Looking back the next morning, Claudia had realized that the fire was neither her nor Alessa's fault. The only candles in the church near anything flammable were the ones standing on the podium, and neither of them had been near it.
Why had they been in the church again? She couldn't remember...but it didn't matter now, did it? After all, the two of them were alive.
Alessa was hurt though.
She could remember the ambulance taking her away when they both got out.
No...
Claudia got out before Alessa. She'd been sure that her best friend was right behind her the whole time, but then she'd turned and Alessa hadn't been there.
Then she saw a woman...Alessa's mom...run inside of the building.
She must've fallen asleep or passed out after that, because she couldn't remember anything else no matter how hard she tried.
"Claudia, are you okay?" Her father asked her gently. She looked up at him quickly.
"Yes, father." She replied quietly, eating her oatmeal (which had began to get cold) without another word.
She'd be thinking about the fire and what may have started it for a long time.
And about how lucky her best friend had been to have survived.
Of course, the rest of the town didn't see it as luck. They saw it as a sign.
It hurts.
That was Alessa's first thought upon waking up.
My whole body hurts.
Where was she? Why did she feel so cold?
What happened?
She slowly opened her eyes, and the first thing she realized was that it was nighttime. Or...maybe she was just in a room with the lights off.
She wasn't at home. That hit her like the Titanic hit the iceberg.
For one thing, her home smelled like the potpourri her mom kept in most of the rooms. But wherever she was now, it smelled like...well, like cleaning supplies. What was that brand...Clorox? Yes, that was it! It smelled like bleach! But, why would a room smell like that?
The bed she was in sat at an incline, so she was partially sitting up. The mattress was thin, and the blankets a bit itchy. Probably wool?
there was something over her mouth. It was plastic, and blew cool air gently. An oxygen mask.
I'm in a hospital.
She was too sore to turn her head, so she had to settle with observing whatever was in eyesight. A clock on the wall read 11:15. A small TV in the corner, but it was off. The bathroom door was closed, but she could see that the light was om from beneath the door.
The knob turned, and the door opened. Alessa didn't know why, but she pretended to still be asleep. The door shut seconds later, and she heard someone sit down in what might've been a chair by the bed with a shaky sigh. Was it her mom?
"I'm so sorry, Alessa..." Her mom's voice whispered, sounding choked up. Was her mom crying? She'd never seen her do that before. "My sweet baby...I should have come back sooner..."
Don't be sad, Mother...it wasn't your fault...
But...whose fault was it? She couldn't even remember why she and Claudia had been in the church so late at night. Had...someone told them to go in it?
No, no, that wasn't it. Where had they been before they saw that a fire had started?
'Stop giggling, Claudia! Confession is very serious!'
'I'm sorry, it's just...' More giggling. 'You sound so much like your mother!'
They were at the confession booth, practicing. Practicing for what, though?
Just trying to remember it made her head hurt. She finally gave up and just tried to fall back to sleep.
It was nothing short of miraculous.
That's what the nurse said.
Lisa Garland was a kind, gorgeous young woman, new to the medical field.
But her surprise and shock at what happened was entirely warranted.
Everyone was stumped.
Alessa had no burns. No injuries of any kind.
Overnight, they had just disappeared. She was as healthy as she would've been if the fire had never happened.
The official police report and medical examination stated that during the fire, she'd been trapped when a ceiling beam fell. It had hit her shoulder, breaking it, and she'd collapsed by the podium, where the fire was started. Apparently, the two had lit a candelabra and set it on the altar just behind the podium, near the drapes (Lisa noted with interest that Claudia Wolf denied this, but it was made the official cause anyway). At some point, it caught the drapes, and the fire quickly spread. Alessa had been unfortunate enough to have fallen into the flames. She'd been like that for only about thirty seconds before her mother dashed in and pulled her out, but by then her torso and face were heavily scarred with third degree burns.
And now, the very next day, they were just gone.
Doctor Kaufman was puzzled at best and utterly dumbfounded at worst. Everyone was...except the Order.
There had already been rumors, many of them, as Alessa grew older. But that's all that they were: rumors.
Until now. To them, this was just confirmation of who she was meant to be.
Neither Leonard nor Dahlia liked it one bit.
She had loved him, and Leonard had been his close friend, but both thought that before he died, Joshua Gillespie had been a little less than right in the head.
The Order called it Prophetic Visions. The hospital called it Schizophrenia. So his claims of he and Dahlia creating the mother and daughter of God could be explained away.
But only The Order could explain Alessa's spontaneous healing. And the rumors would spread faster than the fire in the church.
All the while, the culprit could rest easy. Nobody suspected a thing.
Two weeks later, everything seemed to be back to normal. Alessa was living with her mother again, and they attended church (now held in the courtyard of the hospital, at the request of many patients) as regularly as they always did.
As she always had before, Dahlia made sure no word of what people were saying reached Alessa, although it was significantly more difficult now.
She couldn't protest, however, when Michael Winston suggested that Alessa lead the recitation of the Seven Guides, and the Lord's Prayer.
Alessa looked nervous as she stepped up to the makeshift podium (just a footstool, really), and her voice trembled a little.
"Be not envious, for those with envy cannot love what they have," She began, her voice slowly losing its timidness. "Be not greedy, for those with greed are never satisfied."
A hush had fallen throughout the courtyard as Alessa began to speak loudly and clearly, her voice strong and her tone solemn.
"Be not prideful," she continued, "for those with pride know not of humility. Be not gluttonous, for those with gluttony have nothing of true value. Be not..."
She'd hesitated, but it was because the word bothered her. She quickly recovered and kept going.
"Be not lustful, for those with lust can't learn to love. Be not lazy, for those with sloth solve nothing. Be not wrathful, for those with wrath cannot forgive." Her eyes immediately went to Dahlia, who nodded in approval and made a motion for her to go on. "I...I ask that all who are present bow their heads for the Lord's Prayer."
"She's doing perfectly." Leonard whispered to Dahlia. She nodded with a smile before bowing her head and praying with her daughter.
"Our loving Mother, creator of Paradise, beloved by all, we pray to you. Return to us, and with all of your love for us and with all of your power, lead us to Paradise. May Valtiel assist you on your path to resurrection, may Metatron protect you from the blasphemers and the heretics, and may Samael begin the cleansing of the world for you to remake. And we pray that your mother and daughter, Saint Alessa, gives us guidance and prepares us for your return. Amen."
"Amen," everyone echoed quietly, awestruck. Alessa had said nothing new, had done nothing incorrectly. And yet the entirety of the courtyard was enraptured by her in a way they had never been before.
"Father..." Claudia whispered to Leonard, "is Alessa going to birth God...?" The question surprised him, but he was too amazed to be angry that someone had told his daughter the rumors about her best friend.
"I...I don't know, Claudia..." Was his quiet, and truthful, response.
But as he watched little Alessa return to her mother's side with eyes full of joy and a beautiful smile, he felt his doubts in the rumors beginning to wither away.
