Chapter 2: Sisters and confessions

***6 months later***

There was a big wedding to be had, also a celebration for the engagement of Hornby's middle daughter Doreen to Roland Warren. Drusilla however voiced her wish to join the Church religious order of Saint Catherine of the Wheel. Drusilla was enchanted and drawn to that saint patron of unmarried girls, apologists, potters and spinners, dying people, libraries, merchants, and spinsters.

Her parents agreed to their youngest wish to take the religious vocation and so Drusilla Hornby entered her trial period of six months. And when abbess deems her ready, she'll join the Sisters of Mercy for good.

But before that there was a wedding to be had and an engagement party that she'll attend.

"Drusilla!" Doreen called to her younger sister "Can you come up to help me?"

"Doreen, a lady doesn't shout," Honoria chided her child. "And do be ready; Mr. Langford will be here any moment."

"We'll be done soon mother," called Doreen then she turned to her sister, who just entered, carrying a neatly embroidered silk shawl. "Isn't this exciting? Mr. Langford is one of the leading minds in the Archaeology department and is being sent to America to conduct an archaeological excavation there."

"Yes, yes." Drusilla nodded at her enthusiastic older sister. "As you said many times and it appears that Mr. Warren's enthusiasm for archaeology extended to you as well."

"Why yes, I find the cultures of long past so very romantic," breathed Doreen, her eyes unfocused and her mind in a dream world, imagining castles, ghosts, and brave heroes rescuing princesses that were kidnapped by evil dragons. And sure enough, Drusilla mused, Doreen managed to dig up some romance novels from somewhere, novels that if their mother knew she'd had, would forbid her daughters to read them.

Mommy was already angry at her, because she had a terrible fright in the middle of the street early this morning. But Drusilla could not help what she saw; she saw two lives end in the mine today and many more were injured. And she was dreading it … she didn't know when it would happen exactly, but…

"Welcome to our home, Mr. Langford."

The next day Drusilla was sitting in Church on a bench waiting for her turn in the confessional and praying to God and the Holy Mother of Jesus. What she saw yesterday became truth today. A man came to her father, requesting for medical aid for there was an explosion and cave in at the mine.

Drusilla, distraught, sought consonance in the church. Standing up from her bench she stepped up to the cross where the Holy Son was suspended and prayed for guidance. Noticing that the dark red curtain of the confessional was pushed aside and the confessional itself empty, she stepped in and drew the curtain over the entrance, kneeling, she made the sign of the cross and…

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been two days since my last confession," she said; there was silence and some sort of movement and a muffled thud.

"Father?" she asked, fearing for the man, that and an uneasy feeling sprang to her mind. She was not in danger was she? What danger could a man of cloth pose to her in this Holy place?

"That's not very long," comes a male voice from the priest. He must be new, Drusilla decided; Father Brown didn't have an Irish accent.

"Oh, Father, I'm so very afraid," she said, faintly trembling, the fear overshadowing any feeling she currently had about this bodiless voice in the dark part of the conversionary.

"The Lord is very forgiving. Tell me your sins."

"I had," here she hesitated. Fear of her seeing death. Fearing that it is herself that causes the deaths she sees, at conflict with a feeling of unease and danger, she feels coming from the priest she is confessing too, the sudden urge to be as far away from him as it is possible.

"I've been seeing again, Father. Yesterday, the men were going to work in the mine," she started haltingly, omitting for some reason the other details about her whereabouts, something she didn't do when confessing to Father Brown.

"I had a terrible fright. My stomach was all tied up, and I saw this horrible crash. My mummy said to keep my peace that it didn't mean anything. But this morning, they had a cave-in, two men died and many more were wounded." She didn't tell him that her father was called on for his medical aid.

"Go on," the priest's voice came at her, making her start anew; why was she feeling so frightful?

"My mommy says," she halted for a bit. Drusilla knew that her mother was not very understanding of her seeing, but Mrs. Watson was her staunch supporter and always had a hot chocolate ready for her after she had one of her night terrors, and Mrs. Watson was always ready to go through them with her.

"I'm cursed, that my seeing things is an affront to the Lord, because only He's supposed to see things before they happen and be everywhere at once."

Her mother told her this once and only once. And besides she had a terrible head pain, and Drusilla thought abashed, she probably didn't help with her screaming and crying at the aftermath of her seeing() a giant metal ring and dog faced people spilling out of the water's surface of the ring.

"But I do not mean to Father." She sobbed her mind in turmoil at the stay to confess the truth, all truth and nothing else, but a part of her that whispered of stars and wanted to devote her spirit and body to the holy carouse was urging her to stand up and escape to the sunshine outside the church.

She did not understand the contradiction of her thoughts.

"I try to be pure in his sight," she sobs out with increasing distress. "I don't want to be an evil thing." As she sometimes sees the evil thing, a soulless thing, dancing and laughing, her hair and dress whipping about among the mirrors without a reflection on their surfaces.

"Oh, hush, child. The Lord has a plan for all creatures. Even a Devil child like you."

What kind of a priest would say that? What kind of man of the cloth would not try to save her soul?

"The Devil?"

The Devil himself in the form of a priest, who was sitting in the dark of the confessor? Was she in danger of losing to Lucifer? Was this why her insights screamed just now to flee, but not obviously, for the predator is fond of chasing. Gathering her courage and grasping the rosary in her palms, she sent a prayer to the Holy Mother for protection. She sent a prayer to Saint Catherine of the Wheel, her patron saint in helping her retreat from this danger in the form of a false priest.

And also a prayer for safety for the soul of Father Brown, since the same seeing was showing her that he was no longer part of the material world.

"Yes!" exclaimed false priest. "You are a spawn of Satan. All the Hail Mary's in the world aren't going to help. The Lord will use you and smite you down. He's like that."

"What can I do?"

What can I do to get away, I must get away. Away. Away, she thought, repeating like a mantra. She must get away from the dark, to the safe heaven of the sun outside.

"Fulfill his plan, child. Be evil. Just give in," he said, and she could hear joy in his words, those words that carried poison and false promise. She knew that she was not evil, and besides Father Brown often said that she was always a pious little girl, that had grown into a beautiful spiritual soul, and he was honored that such a soul chose to serve God.

"No!" Still she was very frightened of this devil in the confessionary. "I want to be good; I want to be pure."

"We all do at first. The world doesn't work that way."

"Father…I beg of you…please … please help me." She prayed to God out loud, but in her mind she added a prayer for God to strike down this evil creature purges the devil and restore the lost soul.

"Aa, very well, child. Ten Our Fathers and an Act of Contrition. Does that sound good?"

Drusilla nearly sagged in relief. "Yes, yes Father. Thank you."

"The pleasure is always mine. And my child …"

"Yes?"

"God is watching you."

"God is always watching," she replied, and started pulling away the curtain to exit the confessional and the building all together.

To be continued.