Disclaimer: Don't own it.
All Religions Are The Same - Basically Guilt With Different Holidays.
Cathy Ladman
In Rouen we checked into the hotel. Margarite left us for a while, to go meet her contact. Zhuzhen went to visit the nearby bar that had opened recently. Karin stayed in the room we were sharing, simply gazing out of the window. And I went to Church.
The front door was open this time, unlike before. I went in. It had clearly been abandoned ever since we had come here before. Albert Simon had killed the priest, and I guess with the war on…
The priest had sold my father and me to Albert Simon to save his own life. I suppose since he didn't fulfil his part of the bargain – I escaped – there was no need for Albert to keep his part, and spare Father Doyle's life.
Another death on my conscience.
I shook my head angrily. Father Doyle was the cause of my Father's death. He did not deserve to be pitied, or worried over. Yet…
There were still candles on the alter. I took a packet of matches from my pocket and lit one, saying a prayer as I did so. I did not say the Lord's Prayer – I am not talking to him. Instead, I prayed to his mother.
After praying I stayed silent for a moment, trying to stay calm and think through the events so far.
Yuri was safe, I had met his soul. One thing worried me, however. Why hadn't we been able to talk for longer? Why couldn't he reach me? Karin and her grandmother had managed to touch. Karin's grandmother had been able to give her her grandfather's sword. Why hadn't I been able to touch Yuri? What was keeping him away?
Still, there was hope. I had found him once, in Bistritz and now twice, in the Fort of Regrets. Why not again?
Absentmindedly I touched my shoulder, feeling for the little puckers of skin that marked the wound. They hurt a little as I touched them, and the skin felt rough to my fingers. It was not healing well.
Months, Margarite had said. Just a few months. Then I will lose my soul. I explored the thought. My memories, dreams, thoughts, all of it gone, only a zombie like body with no soul.
My soul. I describe Yuri as my soul mate. If I have no soul…
I wandered through the church and looked in the confessional. There it was still, the picture of Father Doyle and Albert.
When we had first met Albert Simon, on the train from South Manchuria, he had told us his name was Roger Bacon. Actually, that was not my first meeting with him. I had first met him outside this very church, at a meeting set up by Father Doyle.
My father and I had been meant to meet Cardinal Simon that night. I assumed something had prevented Cardinal Simon from meeting us and that 'Roger Bacon' had shown up instead. It was only when I found this picture, months later, that I realised Cardinal Simon had met us exactly as he was supposed to.
I gazed into Doyle's photographic eyes.
"Call yourself a man of God?" I asked. After a moment I placed the picture back where I had found it, and walked back to the front of the church. This rime I took the other door from the room, the door that led to that fateful alleyway.
I stepped outside. Though it was spring, nearly summer the alleyway was cold. Looking around, I shivered. It was exactly as I remembered. I walked down the three little steps that led down from the church door. My boots made a different sound on the cobbles than the shoes I used to wear. An odd thought at a time like this, but then who knew what the right thoughts were? I knelt down on the ground, and ran a fingernail along one of the grooves between the cobbles. There was a rusted brown substance there. It looked like dirt, but my demon eyes knew different. It was blood. My father's blood.
"Ave Maria," I whispered. "Gratia plena. Dominus, tecum, benedicta tu." The Hail Mary in Latin. I remembered my father teaching it to me when I was small. He used to be the priest of a small church before my mother died. Every Saturday he'd write his sermon and test it on me. I think of Yuri's crucifix, lying on his headstone. Of my fathers cross, which my mother had given to him. What had happened to that cross?
I looked around. It was doubtful it was here, but nonetheless…I remembered where we were both standing. I was…here, and Simon came from…there, so my father would have been…right by the steps. I walked over and examined them. There was a small, narrow groove, between the steps and the wall of the church. I ran my fingers along it not, expecting to find anything, but hoping anyway. My fingers caught on something, and I picked it up.
It was a cross. I had no idea if it was the right one, but the string of coincidences had held out so far. I held it up by the thin chain it was attached to. It did look right, but it was covered in blood. Old, dried blood, of course, caked thickly on to it.
It was then that I heard a voice behind me.
"Alice?"
I turned.
And dropped the cross.
…
…
…
"Yuri?" I whispered.