On the Third Day Read online

  “I believe in God.”

  ~ Twenty-Six ~

  Father Prescott stood behind the communion rail, just in front of the altar. He did not look up at Father Thomas, but instead stared out over the cathedral. Like great serpents, the pews emptied into the aisles. There were no quick movements. The myriad bodies in their flashy clothes and brightly colored hats flowed like a river of humanity.

  Donovan glanced down. In his hand he held a round flat loaf. He stared at it and knew what it was. No wafers today. Unleavened bread. He wondered briefly if he’d carried it back from that other place – if he’d ever left this place – and just what he would do with what he held, and with what he knew.

  Some of his questions were quick to be answered. The congregation surged forward. They didn’t hesitate, but came to the small, upholstered step before the rail, knelt, and waited to receive the communion. They didn’t meet his gaze; they stared instead at a point above and beyond Donovan’s shoulder. He told himself that Father Thomas stood, as he had the last time Donovan had seen him, near the front of the altar with his hands out to his sides. The congregation, then, must be staring at the huge crucified image of Christ.

  He caught sight of the Bishop’s robes in the crowd, not heading for the exit, and not surrounded by his guards, but pressing forward with the others, lined up and ready to receive the body and the blood. Hector Clearwater’s thin, aquiline features slipped in and out of sight near the middle of the congregation. Donovan couldn’t see if the man still had the young assistant at his side, but knew that it didn’t matter. Whatever the two had been planning, they had been derailed by the power of the moment and dropped into line with those who’d already believed.

  The first row of parishioners knelt before the railing of the altar. Centermost he saw Gladys Multinerry. Her graying hair had spread out about her rounded face like a nimbus of silver. At her side, her son Norman knelt. The young man’s eyes were closed, and he knelt in the blood with his clean suit, oblivious and filled with obvious rapture.

  Gladys’ gaze never wavered. She knelt, her lips slightly parted to receive the host, and waited.

  Father Prescott broke a bit of the bread from the loaf. He did not think about what he did, merely acted, and reacted, to the moment. He stood in a growing pool of red. When he moved his feet, they stuck to the floor, and the scent was rich and overpowering, metallic and pungent. He reached behind himself and stroked the edge of the altar with the loaf. Without glancing down at it, he stepped forward to stand before Gladys, and pressed the loaf between her lips. She took a small bite, lowered her eyes for a moment, and whispered something Donovan couldn’t hear.

  “The body and blood of Christ,” Donovan whispered. “Go with his blessing.”

  Gladys rose then, and Donovan started down the line. He stopped and repeated his blessing to each, knowing the words were not exactly what he’d been taught, but feeling somehow that they were right, that there was nothing else he could have said, even had it occurred to him. The faces blurred, one into the next, each staring above and beyond him in rapt concentration.

  Those who received the communion turned and peeled off to the side. They disappeared back up the aisle without a glance over their shoulders, and though he didn’t look up to verify it, Father Prescott believed they were exiting the church. He wondered what the brilliant sunlight of the world beyond those doors would do – whether they would awaken and start screaming, or just quietly wander off. Would they drive home to their everyday lives as if it were just another Sunday, or was there more?

  It was all too hazy, too vague and uncertain. A part of Donovan knew he should not be standing calmly dispensing communion with all that had happened, and all that was potentially happening behind him. There was no way he could give a valid report to Rome, no way he could prove he hadn’t been drugged and hallucinated the entire thing. His actions had been irrational, and his memory of the services was vague, detached, and littered with illusory images and remnants of visions.

  And still he couldn’t turn. He was halfway through the crowd, and they showed no sign of panic. They were staring at what he dared not see, and all he could do was to trust that, if the sight were horrible beyond measure, at least one of them would break from their reverie to say something, or to cry out. That was what his mind told him, repeating the observation over and over like a mantra.

  Bishop Michaels came forward and knelt at the rail. He stared, as the others stared, but when Donovan stepped up before him, the older priest blinked, turned to him, and smiled. It was a child-like smile, an expression filled with wonder, bright and glowing in a way Donovan would never have attributed to the man.

  Donovan brought the loaf to the Bishop’s lips, and the man took a bite, and then lowered his head in prayer. Crossing himself slowly, Michaels stood and stared in awe over Donovan’s shoulder. He trembled, as if fighting some tremendous inner struggle, and at last he managed to roll words across his quivering lips.

  “I’m sorry, brother,” he whispered. “I am so sorry.”

  He turned then without an explanation and followed the others as they flowed out toward the doors and the parking lot and the world. Moments later his face faded from Donovan’s memory. The others he offered the loaf to seemed to be a mixture of the congregation, the villagers, and the jungle congregation of Father Gonzalez. One young man looked like Father Morrigan, but when Donovan blinked the face shifted once more to one he’d never known. They flowed past, and out, and though it seemed an eternity, it was probably no more than a few moments before the last of them rose, turned, and trailed off after the crowd.

  Alone once more, Donovan stood. He still held the remnant of the loaf, and he absently tore off a small piece. The light of the day had waned. He didn’t know if it were preparing to storm, or if the service could actually have lasted into the evening hour. Maybe the sun had been dimmed out of respect. He brought the bit of unleavened bread to his lips and pressed it to his tongue. His fingers, and the loaf, were sticky with the blood. It should have thickened and begun to dry, but it had not. He closed his mouth and felt the soft mass melt against his tongue. In moments he swallowed and closed his eyes and crossed himself.

  With infinite care, he turned. He didn’t know if he was alone in the cathedral, but he believed he must be. He knew the time had come to break the bonds of whatever held him, and to go to Thomas. Talons of guilt raked his heart and tightened like strands of barbed wire around his guts. With every inch he turned, the spell of the moment gave way a little more to his own thoughts, his sense of duty – and his fear.

  When he’d finished his turn, he took a step back and gasped out loud. Father Thomas did not stand on the altar. Not exactly. He hung, suspended, in the air above the altar. His hands were still out at his sides, and his ankles were crossed. Just as they had been in the vision. Just as they had been on the cross.

  Father Thomas didn’t meet Donovan’s gaze. His head lolled to the side, resting on one shoulder. His mouth was parted, and a thin trickle of blood poured from the corner. From his side, a long shadow extended. It looked like a spear, puncturing his flesh, but Donovan couldn’t be certain. The cathedral had grown very dark. Father Thomas’ eyes were glazed and empty. Dead.

  Donovan took another stumbling step backward, nearly fell over the communion railing, and caught himself. He felt a scream building, and concentrated on suppressing it. The silence was so complete he feared to break it.

  The breath in his lungs was heavy and stagnant. Donovan had to force the air through his lips, draw in a ragged breath, and repeat the action before he gained some control of his body. He took half a step forward, raised his hand, and spoke, his voice a raw croaking whisper.

  “Quentin?”

  Something in the moment snapped. Some deep, interwoven thread that bound the myriad insanities to one loom was cut, and everything shifted at once. The sun streamed in the windows above and caught Father Thomas flush in the face. His features lost their inner illuminat
ion, and at the same time were washed in sunlight. Without warning, he dropped from the air to the altar with a heavy, sickening thud. His robes spread out over the pooled blood, and his arms spread. With one knee bent, and his arms to his sides, Donovan saw with horror that he’d fallen into the aspect of a Tarot card. The Hanged man. From where Donovan stood, the card was reversed, man with his mind to the Heavens.

  Donovan shook the odd thoughts from his head. He rushed forward and leaped the two feet to the altar, sliding on his knees to the fallen priest’s side. Ignoring the blood and the sudden, brilliant rays of sunlight, he reached down and felt Father Thomas’ throat for a pulse. Nothing. He slid his fingers up and down, side to side, searching, but there was nothing. Father Thomas stared back and up at an odd angle, as if he were staring at the crucified Christ on the wall, but Donovan knew the young man was beyond staring at anything in this life.

  Behind him, he heard voices. There was a heavy pounding, and then the doors were flung open. Donovan didn’t turn to see who had entered. He knelt at Father Thomas’ side, held the younger priest’s cooling, sticky hand in his own, and called loudly over his shoulder.

  “An ambulance! Someone call an ambulance.”

  The voices of several sirens already pierced the remnant of silence and tore it open to the world. Steps pounded behind Donovan’s back, but he did not turn to them. He tried to order his thoughts, but the strong, sickening stench of the blood filled his senses and confused him. Even as he felt the first hands on his shoulders, darkness rose to claim him, and slumping forward across Thomas’ prone form, he dropped into that waiting embrace without thought.

  ~ Twenty-Seven ~

  Sunlight streaming through the blinds of a window struck Father Prescott across his eyelids and he woke groggily. At first all he saw was white; white walls, white ceiling, and the too bright white light streaming in through striped blinds. He wondered for the briefest of moments if he’d died; then a throbbing pain in his temple pushed that notion aside. He closed his eyes, let his breathing settle, and opened them again.

  He was in a hospital room. He heard the soft beeps and cooling fans of electronic equipment. He was in a private room. The door was slightly ajar, and he heard voices. They were too soft or too distant to be made out clearly. Thoughts slipped in and out of Donovan’s mind, memories that wouldn’t adhere to one another long enough for him to focus. He knew he should not be waking up in a hospital bed. He knew there were things he was forgetting, things he desperately needed to recall, but they eluded him.

  He saw dark shadows through the window and heard the distant whine of tires. There was a clock on the small rolling table beside him. It read just after noon in bright red. Each time a minute clicked away he heard the sound echoing in the sterile emptiness of the room.

  On the wall opposite him a shadow had formed from a stainless steel stand and the frame of the window itself. The result was an odd, tilted cross. Donovan stared at it, blinked, and the floodgates in his mind opened wide.

  His mouth was dry and his tongue felt thick, like a sandy ball of cotton, but he croaked out “Oh my god. Thomas.”

  He reached out to one side, gripped the rail on the bed, and started to rise. His motion yanked on the IV tubes attached to his arm and nearly toppled the stand beside his bed. Someone must have heard the commotion, because the door opened quickly and two people he did not know entered. One was a nurse, a middle-aged woman with a harried look in her eyes and a grim frown plastered across her lips. Behind her a young orderly rushed in.

  Stunned by the sudden pain in his arm, and the shock of the revelations pounding through his brain, Father Prescott fell back into the bed. In moments the orderly was at his side, a hand pressed gently to his shoulder.

  “Lie still, Father,” the boy said quietly. “You have to rest.”

  Donovan closed his eyes, ordered his thoughts as quickly as he could, and then spoke. As he did so, he opened his eyes again and met the nurse’s gaze with as much calm as he could muster. His voice cracked and broke, but he plowed on.

  “How…how did I get here? How long have I been out? Father Thomas… I…”

  The nurse shook her head, obviously irritated at his behavior.

  “I don’t know anything about all of that,” she said. “I know you’ve been through some sort of shock, and I know that if you don’t lie back and do as you’re told, you’ll be here even longer.”

  She fluffed his pillow, held her hand on his shoulder until she was certain he would remain still, then set about straightening the IV needles in his arm and twisting the stand around to untangle the tubes and cables.

  “Do you have any idea what would have happened if you’d knocked this over?”

  It was a rhetorical question, and Donovan knew it. He remained quiet.

  “There’s someone here to see you,” the orderly said softly. “Maybe she can answer some of your questions. She’s been here all night.”

  “She?” Donovan muttered.

  The nurse handed him a glass of water with ice chips in it, and he took it, drinking as greedily as possible through the bend length of a plastic straw. His mind whirled. He knew he had to get up out of the bed and out of the hospital, but he had no idea how he was going to pull that off, and assuming he did, how he’d cope with, or explain, the IV attached to his arm.

  The orderly slipped back out, and a moment later the door opened again.

  Gladys Multinerry stepped through the door. She looked as if she’d gained ten years since he’d seen her last. Her eyes were sunken from the lack of sleep, and her hair wisped in every direction at once, waving about her in uncontrolled curls.

  Donovan had a sudden flash of memory, Gladys standing radiant before the congregation, reading in a beautiful, singsong voice. Now she was shrunken, if anything dumpier than before, and sagging as if a great weight had been placed on her shoulders. She used the doorframe for support as she entered. Once inside, she immediately wedged her bulk into the room’s only chair.

  The nurse glanced at her in disapproval, then shook her head and headed for the door.

  “If you need anything, just use the red button attached beside your bed. We’ll be back to take your vital signs in about an hour.”

  Donovan nodded absently, and the woman stepped out into the hall.

  “Hello Mrs. Multinerry,” Donovan said softly.

  She lifted her head and he saw from the fresh puffiness at the edges of her eyes that she had been crying again, even as she sat beside his bed. An icy sliver of fear sliced between his ribs and teased at his heart.

  “Hello, Father,” Gladys replied. “It’s good to see you awake. And please; I think it’s time you started calling me Gladys.”

  “Thank you Gladys; how long have I been here?”

  “Just the one night,” Gladys replied. “Mass was yesterday morning.”

  Donovan shook his head. “Yesterday,” he whispered. “It certainly seems longer than that. A lifetime ago, I’d say. I only vaguely remember what happened.”

  He turned to her then and studied her face, watching for a reaction, but there was nothing. All the life had drained from her face, and her form. She was a tired gray lump in a wrinkled dress, and Father Prescott wished he could rise and give her the hug she so obviously needed.

  “What happened Gladys? Where is Father Thomas? The Bishop?”

  The tears came again then, and Donovan had to force himself to be patient as Gladys regained control of her emotions. Finally she shook her head, blew her nose loudly on a tissue she drew forth from some fold in her dress, and then deposited back in it’s hiding place in one fluid motion. Graceful. Even in her obvious grief, and tired as she was, Donovan noticed that she was graceful.

  “I guess no one told you, then,” she said slowly. “I asked them to wait, to let it be me, but who’s going to listen to an old woman? No one, that’s certain. They sure picked a time to listen, Father. That they did.”

  She fell silent again, and it was all he c
ould do to restrain himself from pushing. She was obviously having trouble getting the words out, and he didn’t want to send her into another fit of sobs, so he held his silence.

  “Father Thomas,” she said at last, “didn’t make it.”

  Father Prescott lay back, stunned. He was sure he understood her, but he couldn’t help clarifying.

  “Didn’t make it? To the hospital?”

  She shook her head again. “Father Thomas is dead,” she said. “He died on the altar. Died in your arms, if the truth were told. They found you all laid out over him like you were protecting him.”

  “No one could have done that,” Donovan said softly.

  Gladys didn’t look up to meet his gaze, but she nodded.

  Father Prescott’s hands were suddenly clammy with sweat. His forehead felt cold and damp, and the sheets and thin blanket covering might as well have been sheets of ice. Though there was no wind, a chill cut through his flesh and he shivered uncontrollably.

  Gladys noticed his sudden distress and rose from her seat. She plodded stolidly to the side of the bed and stared down at him. Donovan felt her brush the hair back from his forehead, but he had no strength to move. He’d experienced plenty of fever, but never anything so all encompassing. It skewed his thoughts and blurred his sight. Gladys smiled down at him maternally and reached out, taking his right hand between her own warm, meaty palms.

  Donovan closed his eyes and, as Gladys touched his hands, was jolted from the bed, and from the room. Reality shifted, not with the subtle fade in, fade out of his earlier visions, but with sudden clarity, like the explosion of a powder flash.

  Donovan stood just beneath the altar. He stared up at Father Thomas’ limp body. The young priest hung in the air. His ankles were crossed. His weight rested on his wrists, and his head lolled to the side. His face, despite the angle of his neck, was upturned to Heaven, and the expression on his face – the deep, unremitting sorrow in his eyes, dragged a sob unbidden from Donovan’s chest. He stepped forward, and nearly stumbled. He was weak – the weakness that had put him in the hospital bed hadn’t left him, and for some reason this single fact frightened him more than Father Thomas’ lifeless form.