Father Vincent (this is the only name he is known by, unless it is simply "Vincent") wakes before the dawn to toll the mourning bell to let the town know that daylight has crested the hill. It's an old tradition, largely irrelevant by now. But he gets up all the same, his hellish alarm clock jerking him out of sleep. He has never missed a dawn yet.
When he comes back down from the tower, he lowers himself into one of the rectory's old, wooden chairs to sip murkily at the cup of coffee he has poured himself. His first pot is always made stronger than he can handle, so that the bitter taste will wake him. When he feels better about his state, he'll make a far better pot, and savor it throughout the day.
Father Vincent thrives on coffee. He gets little sleep, considering he is always vigilant in his duties, and he would rather let Valtiel rape him than allow Claudia's victory and let her take on some of his chores. Early in his priesthood days, Claudia scoffed and railed at him, convinced that his character would never stand under the barrage of duties that was being the priest under God. And month by month, year by year, she had to grudgingly admit she had been wrong.
Grueling work never felt so good when it was to prove a hypocrite like Claudia wrong.
Well, hypocrite was the wrong word. He wasn't sure what a good word for her would be.
Maybe "crazy" would be a good summation.
After his breakfast (usually consisting soley of that single cup of too-black coffee laced with too much sugar. It depended on how hard it was for him to get awake entirely), he had a variety of things to do, depending on the day of the week or month. In general, if he didn't have a service to do, he would wander about the church, sipping his second cup of too-black coffee, and make sure everything was as it should be.
Occasionally it wasn't. There was the odd animal sacrifice, bizarre creature that shouldn't exist, or offering left by a more devout worshiper. There was occasionally a bunch of flowers (left by only God knew who) under the portraits of St. Jennifer or God. He found these occasions to be absurdly whimsical; they took him aback and left him feeling slightly touched. In a religion where it was more common for blood letting than light, Vincent found these moments oddly incongruous. He had always meant to look up in the books what significant they might have held to the saint or to God, but he never found the time.
He let them sit beneath the portraits until they withered, where he would put them into the woods so they wouldn't go to waste.
If he had a service, he moved quickly, usually leaving his coffee back in the rectory, and moved about the church to make sure none of the above would interfere with the service. He usually was just able to conclude as the first worshiper came in through the door. Perfect timing. He would stand there and let his heart rate slow as they filed in, smiling and murmuring a good morning.
The service was usually fun. He never allowed himself to fall back onto a stock sermon, and made a point to cobble together one from all sorts of old religious texts. Some of them more elusive than others. Once he had an entire section he lifted from a dream he had the previous night, from a book known as Lost Memories, too the discomfort of some of the older Order members.
Another time, in the midst of elucidating upon Valtiel, he thought the ceiling had rippled. He lost a little composure, then, but kept speaking, watching the mass on the never-lit ceiling bulged and swarmed. He had remembered the surreal terror that had engulfed him as he watched a pale, sickly arm emerge from the bulk of the mass, and then something had emerged.
It's head had been moving at a rate that was completely unnatural, and it had strong, jerky movements. He didn't know that he had stopped speaking, or that he had been breathing heavily through his mouth, as the flock told him later.
It sprawled on the ceiling, like a lizard, tilted back it's head in a sort of jubilation, and said in a sepulchral, gurgling, rasping voice, in a tone that sounded like the toll of a bell, "Praise God."
The worshipers later told him, after he had been revived by one or two of them, that a queer choking sound had been coming from him, eyes upward, fixed on nothing. Then he had given one great gasp, and fallen. Collapsed, the way a marionette does when its strings were cut. Laying on one of the hard, sleek pews, Vincent had raised a hand, feeling like it was under water, and let it fall to cover his face.
He didn't want his parishioners to see how terrified he was.
He wondered if he had had some sort of bizarre fit, which brought on a hallucination, and triggered a collapse. But during night when he would wake up with a start, he knew that he had seen something.
Being a priest was never dull work, that was for sure.
After service (or lack thereof), he would go for an hour or two and sit in prayer. It was easier now, than before. It was so easy to just think of the things that would worry him. But as he got older, they would slip one by one from his mind. During days that he fell into complete prayer, he always felt a seed of sheer terror somewhere in his chest. He didn't always pray in English. Sometimes they morphed into a language he didn't know.
Vincent told himself he was probably suffering under some kind of brain tumor or psychosis, because speaking (or thinking) in tongues was for zealots like Claudia. Not him. He was more concerned about the churches finances running in black, personally. Under any other circumstance, he would have bragged to Claudia about it. But this was frightening and wrong.
He wryly reflected to himself she probably was fluent in that gibberish. (Later, to his dismay, he found out that she was.)
After a disturbing hour of prayer, he would restlessly find something to do. It differed every day- if he found himself dragging even after his pot of too-black coffee, he would fall, still clothed, onto his spartan bed and sleep. Other times, if there was a repair job to do, he would grudgingly do it, if he found himself capable. A loose shingle here, a crumbling back step there. He hated doing these, but would rather die than let Claudia suffer under the strain and feel vindicated under God's eyes. She could find her own vindication, not through his own. Climbing ladders, pouring cement. Hammering, scraping. Sweating, head buzzing from the unaccustomed effort. He hated repair jobs.
Other days he sat and studied texts. These, he loved. He would spend hours, if he could, pouring through the old library.
It was fascinating to him in a way that was euphoric. Despite himself, if he saw Claudia, he would relate what he found to her. She was usually doing something banal to show her subservience to God. Like sweeping the church steps, washing the wooden floors, polishing pews, or washing the windows. She always listened with the same serene composure, acknowledging the exciting parts with due reaction. If she found it interesting enough, she would stop what she was doing to fix him with that queer stare of hers.
It was a bizarre student-pupil relationship, at those times. She would usually sit, tired with her work, and he would usually stand or pace, energized with the elation over such an intellectual pursuit.
Then it was another service, or yet more work. For some odd reason, the mid-day service was always the least eventful. Vincent supposed it was because the sun was at it's peak. It was during these times that he would either speak too fast and slip on a word or two, or lose what he was trying to say. But that happened fewer and fewer now. He was getting older, and more confident in his work.
When he was younger, he found himself on tedious trips to the grocery store. He wasn't humiliated then, shopping about, until he learned he could set up a weekly list with the shop, and get them delivered to him. It was only later that he reflected that he would have been miserable if he had to go and browse the isles again. It wasn't dignified, for a man with his job.
He would busy himself with making supper, before dusk fell. He had become a proficient enough cook for himself, but there would be odd moments where he would find Claudia in the rectory, barefoot and austere, hovering over a skillet or pot, looking down her nose loftily at it. These times frightened him a little, truth be told. Or perhaps fright was the wrong word. They took him aback, anyway. She had caught him once, as he was coming in to start on dinner, unaware of her presence, humming one of those strange, rustic prayers to himself, and she had laughed at him. She always took pleasure in goading him if she found him doing something he generally looked down on himself.
Not that he didn't like those prayers. He just found they had no place in his sermons.
No matter what the supper situation was, he always left some out. Claudia needed to eat, after all. She would rather die than admit to him that she was thankful for it, but there was no one else to take care of her, and she had too much pride to go to the grocery store. He found that sadly hilarious.
And then came the evening sermon, depending on when. Usually it was once or twice a week, and he loved these. He would watch the falling sun through the stained glass windows, crimson light bleeding across the worshipers. Even the crowd seemed more attentive, alert; they listened closely to God's words, and their amen was thunderous and discomforting in a truly wonderful way, when he concluded.
Another pass around the chapel would be conducted after they left. Generally to make sure no one had left litter, which they generally hadn't. Sometimes tourists would sit in on one or two, usually of the shady, paranormal-embracing sort. Once one had left a near-dead piranha at the altar. He found that rather disgusting. They could have at least chosen a fish that was relevant to the Order's history or theology, but no. He had reached to retrieve it, and it had gone into a last jig before death, flailing and snapping its teeth. He hated tourists. Lake people.
He would relax, for maybe an hour. Either staring at nothing and nursing a cup of coffee, or reading a book and nursing a cup of coffee. After night fell totally, he would ring the bell again. It was a long-standing symbol, a tradition that reached so far back into the town's history that it would be pointless to try to abandon it. Much more easier than trying to smooth over ruffled feelings.
Then there were times that night ceremonies were conducted. They were at strategic times during the year, always corresponding with a significant event that was either tied to the season, or to a date in the Order's history.
Only one was a sermon, and it was a very odd one. As a priest under the Holy Woman sect, it was his duty to keep good feelings between other sects, particularly the Valtiel sect. Fat lot of good that did, but it was tradition, and duty. So he conducted the sermon over a room swarmed with figured clothed in white robes and executioners hoods. He always felt oddly vulnerable during this sermon, under the sightless gaze of about a dozen hooded figures. When the sermon concluded, the brief ceremony would happen. Vincent hated the ceremony. It was uncomfortable and made him feel even more vulnerable than before.
He would make a small cut with a plain, silver dagger on the palm of his hand, and wait for Father Jimmy Stone to make his way to the front. Father Stone liked taking his sweet time, and Vincent internally cursed him for it. Father Stone liked to watch young men bleed, and it was all Vincent could do to stop himself from bracleting his wrist with his other hand to make sure he didn't bleed too much, or change the posture he was holding so as not to stain his clothes.
Father Stone would kneel before him, and Vincent would press his palm to Stone's forehead. Then Stone would take Vincent's hand, holding only the knuckle of the first finger's metacarpal, and the pinky finger's metacarpal, and lick the blood away from Vincent's hand. Just once, thankfully. Stone would then bind Vincent's hand using linen and a water that Claudia prepared, and they would disperse.
Damn the Valtiel sect, with their twisted preferences for ceremonies.
Then again, no night ceremony was ever pleasant. There was the one where he, a young virgin girl from the town, and a ram would be in the middle of a cornfield together. To keep things less messy on his part, he would strip to his boxers, whereas she would be naked, kneeling amongst the corn stubble. It would usually be a little chilling, seeing as it was pushing October when this happened, so he was always cold. There was a brief passage to say before they could get to work, and he had to speak around chattering teeth, his breath pluming into the night air. A few brothers would position the ram so it was standing so it's head was above her bowed one, and Vincent would cut the animal's throat, allowing the blood to fall in a crimson tide over the girl. He could never prevent himself from getting spattered, but he had gotten better at it, over the years.
He was then washed off (by Claudia, of all people) with a soft cloth dipped in frigid water. He could never stifle a reflexive gasp at the contact, and on the nights where the moon was full, he never saw her smirk. Her face was stony and calm, and he would thank God for small favors.
Thankfully, this barbaric ceremony was only once a year.
But on regular nights, he would fall into bed, bathing quickly so he could get a good night's sleep.
He never slept well, though. He would toss and turn until his demonic alarm clock would awaken him from a half-sleep, so he could ring the bell to toll the morn.