Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
The sound was less an alarm and more a manifestation of the anxiety already humming beneath his skin. His eyes cracked open to the familiar darkness of 5:00 AM. This hour was a part of his bones, a rhythm ingrained by a lifetime of discipline and formation from his seminary days ,he never needed a clock. But now, the ritual felt like a lie. The last few days had been a waking disaster, and this Sunday morning promised no respite.
The routine was a hollow pantomime. In the bathroom, the shower spray trickled from his hair, down over the weary slope of his shoulders and pecs, tracing the contours of a body that felt like a stranger's before streaming to his feet. There was no peace in it. A palpable barrier, stood between him and the water's cleansing grace. He brushed his teeth, the mint a futile effort against the bitter taste of confusion. He pulled on his black cassock, the wool a familiar weight that now felt less like a vestment and more like a sentence.
In his study, the lectionary lay open. He tried to focus on the readings, to find a thread for his homily, but the sacred words were drowned out by a venomous echo: Necromancer. .
Sarah's terrified, contorted face flashed behind his eyes. He fiddled with his pen, tapping a frantic rhythm on the blank page. What had she seen in his rectory? What truth had she uncovered that painted him as such a monster?
A glance at his watch jolted him 8:55. Mass was at 9:00. A cold panic seized him. He was running late. He burst from the rectory and dashed to the sacristy, realizing with a stab of absurdity that he was still clutching the useless pen.
They were all waiting. The altar servers stood in a silent, solemn line of red and white. The lectors, the prayer leader, the catechists their faces were expecting and a new, unsettling tension. He moved past them in a blur, his greeting a perfunctory mumble. In the sacristy, his hands fumbled with the vestments, the alb a stark white, the chasuble a vibrant green, both feeling like costumes draped over the essential black of his cassock.
The procession began. As they reached the church entrance, the introductory hymn died in the vast space. He looked out. His breath caught. The pews, usually a sea of faithful faces, were vast expanses of empty, polished wood. He could count the congregation on one hand. His eyes were drawn to the choir loft. There, alone, stood a single little girl, singing valiantly into the microphone, her small voice a lonely echo. What is going on? The thought was a scream in his mind. Last week had been a trial this felt like an annihilation.
The mass was a painful, hollow ceremony. His greetings were met with thin, scattered replies. The sermon he delivered was a rambling, disconnected thing, devoid of spirit. He felt like an actor on a stage, performing for an audience that had already left.
One string of hope remained with him , it was not just for them, it was for him too
The moment the final blessing was uttered, Bernard didn't linger. He moved with a desperate purpose to the choir loft.
The girl was swinging her legs, one bare foot tracing arcs in the air. "Why didn't your parents come to church today?" he asked, his voice softer than he intended.
She shrugged. "Where did everyone go? And where is your shoe?"
"Hmm. I don't like shoes," she stated, as if it were the most obvious truth. Then her gaze, far too old for her face, met his. "And Mummy said you are a bad man. She said you use dark magic .and you capture and enslave souls. She got scared after seeing what happened to Sister Sarah yesterday. She saw Grandma and her friends behind you yesterday."
A chill, cold and sharp, traced its way down his spine. "What do you mean, Grandma and her friends?"
"I see her every day when I come to church for mass," she explained with a child's unnerving nonchalance. "But they seem to follow you around. He said you are the benefactor." She scrunched her nose. "I don't know what that means." She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "She said she was going to be praying for you and protecting you. Everyone is scared of you, talking behind your back. They say you capture and enslave souls. I tell them it's not true, but they won't believe me."
The words landed like physical blows. Capture and enslave souls. Is that what they thought his midnight masses were? Is that what his "devotion" looked like from the outside?
"Okay, dear," he managed, his throat tight. "What is your name?"
"Felicity."
"A beautiful name. Okay, Felicity. Go home now. And please, wear your shoe."
"Ok, Father. Bye." She hopped down and waved cheerfully not at him, but at the empty space just to his left. "Bye bye, Grandma." And she skipped away, leaving him alone in the echoing silence, a profound chill settling deep within him.
Back in the rectory, the silence was a physical presence. He warmed a frozen meal the and sat down to his Sunday dinner. It was then, in the heavy quiet, that Felicity's words circled back. "I tell them it's not true." Her innocence had tuned him into a frequency he had been actively suppressing. He became aware of them then the murmurs. A low, indistinct whispering at the very edge of his hearing, a susurrus of countless faint voices. He realized with a start that he had been subconsciously shutting them out for weeks, perhaps longer. Now, he listened, and the sound was like the rustling of a forest made of ghosts.
As if on cue, his phone rang, shattering the uneasy quiet. The screen glowed: My Lord Francis. The Bishop. His stomach plummeted. He picked up.
"Good afternoon, my lord."
"Happy Sunday, Bernard." The bishop's voice was cordial, but there was no warmth in it.
"Happy Sunday, my lord. To what do I owe the honour?" He already knew.
"Yes, Bernard. See me in my office tomorrow, 2 PM sharp." The pause was heavy, final. "We need to talk about what I have been hearing about you."
"Ye..... Yes, my lord, I....." The line went dead, cutting off his feeble response.
He sat there, the dial tone buzzing in his ear. The longest days of his life, compressed into a few hours. And in a few hours . He had lost his passion, his peace of mind, his assembly of the faithful, and now, the trust of his superior. Worst of all, he was adrift in a nightmare he didn't understand, accused of a sin he couldn't comprehend. He passed a trembling hand through his hair, the gesture of a man utterly lost, like a sheep struggling in tall grass. He sighed, the sound hollow in the empty room.
"My love is killing me," he whispered to the silence, and the silence, for the first time, felt like it agreed.
Seeking oblivion, he went to the sitting room and collapsed onto the sofa. He turned on the fan, and the blades began their lazy rotation, cutting rhythmically through the light of the single bulb. The alternating pulses of light and shadow were almost hypnotic, a visual lullaby. The steady whir and the spinning shadows rocked him, a weary child, into a fitful sleep.
He woke with a start to the familiar, ring the summons he could not ignore. It was time to celebrate the Mass, as always. His heart was heavier than ever, now burdened with a new, peculiar grief a heartache for Felicity's grandma, a woman he had never met, yet who, the child claimed, followed him everywhere.