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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Fairy Tales & Fantasy
- Subject: Horror / Scary
- Published: 12/28/2014
The old priest shivers and rouses himself from the threadbare armchair by the hearth so he can throw another log on the fire. He knows he should get up and close the heavy drapes, there is a draft, a cold shaft of air seeping in through the ill fitting window frame. On stormy nights the metal rimmed glass rattles and the wind moans its displeasure with the world, but tonight it's no more than a cold spot in the room. Still he feels it, but he doesn't move, instead he reaches for his pipe and tobacco pouch. As he charges the pipe he wonders what Mrs Anders has left warming in the Arga.
'I must remember to throw it away or she'll worry' he thinks, for he knows he will not eat tonight. Not tonight nor maybe even tomorrow, no the Mass takes too much out of him. He glances at the clock, only an hour now before he must get ready, put on his chasuble and stole, make the trip to the church and begin.
The smell of sulphur fills the air as he extinguishes his match, finely scented tobacco smoke mingles with the single strand from the match, curling up and around him. He enjoys a smoke, the simple act calms him. He stares into the fire, watching the yellow red flames lap at the damp log. Soon it will be ablaze but for now he remains chilled. His thoughts inevitably turn back to the Mass.
There must have been a time when he could have told someone, when he could have confided the truth to another living soul, but the moment was long ago if it had ever existed at all. And so he had not mentioned it, though he had come close once at his brothers wedding.
The thought of his brother sparked a twinge of regret, his brother was a good man, an honest and devout man who had married and fathered several beautiful children. They were all grown up now with babes of their own and Patrick and Rose lived a quiet but comfortable life back in Donegal.
A smile forms at the corners of his mouth as he thinks of Rosie. Oh, he had loved Rosie, if truth be told he loved her still. Rosie with her fine red hair, back then her curls fell halfway down her back. Of course her hair was thin and grey now but in his minds eye he remembers the Rosie of yesteryear. He breathes deeply remembering the smell of her that night, her skin so pale in the moonlight.
That night was the only night he had physically broken his vows and sinned against God, but he had relived that most sweet of sins a thousand times since. Though even that fantasy now seemed jaded by the years. The photo too was dog eared and faded. She had given it to Him on the platform at Donegal station. 'Remember me fondly' she had said. At least that was one vow he'd kept.
Not long after he'd arrived at his first parish, a sleepy little village on the west coast. Still racked with guilt and jealousy of his brother Paddy, he'd thrown himself into his work. The church was not much more than a ruin, the parishioners old and ragged. Yet he'd enjoyed it there, enjoyed the freedom of having his own parish. Five years he was there, going about his business, tending to the faithful, performing far more funerals than weddings it was true, but still he'd found renewed faith and love of God. Back then he believed he'd been spared, God had not seen fit to punish him for his youthful transgression, not yet anyway.
Then, in the sixth year the Bishop had come calling. 'You have been chosen for another place' he'd said and chosen was surely the word, though he hadn't known it then. Father O'Dow had sadly passed away after spending over fifty years in the parish. Apparently the old priest had been found dead in his bed after performing Mass one cold October eve. But that was 'by the by' said the Bishop, 'I've come to inform you, you are to relocate to England'.
And so he packed and set off within the week across the Irish Sea. His new parish was larger for sure, a market town set upon the edge of a moorland range far up in the north of England. The church was larger too and very well kept. Back then several local women had cleaned it every week and though two of them had died the others still came. Mrs Anders mother was the housekeeper then, Mrs Anders herself had been nothing more than a slip of a girl, and now she was in her middle fifties, a rotund older lady with a cheery smile. He marvelled for a moment at the almost imperceptible passage of time. It seemed as though one moment he had been a young man and now he was suddenly old. How long had he been here before he'd realised what was expected of him? How many times had he performed the rite since?
Now he reaches for his brandy glass. Glances once again at the mantel clock, yes there is time for one more. As he passes the window he closes the curtains, finally blocking out the draft. He pours himself a generous measure, savouring the sparkling liquid, almost the same colour as Rosie's hair, and wonders, not for the first time, if that one night of earthly love had been worth a lifetime in the wilderness. The grandfather clock, easily a hundred years his senior, strikes the hour. Eleven o clock, time to prepare. He downs the last of the brandy, feels the heat as the liquid coats his throat, warming him from the inside out. He knows it will be the last time he feels warm tonight.
The trappings of his office are laid out on the bed, the gold brocade bright against the black cloth of the chasuble. Good old Mrs Anders, she has remembered his woollen vest, not that it insulates him as well as it once did. The old priest couldn't remember when he'd begun to feel the cold quite so much as he did now. It was one of the things he disliked about being old. The cold and the almost constant ache in his bones.
Dressed now in the ancient garb he collects his rosary from the night stand, allowing the beads to gather in the palm of his hand. Time to go, time to ready the church. He doesn't bother to lock the door, no one in their right mind would come here tonight. He chuckles at this thought for surely no one in their wrong mind would come either.
A chill wind whispers winters coming as he crosses the church yard. In daylight the walk past the carefully tended graves is pleasant but at night it's perilous. Cracked and worn stones laid a hundred years ago threaten to trip his every step, yet he doesn't slow. He knows the good Lord will not allow him to fall to his death this night. No the Lord has not found his replacement yet and so he will go on.
He turns the latch, pushes open the great wooden door and steps inside. It is even colder in here, it is an eternal cold that has existed untouched by sunlight or the warming hand of man. It is the cold of centuries, the cold of ages past. It is the kind of cold you can smell and taste and it mingles with the smells of ageing oak and slowly rotting fabric. And then there is the smell of the lilies, two great verses of massive white lilies at either side of the ancient stone altar. The old priest hates the smell, the lilies give him headache, but he also knows he will be glad of them later, glad of their heady scent once the church is filled.
He busies himself, lighting candles on the altar and in the sconces, until all the dark corners of the church are filled with tiny flickering points of light. The church is empty now but he knows they will soon be here. He faces the altar, a great stone table, literally centuries old. When he first arrived he had marvelled at its survival, a relic from the Middle Ages. But now as he lifts his hands to the heavens he knows why it has survived the years intact. He begins to pray for the strength to carry on. Everything is still and quiet now but he can feel them. 'Oh my beloved Lord, please let this be the last' he begs and then he lets his arms fall to his sides and turns to face them, the dead.
For a moment he is rendered speechless by the horror before his eyes, he is shocked by their numbers again this year, the old place is full, every seat taken and many more standing at the back, more and more each year it seems.
In the early years the agonised faces of those who had died in terror and pain had haunted his nights and troubled his days. There had been times when he thought he may go mad but he was not even allowed that escape. So instead he had continued as he did now.
Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotent em, factorem coeli et terroe, visibilium omnium et invisibilium
No the truth of it is so much more mundane, the truth is he has grown accustomed to the agony, the horror, the shame and the pain etched upon the damaged faces of the faithful dead. There was a time, back in the early years, when he had begun to make a mental note of some of their faces or the characteristics of their deaths. He had begun to research their stories.
Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum, et ex Patrem natum, ante omnia soecula. Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, gentium, non factum, consubstantialem Patri: per quem omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de coelis.
There had been the young woman in the pale blue night dress, she had sat in the third row, about half way down the pew. He could not decide how she may have died for she was physically unharmed. Later, in the library he had seen her face again. The local paper said she had slipped into a diabetic coma during sleep, far from home she had lain undisturbed and undiscovered for weeks. Beautiful at the moment of death, the priest could only imagine the grim sight her body had been at the moment the police broke down her door.
Et incarnates est de spiritu sancto ex Maria virgine, et homo factus est. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato; passus et sepultus est, et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas, et ascendit in coelum, sedat ad dexteram Patris. Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, iudicare vivos et mortuos, cuius regni non erit finis.
There was the young soldier still dressed in his battle fatigues, his face a study in pain, his body blackened and burned. He had apparently been caught in a fire blast. Sadly, unlike his comrades, he had not been killed outright. Instead he had been burned beyond recognition, it had taken several agonising days for him to pass.
Et in spirtum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem: qui ex Patre Filioque procedit. Qui cum Patre et filio simul adoratur, et conglorificatur: qui locutus est per prophetas.
And then there was Mr Foster, a weaselly faced little man who had tried to hide at the back. His face a strange mix of shock and shame. He had been stabbed to death by a long suffering Mrs Foster. Had he found forgiveness in death? The old priest didn't know.
Et unam, sanctum, catholican et apostolicam Ecclesiam.
Only a few years ago the priest had recognised his neighbours son, a boy of perhaps 15 years old. By all accounts he'd gotten in with the wrong crowd, started hanging out with older boys, taking the odd smoke, having the odd beer. According to his distraught father 'someone must have pressurised him into it'. The old priest didn't know if that was true, but he did know the boy had died of a drug overdose, the paramedics had found his pale, thin body in an alley behind a house, the syringe still in his arm.
Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi soeculi. Amen.
After a few years the old priest had stopped searching for their stories, if he recognised someone so be it, if he did not then he no longer cared. He had just accepted this as his punishment. And so he stayed on, on Sunday's he said Mass for the living. On Wednesday afternoons he opened the church hall for the WI, on Thursday mornings the church play group met in the same place. He made house calls, conducted christening, weddings and funerals. He heard confession and gave the last rite to the dying at home and in hospital.
And, at midnight, on 30th October each year, he conducted Mass for the dead. For the innocent and the guilty, for junkies and for soldiers, for battered wives and murdered men. For the faithless living now the faithful dead, all sinners in the eyes of God, hoping, nah praying, for absolution. Until finally he inevitably became one of them, a sinner wishing he had been a saint.
The End.
C. 19/09/2010.
Midnight Mass(Angelica Black)
The old priest shivers and rouses himself from the threadbare armchair by the hearth so he can throw another log on the fire. He knows he should get up and close the heavy drapes, there is a draft, a cold shaft of air seeping in through the ill fitting window frame. On stormy nights the metal rimmed glass rattles and the wind moans its displeasure with the world, but tonight it's no more than a cold spot in the room. Still he feels it, but he doesn't move, instead he reaches for his pipe and tobacco pouch. As he charges the pipe he wonders what Mrs Anders has left warming in the Arga.
'I must remember to throw it away or she'll worry' he thinks, for he knows he will not eat tonight. Not tonight nor maybe even tomorrow, no the Mass takes too much out of him. He glances at the clock, only an hour now before he must get ready, put on his chasuble and stole, make the trip to the church and begin.
The smell of sulphur fills the air as he extinguishes his match, finely scented tobacco smoke mingles with the single strand from the match, curling up and around him. He enjoys a smoke, the simple act calms him. He stares into the fire, watching the yellow red flames lap at the damp log. Soon it will be ablaze but for now he remains chilled. His thoughts inevitably turn back to the Mass.
There must have been a time when he could have told someone, when he could have confided the truth to another living soul, but the moment was long ago if it had ever existed at all. And so he had not mentioned it, though he had come close once at his brothers wedding.
The thought of his brother sparked a twinge of regret, his brother was a good man, an honest and devout man who had married and fathered several beautiful children. They were all grown up now with babes of their own and Patrick and Rose lived a quiet but comfortable life back in Donegal.
A smile forms at the corners of his mouth as he thinks of Rosie. Oh, he had loved Rosie, if truth be told he loved her still. Rosie with her fine red hair, back then her curls fell halfway down her back. Of course her hair was thin and grey now but in his minds eye he remembers the Rosie of yesteryear. He breathes deeply remembering the smell of her that night, her skin so pale in the moonlight.
That night was the only night he had physically broken his vows and sinned against God, but he had relived that most sweet of sins a thousand times since. Though even that fantasy now seemed jaded by the years. The photo too was dog eared and faded. She had given it to Him on the platform at Donegal station. 'Remember me fondly' she had said. At least that was one vow he'd kept.
Not long after he'd arrived at his first parish, a sleepy little village on the west coast. Still racked with guilt and jealousy of his brother Paddy, he'd thrown himself into his work. The church was not much more than a ruin, the parishioners old and ragged. Yet he'd enjoyed it there, enjoyed the freedom of having his own parish. Five years he was there, going about his business, tending to the faithful, performing far more funerals than weddings it was true, but still he'd found renewed faith and love of God. Back then he believed he'd been spared, God had not seen fit to punish him for his youthful transgression, not yet anyway.
Then, in the sixth year the Bishop had come calling. 'You have been chosen for another place' he'd said and chosen was surely the word, though he hadn't known it then. Father O'Dow had sadly passed away after spending over fifty years in the parish. Apparently the old priest had been found dead in his bed after performing Mass one cold October eve. But that was 'by the by' said the Bishop, 'I've come to inform you, you are to relocate to England'.
And so he packed and set off within the week across the Irish Sea. His new parish was larger for sure, a market town set upon the edge of a moorland range far up in the north of England. The church was larger too and very well kept. Back then several local women had cleaned it every week and though two of them had died the others still came. Mrs Anders mother was the housekeeper then, Mrs Anders herself had been nothing more than a slip of a girl, and now she was in her middle fifties, a rotund older lady with a cheery smile. He marvelled for a moment at the almost imperceptible passage of time. It seemed as though one moment he had been a young man and now he was suddenly old. How long had he been here before he'd realised what was expected of him? How many times had he performed the rite since?
Now he reaches for his brandy glass. Glances once again at the mantel clock, yes there is time for one more. As he passes the window he closes the curtains, finally blocking out the draft. He pours himself a generous measure, savouring the sparkling liquid, almost the same colour as Rosie's hair, and wonders, not for the first time, if that one night of earthly love had been worth a lifetime in the wilderness. The grandfather clock, easily a hundred years his senior, strikes the hour. Eleven o clock, time to prepare. He downs the last of the brandy, feels the heat as the liquid coats his throat, warming him from the inside out. He knows it will be the last time he feels warm tonight.
The trappings of his office are laid out on the bed, the gold brocade bright against the black cloth of the chasuble. Good old Mrs Anders, she has remembered his woollen vest, not that it insulates him as well as it once did. The old priest couldn't remember when he'd begun to feel the cold quite so much as he did now. It was one of the things he disliked about being old. The cold and the almost constant ache in his bones.
Dressed now in the ancient garb he collects his rosary from the night stand, allowing the beads to gather in the palm of his hand. Time to go, time to ready the church. He doesn't bother to lock the door, no one in their right mind would come here tonight. He chuckles at this thought for surely no one in their wrong mind would come either.
A chill wind whispers winters coming as he crosses the church yard. In daylight the walk past the carefully tended graves is pleasant but at night it's perilous. Cracked and worn stones laid a hundred years ago threaten to trip his every step, yet he doesn't slow. He knows the good Lord will not allow him to fall to his death this night. No the Lord has not found his replacement yet and so he will go on.
He turns the latch, pushes open the great wooden door and steps inside. It is even colder in here, it is an eternal cold that has existed untouched by sunlight or the warming hand of man. It is the cold of centuries, the cold of ages past. It is the kind of cold you can smell and taste and it mingles with the smells of ageing oak and slowly rotting fabric. And then there is the smell of the lilies, two great verses of massive white lilies at either side of the ancient stone altar. The old priest hates the smell, the lilies give him headache, but he also knows he will be glad of them later, glad of their heady scent once the church is filled.
He busies himself, lighting candles on the altar and in the sconces, until all the dark corners of the church are filled with tiny flickering points of light. The church is empty now but he knows they will soon be here. He faces the altar, a great stone table, literally centuries old. When he first arrived he had marvelled at its survival, a relic from the Middle Ages. But now as he lifts his hands to the heavens he knows why it has survived the years intact. He begins to pray for the strength to carry on. Everything is still and quiet now but he can feel them. 'Oh my beloved Lord, please let this be the last' he begs and then he lets his arms fall to his sides and turns to face them, the dead.
For a moment he is rendered speechless by the horror before his eyes, he is shocked by their numbers again this year, the old place is full, every seat taken and many more standing at the back, more and more each year it seems.
In the early years the agonised faces of those who had died in terror and pain had haunted his nights and troubled his days. There had been times when he thought he may go mad but he was not even allowed that escape. So instead he had continued as he did now.
Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotent em, factorem coeli et terroe, visibilium omnium et invisibilium
No the truth of it is so much more mundane, the truth is he has grown accustomed to the agony, the horror, the shame and the pain etched upon the damaged faces of the faithful dead. There was a time, back in the early years, when he had begun to make a mental note of some of their faces or the characteristics of their deaths. He had begun to research their stories.
Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum, et ex Patrem natum, ante omnia soecula. Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, gentium, non factum, consubstantialem Patri: per quem omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de coelis.
There had been the young woman in the pale blue night dress, she had sat in the third row, about half way down the pew. He could not decide how she may have died for she was physically unharmed. Later, in the library he had seen her face again. The local paper said she had slipped into a diabetic coma during sleep, far from home she had lain undisturbed and undiscovered for weeks. Beautiful at the moment of death, the priest could only imagine the grim sight her body had been at the moment the police broke down her door.
Et incarnates est de spiritu sancto ex Maria virgine, et homo factus est. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato; passus et sepultus est, et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas, et ascendit in coelum, sedat ad dexteram Patris. Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, iudicare vivos et mortuos, cuius regni non erit finis.
There was the young soldier still dressed in his battle fatigues, his face a study in pain, his body blackened and burned. He had apparently been caught in a fire blast. Sadly, unlike his comrades, he had not been killed outright. Instead he had been burned beyond recognition, it had taken several agonising days for him to pass.
Et in spirtum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem: qui ex Patre Filioque procedit. Qui cum Patre et filio simul adoratur, et conglorificatur: qui locutus est per prophetas.
And then there was Mr Foster, a weaselly faced little man who had tried to hide at the back. His face a strange mix of shock and shame. He had been stabbed to death by a long suffering Mrs Foster. Had he found forgiveness in death? The old priest didn't know.
Et unam, sanctum, catholican et apostolicam Ecclesiam.
Only a few years ago the priest had recognised his neighbours son, a boy of perhaps 15 years old. By all accounts he'd gotten in with the wrong crowd, started hanging out with older boys, taking the odd smoke, having the odd beer. According to his distraught father 'someone must have pressurised him into it'. The old priest didn't know if that was true, but he did know the boy had died of a drug overdose, the paramedics had found his pale, thin body in an alley behind a house, the syringe still in his arm.
Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi soeculi. Amen.
After a few years the old priest had stopped searching for their stories, if he recognised someone so be it, if he did not then he no longer cared. He had just accepted this as his punishment. And so he stayed on, on Sunday's he said Mass for the living. On Wednesday afternoons he opened the church hall for the WI, on Thursday mornings the church play group met in the same place. He made house calls, conducted christening, weddings and funerals. He heard confession and gave the last rite to the dying at home and in hospital.
And, at midnight, on 30th October each year, he conducted Mass for the dead. For the innocent and the guilty, for junkies and for soldiers, for battered wives and murdered men. For the faithless living now the faithful dead, all sinners in the eyes of God, hoping, nah praying, for absolution. Until finally he inevitably became one of them, a sinner wishing he had been a saint.
The End.
C. 19/09/2010.
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