She Walks in Shadows(65)
“I’m very impressed with the new young priest. Jonah, is it? It’s a very intelligent choice on the part of the Council to add him to the roster.”
“How so?”
I never considered that there was anything strategic about the priests that were chosen for sermons.
“He’s going to draw more people to church, obviously. He’s young, good-looking. You should have seen all of the women that were flirting with him on the way out. Even married ones!”
She’s scandalized.
It makes sense, I suppose. If the women were filling up the church, then their children would follow. I remember Erica Francis’ words and a violent shiver moves up my spine.
Monday is a gray day with a white sky and nothing but crows move in the trees. I can smell the rain that’s coming. I put on a thick, white Rogue t-shirt underneath my school uniform’s sky-blue blouse. I pick my silver necklace from my own statue of Marchosias. It’s coiled around her neck and draped over her wings. She sits on her haunches and peers ahead, as if suspicious of what the future could bring. I uncoil the silver from around her and clasp it around my neck.
The pendants are a gold wishbone, a wolf’s head, and a heavy locket with a crescent moon on it. I let it hang outside of my blouse and slip gold bangles on my wrists.
School itself is a blur. I sit with my friends Katie and Salazal during lunch. I don’t discuss Marchosias with them. Instead, I nod and smile at the stories they tell about their boyfriends, concerns over exams, things that in all fairness, I should be concerned about, as well. Whatever the cost, I know: Marchosias has to stay.
My blood runs cold, and then boiling hot, as I see Brother Jonah walk in through the cafeteria’s double doors. He’s wearing blue jeans and a dark burgundy polo shirt. I stare at him helplessly as he walks in with Brothers Peter and Saul at his side. They’re laughing about something and I feel that he’s detected my gaze. I duck my head when he turns to look in my direction.
I count to ten before I look up again and my stomach drops in horror. He’s looking straight at me, unsmiling. I look away first, my ears burning. I feel his gaze on me until well after I’ve left the cafeteria, finished eighth period, and am making my way to the rectory office to look at the schedule.
Marchosias’ shrine is on the list in need of cleaning. I sigh in relief. It means there have been a number of offerings made, which bodes well for her and her popularity. I sign my name next to Marchosias’ slot as caretaker, giving Susan the secretary an exhausted smile. I walk down to the basement where the lockers are. St. Magdalena’s is more open than other churches to keeping its doors open after hours, sometimes well into the night, allowing us volunteers free rein of the grounds while we work. I slam the locker door, tying my apron on. It has a tag with the word ‘Volunteer’ and my name on it.
I walk down the silent and dark hallway, hands in my pockets, challenging myself to not fear the dark. The church is transformed after hours. It’s all dark except for the candles flickering from the altars, a few wall lamps that are lit so we can see. Outside of those spheres of light, the darkness swarms heavy, and this place of worship and safety suddenly seems sinister. I grab the metal pail at the head of the stairs and make my way over the sea of silent marble to Marchosias’ shrine.
I can smell the blood biscuits going stale, some meat that’s beginning to go bad. I light the match and touch its flame to the wall torque, lowering the stained glass covering the torque so the light is dimmed to a purplish, pinkish glow.
It settles around the shrine and around her body. Her belly is rounded beneath her flowing robe, her hands settled around the soft mound. Her wolf grin is pleasant in the glow of the shrine. Her penitents this week are putting me to work tonight; her offerings are raw steaks, already beginning to turn black, some breads and pastries.
The goblet is filled with milk, some of it sloshed out of the cup and onto the stone beneath. I dump the food into the pail, using a piece of biscuit to clean off each plate. It makes a wet sound that slightly disgusts me when it hits the rest of the food in the pail. I pull my rubber gloves out of my apron, making my way with a full pail back into the basement, this time turning left where I turned right previously to go to the lockers.
The dark hallway leads to several doors, but the one I’m looking for is to my right. The courtyard is dark and silent. I bite the handle of my flashlight between my teeth directing the light towards the compost pile. Flower beds rise and fall on every side of me. I pull open the gate and it creaks, leading me into the wilder parts of the garden. Where the things that rot go. The compost pile is in the center of the clearing, a large wooden fence built all around it. I make my way to the fence and climb up on the lowest rung. I turn the pail upside down, dumping the food in. There are maggots as long as my fingers wriggling in the soil. There are so many that it looks as if the soil itself is moving, heaving up and down. Breathing. Sacrifice taking on new life.
I turn away from the mound before I feel the retch forming in my mouth, walking back the way I came. I am cleaning the goblets and silver offering plates in the kitchen when I hear Erica’s laugh. I turn off the water and listen. I shut off the kitchen light and stand very still. She wasn’t on the list of volunteers for the night. Her laugh is mingled with someone else’s. It’s low, seductive, and the man is aroused. I can taste it in the way he breathes in before he speaks. His laugh is a galaxy of blue with specks of darker blue in nimbus clouds. Hers is the white of winter, a cold slash in the dark. It’s Jonah. And Erica. I close my eyes and my soapy hand closes around the moon locket hanging from my neck.