Ch. 10

“What happened!?” For a long length of time I had been petrified by Ferlo's sudden death. Twice in one trip I had witnessed horrifying seizures that will no doubt be imprinted in my memory for the rest of my life. An unfamiliar voice shattered into my moment of shock, jerking me back to the horror of Ferlo's death. Twisting my torso to see who it was, I was surprised how heavy my head felt as I tilted it back to look up. It was like a my hair was being pulled hard towards the ground. When my eyes connected with a human face, I realized how much I wanted to be alone. I didn't want to meet anyone else from this sinister village.

Ch. 9

For some minutes I was incapable of moving. The boy ignored any attempts I made to pacify him, but before long, a man I didn't know came to collect the boy. Apparently the boy was to be my guide to Mr. Garris's hut, but when the boy didn't return, the father became suspicious and started to search. When he saw his son's forehead, he made the sign of the cross in front of both of them, then wiped it away with his sleeve. Eventually the boy's sobs had faded into whimpers, permitting the man to tend to me. He asked if I was hurt in any way, and stretched my legs one at a time. It seemed to help. The blood began to flow through my body once more. It took some patience, but I was finally able to stand up and walk. With his son's hand in his, and his other hand gripping my arm, he lead both of us down a trail through the shrubbery, allowing us time for introductions.

Ch. 8

With a new-found respect for my host, I rose and followed him quietly to a mean bed that had been arranged for me. It was a mat of straw with animal hide for a cover. There was no pillow. The absence of one didn't phase me however, as I wouldn't be sleeping that night anyway. I was much too troubled and shaken to even close my eyes longer than three seconds. Mr. Garris lit a small candle sitting next to my bed, and without any goodbye or well wishes, he turned to go. The desperation that now surged through me was impossible to constrain. I begged Mr. Garris to send someone to stay with me, but he shrugged me off. “No one will stay here,” was all he said. How is it that it that the church was the safest place for me, but not for him? There wasn't much that I could do. He walked off, ignoring my pleas and, sadly, my whimpers. All hope I had for comfort was shut out when my host placed the uneven planks back into the opening.

The Songbird (End)

I moseyed on past the shrine and thankfully so, because when I turned towards the doors, I discovered that the mysterious organ was located on a balcony above the entrance. There was a figure moving about donning a black coat which hid the whole of the body inside of it. I assumed that this person must be the songbird and readied myself to greet the young canary. Her voice was so sweet that it seemed strange for such impassioned feelings to be evoked by someone who had yet to experience life. With that final thought, my son's condition overwhelmed me once more. The bitter vision of his pallid face made my stomach lurch twice. I could feel my face distort into an ugly expression of agony while I was determined to keep my chin set. I'm sure my countenance was horribly grotesque when a sheepish voice asked if I was okay. “Excuse me, Sir. Is there anything I can do for you?” To my right, the questioning person must had squeezed through the two pews so that they stood close to my side. I sighed to regain my composure, but a hand grabbed my arm as a gesture of concern, and the limbs of my body released their tension. I recognized the bottom of the coat to be the same one that had been swishing about on the balcony. In an instant, my head shot up to see the face of the talented singer, but what I saw was far from what I was expecting.

The Songbird

“Cancer.” That's what the doctor told my wife and me. “Your son has terminal cancer.” I had never been fervently religious, but I believed in God, and whereas many people turn from Him when they're hit with terrible news, I hunted Him down. My wife and I found little time to talk anymore being sucked into our own pits of internal Hell, but we managed to break the surface sometimes and spoke for sanity's sake. During one of our sparse talks, she told me a lot about her that I had never known, but for the purpose of brevity, I will narrow them down to the two most significant things pertaining to my search for Christ. Though hardly aware that she was speaking, my wife told me that she had an Irish ancestry originating in the west of the country. To her present knowledge, there were some distant cousins still living in a village called Knock, where her grandmother had resided in a charming thatched house before crossing the big pond.

Ch. 7

I couldn't keep count of the amount of times my host crossed himself before ascending the uneven steps of the incredibly small church. Naturally, with the church cocked to one side, some of the steps didn't match up with the building, which made for an interesting entrance. I was close enough now to get a good view of the buildings design, although it probably would have been best for my paranoia that I hadn't. The exterior of the edifice was solid blocks of stone with dry, lifeless vines of ivy clinging to it desperately. It was so fragile, that with one touch of a finger, the vines would have crumbled into a dust. I left Mr. Garris behind, unwittingly, and took the next couple of steps leading up to the door, which didn't fit into the opening. I assumed that the opening wasn't meant for a door, but due to weather conditions, a makeshift barrier was placed in the way. It was a sorry excuse for a raft let alone anything that served the purpose of a wall as the planks of wood used were bound by some sort of weed. The planks were measured to a variety of different sizes, which made the top and bottoms of the door utterly unaligned. The wood itself was warped in a number of places, allowing for hole and crack formations. There seemed to be algae or some sort of growth on the side of one of the boards, and being the curious type, I reached in to touch it, but as I pulled my finger back and up to my eyes to see whatever it was, I gasped and shook my hand in a panic. A larvae of maggots had found their dwelling where I had probed with my finger.

Ch. 6

From the moment the man's hand touched my wrist, I had entered a strange phase of semi-paralysis. My back went stiff, my fingers were so tense that they looked like talons, and my chest had tightened, which made breathing a bit more strained. The fear of death jolted my body as the man's eyes conveyed some bizarre emotion that was simply inhumane. He truly had the gift of transforming into a beast within the span of a second. He released my hand, or rather tossed it down in disgust, and for the third time counting, gave me the cold shoulder. The nerve of this man! A tingling sensation of the blood rushing back to my hand made me rub the area that he had squeezed, and as I did so, I took one last glance at the grotesque shrine of the Lord before taking my leave of the strange crucifix.

Ch. 5

Without another word, Mr. Garris turned on his heel and began to walk with a long, powerful stride, leaving me to decided for myself whether I would enter or not. I quickly considered the panic attack I had felt only moments before and convinced myself that I must have imagined it. The gate keeper had returned and watched me with two large, fearful eyes that bulged out at me as if pleading me to leave. Bah! He looked of a coward and talked like one. I tugged down on my jacket to straighten it out, then raised my eyebrows at the keeper as an indication that I was waiting for him to open the gate. He did so reluctantly, and as the gate creaked on its hoary hinges, he made the sign of the cross over himself and then over me. I thought of mentioning the inappropriateness of his gesture considering he didn’t know what religion I was affiliated with, but the ware on his face made me pity him, and I thought it best to say nothing. Without another glance at his pallid face, I cleared my throat before passing by him. I could hear him tisk-tisking my decision before the gates, with their creaking hinges, clanked shut.

Ch. 4

Mortified by the changes that had abruptly hijacked my body, I tried my best to still my trembling limps and hold out a hand to shake. My arm was seized by a violent tremor. I laughed it off the best I could, but my laughter was dry, and I came off as nervous. “Who are you?” Mr. Garris was a large man who had a very aggressive look to him. And yet, though his eyes blazed with distrust, there was something else there. Concern, maybe? Panic? In any case, I dropped my eyes in a hurry after realizing I had been analyzing his face longer than is appropriate, and announced who I was and my connection to his friend. At the mentioning of his friend’s name, the man, so stout and present, turned his head, squeezed his eyes shut, and bit down so hard that his jaw bulged out in a grotesque manner. It looked as if I just shot him in the foot. Thinking it was most prudent to stay silent until he responded, I waited with hands behind my back in a very self-conscious stance. Again I was fidgeting.