Healers don’t necessarily love their patients, but they do care for them in whatever ways possible. The healer of Cergău Mic and its surrounding villages does this very well. On the cusp of middle age, she fashions her remedies day by day and night by night for her people so that they may live to work and farm and make families of their own.
Real remedies from real medicine; not from pagan origins or tools meant to deceive. She’s glad to have the nearby township of Lupu in her care. It means more work to be done, but the healer will gladly do it. At least the villagers are safe in her hands—their coins even safer in her pockets.
The last patient of the day left a little more than an hour ago into the darkness and quiet of night. Now she staves off sleep by making sure her medicinal cabinets are all in order. Drawers filled with herbal leaves that taste like bitter bile but one must chew regardless if they wish to dispel a violent cough. Surgical instruments, mostly used for bloodletting, which she cleans every week or every day if they are used frequently. She moves towards the more unsavoury part of her workshop, standing before wooden tables lined with jars of live leeches, boiled down pig fat, and the teeth she pulled out herself from the mouths of past patients. Those will be ground into fine dust, used for powder.
Of course the healer will say with utmost honesty that her remedies work, even the ones that take the most time. She wasn’t born into this life, instead falling into it. But her clinic has never been raided, turned upside down by church officials. When they did come, they approved of her methods so long as she revered God and acted in accordance with His intent. An easy compromise for a person of her upbringing.
The smell of oncoming rain wafting through the open windows distracts the healer. She stares outside at empty nothingness, listening to the leaves as they rustle with the breeze. It was raining hard that night when they… she quickly dispels that memory. It’s long past and she doubts anyone else remembers it. If they do, perhaps they choose to bury it deeper and deeper so that it never resurfaces.
A sudden knock at the door makes her jump. She gathers herself, straightening out her dress, and opens it, surprised by the sight standing in front of her. Her repertoire of patients consists of elders, foolish children, and farmers who are even more foolish with their wellbeing (or lack thereof). The man on her doorstep looks healthy in his delicately handsome face, long hair, and humble posture, not a single blemish or limp; nothing of the sort to be seen. Even his eyes, soft in the light of the fire within her cottage, seem barely glazed over.
“Sorry to disturb you at such a late hour.” His low voice sends a pleasant shock through the healer’s bones.
“N-no, it’s quite fine really. Can I help you?”
“I’m in need of some medicine and I was told that you were the only physicist in this area.”
“Are you unwell?”
“You could say that. If it’s too much trouble, I can return in the morning.”
No cough, no raspiness in his voice, nothing to indicate serious illness. Yet his polite, calm demeanour coupled with her own sense of duty are enough for the healer to open her door a little wider. “No, please. Come inside, I can tend to you right now. Come, before the rain starts up.”
The young man bows courteously as he enters into the warmth and light of the healer’s home. “You are too kind.”
“May I take your coat and gloves, sir?” Before she can place a hand on his shoulders, he shifts away from her.
“No need to trouble yourself. I can keep them on.”
The healer nods, a silent way of saying ‘suit yourself’. “Can I at least offer you some tea before I attend to you?”
“That would be lovely.” They make their way down the hall then into the main living area kept warm and bright thanks to a well-fed fireplace. As the man seats himself at the centre table, the flames dance within the glow of his peculiar eyes, a striking amber gold. One can get lost in those eyes if they’re not careful and the healer has always been careful. Yet even she nearly forgets her own suggestion of tea.
“Make yourself at home. I’ll be right back.” It only takes her a moment to retreat into the kitchen and prepare tea that tastes even more bitter than the medicines in her separate cabinets. How did that other woman greet her patients? Did she do it like this? Was she truly as kind, as hospitable as everyone said she was?
Another unwelcome memory; the healer stamps it down just as quick as all the others that came before it. She returns carrying two cups of hot tea and places one in front of her own patient. He holds delicately it in his lithe gloved hands, but never tastes the liquid.
“You seem tired, sir. How far have you traveled?”
Those golden, somber eyes are downcast yet his polite smile, the one he wore while standing out in the almost rain, remains. “Far enough. I remembered there being a doctor in the village of Lupu but when I arrived there, I found no one. Then I was promptly directed towards your practice.”
The healer takes a sip from her cup despite it being too hot. She seems calm, collected, desperate to mask something from the man. “Pardon me, sir, but I think you might have originally been misinformed. Lupu never had its own healer. I’m the only one for this township and others close by.”
“Surely that must get overwhelming for just one person.”
“There’s never a shortage of work, believe me. But it’s work that I’m glad to do. Now, tell me what ails you.”
“A few days ago, I accidentally scalded myself on some hot metal. I work as a blacksmith’s apprentice and thought I could handle it until the burn healed on its own, but…” Setting aside the untouched cup of tea, he pushes down the cuff of his glove and rolls up his sleeve, revealing only his wrist and the scar encircling it. The tender piece of skin is dark pink, raw and inflamed, a burn that hasn’t had enough time to properly heal. The healer tries silencing any gasps of shock which might escape from her mouth.
“Forgive me, I know I should have visited sooner.”
She takes a closer look at the wound. He says he’s a blacksmith’s apprentice with no coal smears gracing his cheeks, no dirt upon his clothes, and his hands softer than a twig of Lamb’s Ear. And yet the burn looks real and in no way self inflicted.
“I think I have a cream that will help soothe it. Wait here and keep it exposed.” Before the healer can disappear again, her patient speaks up.
“Would it be alright if I saw your workshop? I don’t mean to seem distrustful but I’m curious about how the… medical profession works.”
An innocent, curious request which the healer grants her utmost permission. Every patient has the right to know what goes into her remedies and she has nothing to hide. “Right this way. Watch your step.” She leads him into the other room filled with its hanging herbs, bottles, and jars among many other instruments of healing. He remains ever patient while she rummages through drawer after drawer. Perhaps she’ll need to better organize everything once he leaves.
“Ah, here it is.” She turns to him with a small glass container that fits neatly in the centre of her palm. “This will help. Gently apply a healthy amount directly onto the burn every morning and every night before you go to bed, and it should bring down any swelling or infection.”
“What’s it made from?” The man asks after being handed the cream. He removes the lid and inspects the contents; most of the healer’s other patients are never this thorough.
“Cow’s milk, honey, and crushed mint leaves as an additive. Can you smell it?”
“No, I can’t.” His voice changes, hardening like steel along with his expression. Not a gradual shift but a sudden, unprompted one. “Because you didn’t use mint.”
“I’m sorry…? Are you accusing me of something, sir?”
“This isn’t mint, it’s stinging nettle. They grow in dense patches and touching a single leaf can cause rashes, blistering, and a sharp painful stinging sensation that can last for an entire day, sometimes even longer. Stinging nettle does bear a certain similarity to mint so it does not surprise me how a person could confuse the two plants. What does surprise… or rather disgusts me is how you of all people could still include it into your antidotes and pass if off as some harmless herb even after you touched it yourself.”
The gleam in those golden eyes turns darker and the healer finds herself unconsciously backed into an unseen corner, a scared animal caught off their weakened guard. Any fleeting incentive to defend her livelihood was crushed as soon as the man began his sudden tirade, piercing right through her. She really didn’t know which plant she was picking during that inconsequential day in the forest but convinced herself that she did. She was right, she had to be.
“You are… quite knowledgeable. I-I must have made a mistake, let me find you something else—”
Something shatters at her feet, quick and angry. The healer looks down, her body trembling in shock, and sees the very same jar in pieces, the milky white cream a sickening smear upon the floor. Words like a growl follow this first act of violence. “Touch one more thing and I will shove your head into that pot of leeches.”
The healer freezes in place, eyes wide. So terrified, a willing victim of her own cowardice, she can’t bring herself to face the man. Even when he steps forward, cornering her even further. “That is the second time you’ve lied to me. If you wish for this to be over quickly, pray you don’t lie a third time.”
“I’ll scream… I’ll scream for help.”
“There’s not another home for miles and you know that. Tell me about the doctor from Lupu.”
“I already told you, they didn’t have a doc—”
No time for the healer to finish her answer before her assailant pushes her against the nearest wall at what must have been inhuman speed. She feels a few broken ribs.
“Third lie. The doctor from Lupu, what was her name?”
“There wasn’t a doctor in Lupu!” At the sound of her raised, desperate voice, the man violently bashes the back of the healer’s head against stone and wood. Not hard enough to break, but enough to hopefully assist her apparently poor memory.
“Fourth. Her name. I want to hear you say it.”
“Tepes! Dr. Tepes! That’s what everyone called her. But she’s gone now. I don’t know anything else about her, I swear.”
“Why did she leave?” No reply, only pitiful whimpers. His fist collides with the healer’s stomach; another broken rib, another pained scream. “Why did she leave?”
“She didn’t leave! She was taken… taken to Targoviste.”
“Why?”
“There were rumours… s-she dabbled in witchcraft and the dark arts. Please let me go, I’ve told you everything.”
“Why did you accuse her?”
“... what?” Pain, the agonizing and constant sort, assaults the healer’s body when the man throws her against the table.
“Why did you accuse Lisa Tepes of witchcraft?”
“Stop! I’m begging you! Please!” The words come out as sobbing panic-stricken shrieks. He doesn’t listen to them. Picking up the healer by her tangled hair so that she may look at him, he carries on with his interrogation.
“All she wanted was to help others. Educate them. She was a good doctor.”
“It wasn’t fair!” The healer blubbers pathetically, like a child. “How she did it… it wasn’t right. It wasn’t real medicine.”
“Shut your mouth!” The man was tired of being calm, he was tired of trying to be reasonable. In a single burst of untapped rage, he slams her head a second time, barely grazing a sharp corner of the table.
“Forgive me… please forgive me, I didn’t know what I was saying…”
“Of course you did. You knew what they were going to do to her. You knew how much she was going to suffer. And you knew how soundly you would sleep that night and all other nights knowing that you murdered an innocent woman.”
It was cruel of the healer to accuse Lisa Tepes. Those men who took her away to Targoviste to meet her fate at the burning stake, they were cruel as well. But her son has realized that he too can be just as cruel. Perhaps even more so. It is a cruelty that burns and aches and might never be satisfied no matter how much he feeds it. It might never bring him peace. But he will feed it nonetheless.
Then the young man sees the blood. How it trickles and flows from the healer’s temple, staining her face red. Cheeks wet with tears and blood. It should excite him, given the one half of his nature, yet the sight fills him with disgust. Between laboured breaths he hesitates, imagining his hands, his face, and his chest covered in the same blood. It scares him. Four words call out to him in his mind.
Be better than them.
The young man thinks he heard those words before; maybe he said them himself in a past moment. Every memory he tries to recollect seems faded, out of focus. Nothing is clear, not while the healer keeps begging and crying.
“Leave. Get out and run as far away from here as you can. Never come back.”
“You… you’re letting me go.”
“This is my very last scrap of kindness. But if I ever see you in Wallachia again, I will split you up the middle and tear out your entrails while you still draw breath. Now get out.” When the healer doesn’t move, he repeats the order in a guttural scream to make certain she hears it. Clutching her wounded midsection, she scrambles about, gathering all she can before stumbling outside into the now heavy rain.
The man stands amongst the very mess he created, surrounded by instruments of pure ignorance, nothing more. He should burn it all, just as they burned her practice to the ground. He never had a chance to visit the ruins, not even as he passed Lupu on his way to Cergău Mic. Not that he would visit it now.
Once the fire starts, slowly then rises within a short moment, the man with golden eyes leaves the burning cottage without a single glance over his shoulder. In one hand he keeps an iron grip on the sword he left outside by the doorframe; the one he planned on summoning straight through the healer’s heart. It stays in its sheath, its blade dry of any blood.
Hot angry tears left unshed prick at the back of his eyes, worsening with every step. The raindrops spilling onto his face act as suitable substitutes for those tears.
The kind of nervousness the priest feels before every Holy Mass is a happy sort. He prepares the altar alone, carrying a set of candles in one hand and a thurible in the other while the Evangelion is safely tucked beneath his arm. In an hour, God’s house will play host to some of Gresit’s people. Each one seeks their own guidance, assurance, blessings, perhaps even enlightenment.
With his own humble presence, the priest has led Mass many times before to both a full chapel and a small handful of devotees. No matter the audience, he treats everything with the same sense of reverence and duty. It never stops him from occasionally fumbling his own words or outright forgetting them, but God has overlooked greater sins. As a method of self assurance, the priest reminds himself that in the end, the way in which the words are spoken does not matter but rather the content of the words themselves. Their messages, their lessons, and the hope that they might spread unto others.
This Mass will be different; no stutters or breaths out of place. That troublesome night the priest experienced days before feels like a thing of a distant past, not enough to deter his contentment this quiet morning. He may not give the people a perfect sermon, but he will give them his.
The early smell of frankincense wafts through the chapel, soothing the priest’s senses, dulling them so that he does not notice the figure standing in one of the side doorways right away. Again, the unexplainable sight nearly sends his heart to an early grave until he sees the same needle sharp sword and the same long black coat with gold embellishments that match the visitor’s hair. Unlike before, the priest can now see his face in plain sight. He looks so young, and still so lost.
“Good morning. I wasn’t expecting to see you again.” The priest speaks not knowing whether to be pleasantly shocked or rightfully concerned. He remembers why the young man arrived at his chapel in the first place and what he said within the confessional. Every night since their meeting, the priest fell to his knees at his beside, his clasped hands held firmly against his lips, and ended his prayers to God with the same question: did I do the right thing in letting him go?
“I couldn’t do it.” The admission comes out as a whisper, no louder than a spring breeze. Yet inside the chapel, it rings as loud as a chorus of… the priest doesn’t know what. Angels? Devils? Or simply a hurt and broken man.
“Come. Sit down.” The priest guides him towards a bench but keeps his hand hovering above his back, never lowering it. He sees how much the man twitches and shakes while in such close proximity to another person. There are dark circles under his half-lidded eyes and a red tinge around the whites; this man has not experienced sleep in a very long time.
“You did the right thing,” the priest says, standing in front of him once he’s been seated.
“I didn’t. I was weak.”
“No, you were strong for resisting the temptation. God has granted you this second chance.”
“There is no second chance for me,” the young man chokes out. “I still went there to do it. I still planned out everything. I still said those… terrible things…”
“Whatever you did say, none of it came to fruition.”
“You were right. I’m not at peace. There will never be peace for me again.”
“But it isn’t too late.” The priest is no longer thinking about his upcoming sermon; for now, there is only this troubled soul who needs him. “You can still atone. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but the time will come.”
His lower lip quivers yet there are no tears. He’s done that before and he’s sick of it. It does nothing but make his head hurt and his heart even more. Instead, unaware that he’s doing it, the young man leans forward, resting his forehead against the priest’s thin frame. Nothing happens for a moment. He doesn’t know this man and this man doesn’t know him. Yet as if by pure instinct, the priest places both hands upon the back of his head in a comforting gesture. The man flinches before settling into this position.
“I am my father’s son.”
“Shhh. I don’t believe you are.”
“I am horrible.”
“You may have done horrible things, said horrible things, and thought them as well. But you can change that. It isn’t too late.”
The sun creeps ever further into the chapel, covering it in an array of light. Holy Mass approaches and the priest suddenly realizes this before another revelation comes to him. He’ll hate himself if he lets this lost soul leave, for who knows what sort of harm he might bring unto others—or to himself.
“There is a spare chamber down in the lower level. It’s warm, well lit, and has a bed. Go there and rest until Mass is over; I won’t force you to take part. Then we can talk.”
“In confession.”
“No, not in that box. Face to face. But you must tell me everything. I promise that neither I nor God will judge or turn you away. Will you do this for me? For yourself?
The young man holds his head a little steadier and faces the priest at long last; small steps in a certain direction, not necessarily a good or bad one. Far too early to tell for certain but the priest has hope.
“How do I begin to heal?”
“You begin by telling me your name, my son.”
His name. Unbeknownst to the priest, he bears two names. One a relic from a past life and the other he chose for himself as an act of defiance against that very life. Both carry their own weight upon his shoulders; both are irreplaceable parts of his very being.
He doesn’t know which name to give.