He only hoped his daughter was alive.
Oliver was alone.
The cathedral was empty, almost eerily so.
Quickly sketching the sign of the cross over his chest, he knelt on the cold stone floor, his knees aching immediately, an old soccer injury unforgiving.
He embraced the pain. Wished he could endure more. Then perhaps, the evil would be banished from his soul for all of eternity.
Instead it lingered, an oozing, dark cancer spreading through him.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” he prayed desperately.
High over the altar, the Son of God looked down on him. Wounded, bleeding, a crown of thorns upon His head as He suffered on the cross. Jesus was unmoving. Cast in plaster and paint. Staring.
Oliver made the sign of the cross again and begged the Spirit to enter him. Pleaded for goodness to fill him. Craved for forgiveness.
But his eyes strayed to the floor beneath the windows where shadows played and danced.
Brilliant beams from the rising sun pierced the stained glass and cast splintered, colorful images upon the cold stones of the cathedral’s floor.
The patterns of color reminded him of the kaleidoscope his brother Neville had been given.
How many hours had he stared through the eyepiece to watch the dancing, changing, swirling patterns? But Neville had been selfish with the toy he’d bought with his birthday money and he’d hidden the intriguing tube in a slit in the mattress of his upper bunk.
Oliver had found it.
And kept it.
When Neville discovered his treasure was missing, he’d accused Oliver of the crime, but Oliver had lied and sworn he’d seen Aaron hanging around their bunks, poking and prodding. Oliver had convinced Neville that Aaron was the culprit and Neville had never guessed differently.
But then Aaron had always been such an easy target.
Oliver had then hidden his prize in the bole of a hollow oak tree at the edge of the park three streets over from their house. There had been a path through a patch of woods and old-man Henderson’s backyard that led to the small, dedicated piece of land where a rusted swing set and a jungle gym near a baseball diamond was considered a playground. But there had been the one special tree. He’d spent hours in the limbs of the gnarled oak, looking through the magical glass and letting his mind spin with all the distorted images.
He’d never confessed his sin to his twin.
But then, he’d never confessed a lot of his sins. For he was poisoned inside. He knew it now. The torturing thought burned through his brain. He whispered a prayer, but his eyes strayed to the patterns of color on the floor that reminded him of other places. Dark haunts. Creaking corridors with stained glass images of Jesus and Mary and the disciples…He felt a weird, nearly seductive tingle move through his blood and he thought of the dark place…the lonely place…the spot where in hi
s sickness he’d been sent to recover.
A hospital they’d called it.
Our Lady of Virtues.
But he knew better.
Hospitals were for healing.
That place—with its dripping faucets, creaky stairways and hidden, evil hallways—was for harming. A cool breeze would creep through the apse, as if something cold and unholy had passed by. He’d felt it more than once.
He glanced down at his wrists, saw the scars, now twenty-five years old, and felt a violent rumble deep in his soul. He hurriedly bent his head and once more began to pray.
Fervently.
Desperately.
Needing God to hear him and keep the demons at bay.