On the Third Day (25 page)

            He saw the hem of Father Thomas’ vestments first.  The thick, ornate cloth blended almost perfectly with the crimson pool on the carpeted floor.  It was, in fact, impossible to tell where the priest ended and the floor began.  The blood was too thick, still rolling down the folds of material like a ruby waterfall.  The robes were lost in the puddle at Father Thomas’ feet and flowed up his legs.  He might have been a Cardinal, or some great Pontiff in brilliant red robes in that light, and that moment.

            Donovan forced his gaze up another foot to Father Thomas’ chest.  There were criss-crossed veins of red running down the front of the priest’s body.  His torso was not as thickly coated as his legs seemed to be, but where the blood did flow it poured, dripping down to blend with the small lake and rivers beneath.

            Father Thomas’ arms were stretched out to either side, rigid as any cross.  His palms were upraised, but turned at the wrists, which were held flat and torn.  Ragged holes pierced each, and the shadow of something protruded from them, something that Donovan could not make out – and wasn’t sure he wanted to make out.  He followed the trail of blood back down one arm to the chest and lifted his eyes a final time.

            Father Thomas’ face was transformed.  It was still the man Donovan knew facing him, but only in very general terms.  The priest’s eyes were sunken, deep pits of pain.  Tears flowed from the corners of his eyes to blend with the steady stream of blood trickling from his brow.  Again, though there was nothing there to see, Donovan got the shadowy impression of something beyond the mundane reality he’d lived his entire life celebrating.  The shadow of a thorny wreath had wrapped itself around and around Father Thomas’ brow.  It was from beneath this that the blood flowed, or possibly, Donovan thought, from within it.

            He was struck again by the impossible amount of blood, but he couldn’t spare it any concentration at that moment.  He lifted his head a final time to the huge, bas-relief crucifixion on the wall above and behind Father Thomas.  Father Thomas was a microcosm of that figure, and for just a moment Donovan was certain he saw tears flowing from the carvings eyes to drop down the gleaming, brightly painted frame.

            He met Father Thomas’ gaze and placed a hand on the rug before him for balance.  He wanted to rise, and to walk forward, but the young priest held his gaze, and he did not.  He remained on his knees.  The pained expression painted across Father Thomas’ features shifted ever-so-slightly toward a smile.  Then, without seeming to move his lips, and without any warning, Father Thomas spoke, still in Latin, and never dropping Donovan’s gaze.

            “Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.”

            Father Prescott’s heart pumped faster.  He grew dizzy, and was suddenly very glad for the hand he’d put out for balance.  The words fell like honey from Father Thomas’ lips.  Donovan heard them clearly and was certain that every other person in the cathedral had heard them as well, though Father Thomas did not seem to raise his voice, or to strain.

            The words floated on the surface of his mind, and without thought, Donovan repeated them, making the simple transition in his mind from the ancient Latin to English.

            “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.”

            A sigh rippled through the congregation, as if the exchange of words touched them, or released some bond of silence.  Father Prescott tried to rise, but found that he could not.  He gazed up at Father Thomas, who spoke once again.

            “Domine, non sum dignus.”

            Tears flowed freely down Donovan’s cheeks, a sudden flood that he could neither have anticipated nor controlled.  The words burned into him, and he felt their truth in the weight that held him on his knees.

            In answer, he said, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.”

            Donovan rose without a word.  No force restrained him.  His limbs were his own, but he took no time to exult in this.  He stood, staring silently into Father Thomas’ eyes, and he started forward once more.  There was no urgency in his steps.  The moment was dreamlike, and once again tunnel vision crowded him into a narrowly focused path

            He felt the combined gaze of the congregation locked to his form as he stepped forward.  He breathed the scent of their perfume and tasted their sweat in the air.  He heard their breath brush over dry lips and the soft rustle of their clothing.  Every taste, smell, sight and sound was tinged with something deeper.  It was as though one moment life was just – life – and the next it was filled with mysticism and meaning.

            Donovan stepped forward, ignoring the pools and puddles.  The blood stuck to the soles of his shoes and splashed up onto his robes as he walked.  He paid no more attention to this than he did to those seated to either side of him.  None of it mattered in that moment.  The world beyond the doors of the cathedral might as well have not existed.  The men, the women, the Bishop, even the smug, pompous television journalist he’d met earlier that morning, all of it had faded to insignificance.

Washed away, he thought, almost saying the words out loud, but not quite ready to break the spell between himself and Father Thomas.  The others were spectators, except for Gladys, who’d said her piece, played her part, and slipped away to the side and out of sight once more.  Only two players remained to see the final act through to curtain call.

            Father Thomas waited for Donovan with a deep, compassionate smile.  His arms were still rigid, and this fact suddenly registered in Donovan’s mind.  Holding one’s arms out to the side was difficult under any circumstance.  How long had it been?  At what point had Quentin raised his arms and placed them in the position of the statue so far above him?  How long could he possibly hold the pose?

            Donovan had a sudden image of his fourth grade teacher, a stern gray-haired lady who had smiled seldom and who had a particular love of physically demanding punishment.  He recalled how he and another boy, unable to contain their laughter at some long-forgotten joke, had been sent into the coatroom of the classroom.

            The teacher, Mrs. McGuire, had ordered both boys into a kneeling position.  At this point, the shared joke had still overpowered their fear.  The punishment seemed silly, and this didn’t help them with their laughter problem.

            Mrs. McGuire had smiled grimly at them and ordered them to hold their hands out to the sides, very straight, and hold them there…”until you stop laughing.”  They did not stop laughing, not immediately, but it didn’t take long for the effort of keeping their arms aloft to dig claws of pain under their good humor, and in less than ten minutes both of them had been sagging and begging the teacher to let them up, promising no further laughter in class – no talking at all, in fact.  Anything to get up off that hard floor and rest their burning arms.  While the joke that had started it all down the wrong road was long gone, the memory of that punishment lingered.  The impossibility of doing as he’d been told to do had frightened him almost as much as the effort had hurt.

            He gazed at Thomas in wonder.  A long trickle of blood slid down the younger man’s arm, caught in a fold of the vestments, and joined the streams winding down to the puddle on the floor, almost a small lake now.  Donovan followed the droplet, unable to bear the intensity of Father Thomas’ gaze for any great length of time.  He watched it trail downward and felt the weight of the other’s man’s gaze solidly on his heart.

            Donovan took another step forward.  He was only a couple of feet from the altar now.  A quick jog and he’d be up on a level with Father Thomas, and he could help – somehow – draw the young priest back from whatever precipice he stood at and remind him of the real world all around them.  There was a lot to answer for, and the questions would be endless, but that was what he should do – what his mind screamed at him to do.  Help, or serve? He did neither.

            Images flashed through his mind once again, an out-of-control slide show.  Father Fernando’s face.  The statue of Peter.  The empty, wordless ground.  The villagers, and the members of the Jungle Parish, Father Thomas, seated across from Bishop Michaels entreating the man for help.

            Stepping to the rail, Donovan knelt gently on the cushion, as if to receive communion.  Some voice deep inside that he vaguely recognized screamed in negation, but he could not help himself.  He reached out and ran his finger through the blood dripping over the altar.  It was hot, wet, and thick, and his head buzzed with the intensity of the sensation.  He saw the dirt before him, and closed his eyes.  Without hesitation, Donovan brought his finger to his lips and tasted the blood as the world fell away to darkness.

~ Twenty-Five ~

            The hillside stretched up and away to a blood-red sunset.  Father Prescott stood at the base and stared upward, legs weak.  A dirt trail led from the base of the rounded mound of earth and rock, winding up to one side and continuing to climb.  Donovan didn’t see it at first.  His gaze was fixed on the top of the hill.

            Three crosses stood out stark against the darkening sky.  There was enough light to make them out, and to see that they were not empty.  Wisps of hair, caught in a hot breeze, lifted away from the wood of each, near the top.  Shadowed forms marred the symmetry of the wood.  In the distance, he heard voices, but there did not seem to be anyone else present.

            Donovan tore his gaze from the crosses and glanced at the trail.  He turned and began to climb, but then stopped.  Each side of the trail was lined with what at first appeared to be rounded stones.  Beneath his feet the ground crunched, and he thought of shorelines where he’d stepped on the remnant of coral, or the myriad shells of long dead crustaceans. 

            This was no beach.  He concentrated on the nearest of the stones and his heart lurched.  Dark empty sockets returned his gaze in hollow, emotionless silence.  Skulls lined the walk like sentinels.  Most were in straight, even lines that bordered the path, but others were cocked at angles, as if planted hurriedly, or loosened by passing feet.  Beyond these more skulls showed, some buried, partially buried, or stacked.  Donovan stopped, steadied his breath, and dropped to one knee.  The path beneath his feet was strewn with thousands of bones.  Some of them must have been animal – perhaps most – because they seemed too small and brittle to have come from men – but the skulls mocked him from either side, and he rose with a shiver.

            He followed the path, not raising his eyes to the horizon or the crosses.  He ignored the whispered words of voices floating to him on the wind.  If there were others here, he’d know soon enough.  If the skulls were speaking to him, he did not want to hear what they had to say, and if he were dreaming, or hallucinating, he couldn’t trust any message his senses might deliver.  Better to continue on, and through.

            He wondered briefly if the path he trod was actually the aisle in the cathedral.  He thought of Father Thomas, thought of the gathered congregation, and wondered if he’d passed, out, or worse – had a heart attack and keeled over, unable to get to the altar and help his friend in the very moment of greatest need.  He wondered if the whispered voices were gathered around a bedside, waiting form him to open his eyes and recover, or whispered over a grave he would never leave.

            It didn’t matter.  All that mattered was putting one foot in front of the next.  The hill was not a large one, and the climb was not long.  He rounded one corner and saw walls in the distance.  He hesitated, scanning those walls for signs of life, but the only movement he saw was large, black winged birds launching into flight.  They soared above the city, circled once, and veered off toward the hill.  There were no raucous cries, and he did not hear the flapping of their great wings, but he did not doubt their intention.  They would bring their spiraling, circling flight to the hill – to the men on the crosses above.  They would wait for a feast.

            Donovan rounded the final curve in the trail, stepping from behind an outcropping of stone.  The three crosses loomed before him, spread out across the top of the hill, the two on the sides slightly lower than that in the center.  He realized that this was due to the curved shape of the hill, but it wasn’t the only thing skewed in the vision.  The crosses seemed huge, as large as that hanging at the rear of the Cathedral of San Marcos, possibly larger still.  When he glanced at the base of any of them, it was a rough cut post buried deep in the rocky soil, but if he raised his head and gazed up the length of them, they soared, blotting out his view of the bloody, moonless sky and the dark stains of clouds painted on that backdrop.

            He didn’t want to see their faces.  He knew that he had come here, or been brought here, to see, but he fought the urge to lift his gaze the final few feet.  He saw their ravaged flesh.  Not carved of wood, or stone, but slumped in exhaustion, dangling from the wood.  What had been pounded through their feet resembled spikes more than any nails Donovan he ever seen.  At different points on the trunk of the cross their bodies were bound to keep them from swaying, or squirming hard enough to tear their flesh enough to drop free. 

            Just above their shoulders, the heavy, solid crossbeams shot out to the side.  The image burned into his mind.  Donovan’s finger itched.  He wanted to raise it and cross himself, a habit so much a part of his being that he couldn’t remember a time when it had not been second nature.  He held his hand still, and tears dampened his cheeks.  It seemed so casual, such an empty reconstruction.   He couldn’t bring himself to even attempt it.  He thought lightning might strike from the darkened sky and sear the hand from his body if he did.

            Donovan turned to the cross on the right.  He knew he couldn’t just look up at that center cross.  It was too easy, and at the same time far too difficult.  He did not want to know whose face he would find, so he turned to the first of the thieves.  He raised his gaze level with a pair of dark, staring eyes.  Father Fernando returned his gaze levelly and in silence.  His arms were drawn back cruelly, the muscles of his thin arms corded where the nails, protruding from each wrist, held him tightly to the wood.  Donovan gasped.