Image by Michael Kauer from Pixabay
I sneaked out into the chilling night air the day after meeting David Chapman and somehow found myself in front of the crumping parish church.
The godly structure arrested me as soon as I was close enough to feel its towering height, eye-like and menacing windows and the piercing tower obscured by dark clouds.
Unbeknownst to myself, I came to a standstill and held my breath.
It was locked.
I tried to budge it open with force twice, but it would not open and reveal the darkness it brooded on.
Thinking I had at least tried and that I now ought to return to the school grounds, I shifted my gaze to the churchyard teeming with stale and grim gravestones as far as my eyes could see.
Then I reasoned there must be a second exit or a hidden entrance from the back to the graveyard due to the nature of the beat-down and antique structure dating from the 1800s.
With these thoughts in the back of my mind, I set off to the churchyard where the undead lay still in their dark and filthy tombs made of sin.
An earthly odour filled the entire yard. The soil was damp, although it hadn’t poured down and painted the premises dark.
I moseyed through the forlorn gravestones; most of them were dated two generations before I was even born.
Time stood still.
I was in a Timeslip of a kind and each step led me farther from my own world, although I could swear the gloomy night sky was still the same.
By the time I found the backdoor, I had forgotten why I had come here in the first place.
For a mere second, I thought of returning but knew I could not turn a blind eye to the sinister things happening in Dew Shire.
I found a rock and hammered it against the bolted door repeatedly until it unlocked.
A breeze of cold air chilled me to the bone with the grating of the rusted and stale backdoor which had not been used for ages.
I found myself next to the altar where I witnessed Mary’s unfazed speech a few days ago.
But this was hardly what caught my attention.
Far from view and the numerous rows of benches to the left of the altar was an underground passage. It was narrow and suffocating.
My insides turned upside down as I took the flight down from the creaking stairs only to break off.
I was not alone.
At first, the voices were faint and seemed to echo all over the place, but then they grew louder.
It was then that I saw two figures coming down from the second floor; I recognised one of the voices immediately.
It belonged to Nath.
The other voice, however, was unfamiliar.
I rushed to the closest row and hid as the two men, much to my surprise, made it to the altar and then entered the underground passage.
There was a hint of distraught in Nath’s guttural voice, and although I did not know the reason behind his distress, I knew it had something to do with Vera’s sudden disappearance.
By the time it was too late to regret it, I stood up and followed the two men inside.
But they were nowhere to be found as I entered the hidden chamber made of stones and seemed to be stuck in a time long since forgotten.
The first thing I noticed was the scent of incense, much like the ones I smelled at Mary’s home – only this time it was much more intense, almost thicker and more suffocating in this small, enclosed space.
Then I noticed the catafalques all around me and a shiver shot up my spine, unable to focus or wrap my head around what emerged right before me in all directions.
Just as I forgot about the two men, their approaching voices reminded me of their presence and I got into a state of panic.
My first thought was to flee the underground chamber, but my eyes shifted focus and I found myself dashing towards another hidden passage inside the chamber in the opposite direction of the approaching voices.
That was when I found yet another catafalque, but this one was new and, much to my surprise, not nailed.
I opened it just in case Nath and the other guy approached and I would have a place to hide when I jolted back at the sight that met me.
The white, empty and expressionless stare of a pair of eyes.
I must have gasped, there was no way to tell if I had or not, but I noticed right then and there that the approaching voices faded away all of a sudden.
Without realising whose eyes I locked gazes with, I squeezed into the catafalque and closed the lid just enough to fill my lungs with fresh air.
A string of light was all that entered through the gap I purposely left, but it was enough to help me discern whose cold body I lay next to.
A shiver shot up my spine at the morbid realisation that I now held onto the corpse of the very little girl I had come to find.
I covered my mouth and stifled yet another escaping gasp.
“How sure are you about this? Mary doesn’t like surprises. You know better than anyone…”
It was Nath’s voice.
My quivering eyes shifted to the gap as soon as I heard him.
“It came from here, I’m sure. I heard footsteps, I tell you! Why would I lie?”
“Must be the spirits then,” Nath said and added before the other could interject. “Surely, you don’t fear what’s already dead and gone with the unforgiven wind?”
There was a short pause after this.
The person with Nath remained hushed and wouldn’t respond to this.
My heart skipped a beat, and I fixed my darting eyes on the gap as Nath broke the prevailing silence.
“See, the lid’s open. We just need to nail it so the spirits won’t escape and play us for fools. Gimme a hand, will ya?”
“Don’t think that’s a good idea…”
“Well, you’d rather be alone with the spirits, then?”
Whoever was with Nath backed away. I could almost hear the frantic beat of his heart as he replied.
“I’m not touching that thing! You take care of this yourself, and…” The stranger paused as if he heard something out of the ordinary, before carrying on as if nothing happened. “… make sure it stays closed.”
The man left; I was sure.
There were no more noises for a while and I thought of sneaking out, when I realised someone was moving about in the silence yet did not approach the catafalque.
It was during this time that something unexpected occurred. The cold child who I thought was dead came alive.
My flickering eyes fraught with horror widened at the sight of the flailing child struggling to escape her ill fate.
Too stunned to move at first, I barely covered Vera’s lips and let my eyes wander to the gap where the string of light now was obscured.
Vera scratched me all over, unaware of why she was stuck in the dark and panicking.
The lid closed and left both of us in pitch-black darkness.
Vera stopped moving just as suddenly as she had come to life – turning cold and still anew.
Then I heard it: the clanger of something being nailed down.
How long I had been inside the catafalque I did not know.
At one point I lost all senses and perception of time and place and could only focus on my strained breathing.
Vera had not come back to life during this time.
I thought I heard the hissing of a snake, the chatter of laughter and the image of a babbling spring now and then.
After a while, however, I realised that all these hallucinations were nothing but the products of my deteriorating mind in this enclosed, tight and narrow space shrouded in shadows.
By the time I gave up all attempts to break free, the lid opened and I stared blankly into a pair of green eyes I recognised.
I was hauled down onto the cold stone ground.
My eyes, which had adjusted to the darkness, were a blurry mess and it hurt to keep my eyes fully open and exposed to the dim-lit surroundings.
When I regained my vision and met Nath’s eyes, I recalled the little girl still inside the catafalque and forced myself up despite having no strength left in my body.
I could hardly stand up, but I pushed the lid aside with all my might and pulled the child out.
Even this time, as I held Vera in my arms and brought her out into the light, her body was as cold as ice. There was not a single sign of life in her.
Yet I somehow knew this was far from the truth. Vera was still alive. How, I did not know and had no way of explaining under these macabre circumstances, but I was certain.
I let the girl rest on my thighs and gently shook her back to life. Her cold body did not move and her eyes did not meet mine even for a second, but I saw her bruised fingers twitch at my desperate pleas.
This was enough for me.
As I was about to carry the girl out and flee the chamber, a figure calling my name made his presence known once again.
I flinched at the realisation of his existence and picked up my pace when he said something I could not ignore.
I came to a standstill and stared down at Vera. Her pallid face was stiff and blue, just like the undead.
But this child was not dead – dying, yes, that was obvious – but far from it as long as I nurtured her back to life.
I knew every second was worth this little child’s life and that we had to get out of here, out of Dew Shire, as soon as possible.
But his words were too difficult to ignore.
I, albeit unwillingly, turned to face him, and when he did not elaborate on his words, I pressed on.
“What… what are you, people?”
“We are human, just like you…”
“You expect me to believe—”
“Don’t you know,” he began, “that human beings are far more wicked than any other entity?”
I looked down at the poor thing.
Although I agreed, I wasn’t about to confirm Nath.
He, instead of telling me the truth he promised, kept beating around the bush as if to gain time for whatever wicked lie he intended to tell me.
I was not going to let him do this.
“What’s going around in this place? What were you gonna do to Vera?”
He briefly dropped his head. “And if I tell you everything, will you let that child go?”
“No! Never!”
“Then I can’t tell you what you want to know.”
“She’s just a child!” My voice cracked; the thought of abandoning a helpless child was enough to make me see red. “Vera, she’s… she’s just a child, for God’s sake! What did she ever do to you people—”
“Let’s say you bring Vera with you and flee this place, and then what? She’ll just be replaced by another child! Do you think you can save them all?”
“From… from what?” I asked. “From what should I save them – if that’s what I have to?”
“You don’t get it, do you? Saving them is beside the point here! You can’t save her, not like this!” He paused upon seeing my distorted face and softened his voice. “Listen, I know this sounds crazy, but… let the child go. That’s the only way you can save her…”
“No, I’m not gonna—”
Nath punched the wall.
“I’m telling you the way to save her, don’t I! Can’t you just… just trust me this once?”
“Trust you…?” A bitter smirk played on my lips. “Then give me something I can believe; tell me what you’re hiding.”
He rubbed his face; his antsy eyes fixed on the child I carried close to my bosom.
His flickering gaze then met mine as if he noticed how I studied him at that very moment and broke out into cold sweat.
He was desperate in his pleas; he wanted me to put Vera back into the catafalque.
“Listen, I- I can’t tell you anything before you do as I say, all right? I’m not…” He rubbed his face again, which turned pale and he wheezed as if he was stuck inside a catafalque himself and couldn’t breathe. “I’m not playing mind games, okay? I’m not trying to fool you, I just… Please, you gotta listen to me before it’s—”
“Nath…?”
We both turned towards the sudden voice echoing from the other side of the passage and the larger chamber.
It belonged to the man who was with Nath, I was sure of this and for a second I thought I had met my doom.
But Nath did not respond to the man looking for him, neither did he ask the other for help.
Instead, he remained silent.
I stared at the helpless child thinking this was the end of us, when the voice became fainter and then disappeared for good.
I caressed the poor thing and noted that she regained some colour on her cheeks.
Then I… put her back into the darkness.
I did not trust Nath, of course, I did not, how could I? But he just let go of a perfect opportunity to get rid of me and he did not take it.
It made me wonder whether there was any truth to the words he said.
He let out a sigh of relief and collapsed on his knees, rocking back and forth as if he were a toddler trying to soothe himself from a looming danger.
“Why are you like this?”
He stopped rocking and looked at me from where he stood on both knees.
For a second, it looked as if he had forgotten I was there and tried to wrap his head around how I had come to find him in this dismal state.
“What… do you think of Mary?”
I frowned. Didn’t he ask this question already? At the same time, I could tell that he didn’t actually want to ask me this very question, only that it was the closest thing to whatever lingered on the tip of his tongue.
I did not respond.
I thought nothing of Mary.
During my short-lived career, I had seen my fair share of peculiar people and Mary was one of the sanest people I had crossed paths with even if I did not want to confess to this at the time.
What I could not deny however was the way she pulled people in and the way her sweet, honeyed voice made everyone around her let their guard down.
It dawned on me then that this must be the reason the villagers listened and heeded her every word as if she was delaying the words of God Himself.
Immediately after this train of thought, I recalled what the children told me about their Gospel. I don’t even know why this thought occurred to me, but it did.
And before I knew it, those singular words escaped from my lips even before I became aware of their existence in my dismal mind.
“She’s… she’s the voice of God?”
Nath, horrified by the nature of my sudden confession, stood up and backed away as if he had seen a phantom.
“How—” He stammered, trying to form words and clear his mind all at the same time. “Did you just… No, it’s not possible! Yet you…”
“Is this why you call her that – Mary Magdalene?”
“Not only that,” he confided in me. “There’s more to her name than you can ever imagine.”
“Then enlighten me.”
“How well do you know your Gospel, Ms Carlton, that’s all it boils down to…”
“I have never been religious, I’m afraid. I only know what my mother taught me two decades ago.” Then added before he could reply. “Why’s this so significant?”
“Do you believe in God?”
I pulled a half-hearted smile despite the circumstances.
“As I mentioned earlier, I have never been religious despite my upbringing.”
“That’s not a reply,” Nath said and rephrased his question.
I frowned.
“Do you believe in the good and evil?”
“I already answered that…”
He paused for a few seconds as if to make sure I understood everything he said and left no stone unturned in my attempts to answer these questions he was asking instead of giving me the truth I sought.
“But you said she was the voice of God. What made you think that?”
“I…” I didn’t know what to say. Why this kind of thought popped up in my head, I couldn’t say even if I wanted to.
“Have you considered then that she could be the voice of the Devil instead?”
“What?” He didn’t respond to this. I briefly looked away to gather my thoughts. This was getting ridiculous yet the person in front of me was dead serious. “As in the Devil disguised as God’s voice, is that what you mean? That she’s pretending to relay the voice of God?”
“Something like that, yes. But she wasn’t the first of her blood who started this game of pretend as a false prophet.”
“False prophet?”
“Mary Magdalene was the first. She tricked a great many Christians, saying she conveyed the voice of God, and in her footsteps followed her descendants.”
I smirked without meaning to. I couldn’t wrap my head around the nonsense I was hearing. Had these people gone bonkers or was I too abstruse for my own good to believe in these fairytales disguised as gospels?
“So, let me get this right: you’re saying that Mary Magdalene, the first of her kind that is, was pretending to relay the message of God? And that,” I paused to gather my thoughts, “she’s in fact relaying the voice of the Devil?”
He nodded without wasting any time.
“She’s been living off of these lies, her Gospels that is, since the dawn of time! She whispers evil and won’t stop at nothing!” As if to make sure I got everything right, he paused shortly before continuing in that same maniacal voice that made me shudder. “And I’m afraid only you can stop her…”
“Me…?”
“It’s written in the Gospels, Ms Carlton! It was prophesied that you’d one day arrive in Dew Shire, destroy the Gospels and save us!”
“That’s—”
“Have you never wondered why you don’t look like your mother?” he interrupted me.
I knitted my brows upon hearing this. He pressed on without waiting for me to respond.
“Seeing how you look at me right now, you must have wondered, after all…”
“This… this is getting—”
“She’s not your mother, is she? Not the one who gave birth to you, that is.”
I briefly dropped my head. David Chapman’s voice rang in my head as he recounted the fate of Enis Fair and how her offspring was never found.
A pang of ache spread from the deepest chamber of my heart to my fingertips, and I backed away without being aware of it, horrified and beyond myself at this realisation.
It then hit me that it wasn’t Dew Shire, which lured me into this trap but my own mother, whose fate I once heard as a child, and then as an adult from the very journalist who had last seen her alive.
But how was all of this possible? Why was I of all people prophesied to bring an end to the false prophesies? Just why…?
How would I even stand up against someone who whispered the sweet tongue of the Devil and brought the entire world to her feet with a single gesture?
“Why… why me?” I asked, unable to clear my harrowing thoughts and let my doubts put to rest. “I don’t believe in this nonsense, I never will, so why me? Why am I mentioned in the Gospels?”
“Mary’s mother, the prophet and former Mary Magdalene, let you live the day your mother was murdered. They ripped you out of her and you were brought up as the rest of us but everything changed when you became six years old.
“It was prophesied that you’d one day grow up and declare yourself a prophet to destroy the voice of God. You were ordered to be killed just like your mother, Enis Fair.
“But your mother, the woman who brought you up, fled with you the night they came for your head. I was ten years old at the time and my memory is no better than yours but I clearly remember you.
“And I have waited for you all this time, we all have. I’m not the only one who sees through the lies of the Devil and wants to break free. There are more of us who no longer want Mary around.”
“You’ve been waiting for me?” I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
Nothing made sense.
I was to declare myself a prophet to fool people? Then again, if all of this was true and these people really believed these things then—I lifted my eyes off the ground as Nath spoke once more.
“Please, help us! No, you must help us!”
“I don’t even know how!” I began, unsure of how to explain myself to this person who truly believed I was his saviour.
“I don’t know how to help you.”
“There’ll be a ritual tomorrow tonight.” He shifted his eyes to the catafalque.
“We hold a ritual every ten to fifteen years and sacrifice one of our own for the Second Coming. Vera’s parents pleaded with Mary to have her.”
“What do you mean—”
“She’s going to be killed in front of the altar,” he began, “we’re all going to eat a part of her to honour Mary and pray that her bloodline never dry up.”
“What in the—you’ve done this before?”
He shook his head. “This will be my first. Our last sacrifice failed since your mother fled with you.”
“How can I trust you? For all I care, you’re telling me all of this to gain my trust and then lure me to my death.”
“You… just have to take my word for it.” He looked around himself, fidgeting and anxious. “We need to go now! Mary’s gonna be here any second! She shouldn’t see us here!”
I shifted my eyes to the catafalque, where the poor child slept soundly, unaware of what was going on around her.
“Are you going to nail it?” I already knew the answer yet it made me shudder, nonetheless.
“Only after Mary arrives and gives the go-ahead.”
“And then what?”
“I already told you,” he whispered and leaned in. “This is the only way we can keep her safe!”
“I…” I couldn’t tear my unfocused eyes off the catafalque.
“As long as you do as I say and accept your role in all this, nothing’s gonna happen to that child. I promise.”
I briefly shut my eyes. “I’m not… what you think I am. I have no power to stop Mary or- or whatever this is about…”
“You’ll figure something out, I’m sure you will! Your name is written in the Gospels! I don’t know why or how, but if the Devil fears you, then I trust you with my life and so does everyone else!”
“You don’t it!” I said, raising my voice and unable to keep in the growing frustration. “ I’m not a prophet! I’m not God and I’m certainly not the voice of God, either!”
“I never said you were – you did. Just now.”
“I don’t even believe in the things you people believe in! I don’t believe in God or the Devil neither in Heaven nor Hell.” I took a pause. “And I’m not a bloody prophet; I’m not.”
“Then pretend that you are! If you really want to save that kid’s life, that is…”
I was flabbergasted.
“Then what… what do you want me to do, exactly?”
“You’ll know what to do,” he said, adding before I had the chance to press on. “Make sure to be here during the ritual. I’ll leave the backdoor open.”
Could he truly be trusted? As I was having these thoughts, now back in the office, I could not stop thinking of everything he told me with such sincerity.
I was certain of only one thing: I was not a prophet and I did not mean to fool people prone to be made a fool of.
At the same time, I could not explain how my name somehow became part of a prophecy and that this had come into existence and ignited hope in these people the second I arrived here.
Moreover, I could not sleep soundly when I knew Vera was dying in the darkness, afraid and perhaps disappointed that I abandoned her to die all alone.
But what if all of this was true?
What if…?
I couldn’t sleep a wink.
I was in the safety of my office, but I knew something terrible was going to happen soon.
As midnight approached, I could no longer bear the harrowing thoughts and phoned David Chapman.
He did not pick up right away.
I began to count the seconds.
And as soon as I heard his voice, I broke down in tears.
I was in a blind.
Vera was inside that catafalque, trapped in the suffocating darkness, and some lunatics believed I was some kind of prophet!
I was losing it.
I needed someone to tell me the way to go – what to do and how to do it.
David Chapman was the only person I could think of.
The End.
Read Voice of God - Part VII.