*Rated "pW" for Previous Wielder. Deals with past lives. Based largely on conjecture, historical fact, and previous same-author fanfiction.
The Confessional's screen slid back with a scraping noise like that of polished wood in a track, reminding Bronte of the pocket doors separating the parlor from the dining room at her first piano teacher's home. The opening the screen made revealed only the smallest bit of light from the other half of the Confessional.
"Forgive me, Father," she began, rotely, though not without genuine feeling. "For I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last confession."
"Go on, my child."
"Twice I lost my temper, three times I coveted the clothing and figure of my neighbor, and five times I shared the bed of a man who is not my husband."
"And what of this man's wife, then?" the Confessor asked, his elderly voice weary--cracking not with judgment, but empathy. "Have you thought of how your sin affects her?"
"He has no wife, Father, and my own husband is dead." Bronte let herself continue with explanation, but only in her own head; And I consent to share his bed only as the one who will betray him and this country--this regime--time and time again, without remorse, using any information that comes into my path, and giving it into the hands of your enemy. So that the Reich might be destroyed, and the oppressed freed and the world again made safe and whole.
"I see," he answered, having heard only that which she said aloud. "And your daughter--have you thought of her in this? Such a child growing up to see and learn such things as your sinful actions might teach her?"
"Yes, Father." Was there any way not to think of Mabel in all this? It was for Mabel's future--her very life--that Elizabeth wrestled with this murky, dubious occupation that had become her war. For Mabel that she was not even now sitting in the fall air on her mother's Brooklyn porch, her swollen feet too long hidden by her belly propped up on an apple crate as she drank a Coca-Cola from a cold green-glass bottle and watching as Mabel jumped rope with the other girls on their street in the patch of yard. Oh yes, she had thought of Mabel. Had thought of Mabel in that yard. Had thought of Nazis on that street, that yard--that porch. It was just such thoughts that had brought her--and Mabel--to where they were.
"And this child that you carry," the Confessor continued, "fatherless, then, isn't it--if this man will not confess his sin as well, and marry you. How can this child be baptized? How can this child be accepted into the fellowship of the Church? These are hard times, my daughter," he sighed heavily. "Hard times for anyone. Yet you make them harder on yourself through such disobedience." There was a pause. "For losing your temper and falling prey to a covetous heart, seven Our Fathers."
She waited.
"For this sin of adultery, though, I--I cannot continue to absolve you without proof of true contrition." Again he paused, as though his words were as hard to say as they were to hear. "You must return for absolution when you have broken with this man and such impure activities. Until that time you must abstain from Holy Communion. And you must think about your children. You must learn to be strong for them. To put their future first--above your own desires."
The priest began to chant in Latin, and Bronte instinctively bent her head and closed her eyes as he prayed a blessing over her. She had nothing to say; his pronouncement deflated what little breath she could still take in with the baby's weight wedged below her diaphragm. She had expected a rebuke--she had been coming to Confess here for the past five or so months--ever since the church nearer her flat had taken a bomber's direct hit and been leveled to nothing more than once-consecrated rubble. A rebuke, yes--but not a disfellowshipping of this kind. Barred from Communion, and threatened with a refusal to baptize her child? She could hardly even begin to think how to rectify such a situation--it was not likely that she could, indeed marry Stretzer, even had the idea appealed to her. It was less likely still that she could afford to remove herself from intimate relations with him--not with her mission on the line, even as spottily as she had been able to perform it of late. And finally, she was not yet corrupted enough to lie to her Confessor within the Confessional, telling him she had given Stretzer up. Her thoughts were at a loss.
When the Confessor's blessing was finished, the ritual complete, and she was just about to stand and exit, he spoke again--his voice somewhat softer than before. "It is my sincere hope, my daughter, that you will take counsel on this," he said--a disembodied voice from the darkness. "Pass tonight alone, in quiet contemplation. Refuse to see this unrepentant man, or keep his company. And trust in what our all-knowing Father sends to you to direct your path." She heard the rustle of his sleeves as he reached for his Rosary beads. "Until then I will keep you in my prayers."
Before she could speak in return--so taken aback she was by being addressed so casually by a Confessor--there was a swish of his cassock against the curtain, and he had left.
Pulling the curtain of her half aside, she had only a moment to glimpse his elderly, but elegantly straight back traveling up the side aisle toward the altar, and inside the distant doorway of the sacristy, where she could not follow.
DISCLAIMERS: Elizabeth Bronte and the Witchblade (and other characters that will make appearances in other chapters to come) are property of Top Cow and Warner Bros. I mean no disrespect, and am not making any money or profit out of their use here.
Please, no angry comments about what the priest had to say to Bronte. The Confessor's words are his own, as a fictional character. He's not making policy for the Catholic Church, and he's meant to represent no one but himself, a work of fiction. Thanks for understanding, and for also understanding that this was something preventative that I had to include in this disclaimer.
Any inaccuracies please chalk up to deliberate anachronism. It's just a happier, more criticism-free world that way.
What happened to Elizabeth Bronte before Possession? Check out Occupation, posted here at fanfiction.net.
Neftzer 2003(c)
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