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.

Repulsed by my discovery, I decided to take a few steps back and wait for the instruction of my host, who was now staring at me with a look of puzzlement. He approached the area where I had flung the horrid worms and knelt to see what the commotion was about. I studied his features closely for any trace for a similar reaction, but he only looked pitifully at me, as if was sentenced to death for a crime I didn't commit. Something about his expression chilled my bones, so I broke the silence with a sort of chuckle and dismissed the episode by saying, “Curiosity killed the cat.” His sympathy shifted instantly into a contemptuous glare as he advised me never to say any word pertaining to death when in such close proximity to a sacred place. By that time I was beginning to feel irritated by all the warnings and precautions that were being thrown at me like I was a foolish, bumbling child. Truly these people had taken this superstition much farther than any fairy tales had ever gone, and to create such a miserable story about something so serious as the devil while putting on the act of pious martyrs—honestly! The hypocrisy was teeming in this one man, the only man I had met thus far, apart from the gatekeeper. What were the other villagers going to be like if this man was so blatantly illusive?

My temper was none for the better as Mr. Garris removed the door from the entrance and knelt once more with another signing of the cross before he went through. His frame was so massive that he blocked the entire entrance, otherwise I would have plowed through without any consideration for his supposed religion, but as I passed through the large opening, a gust of cold nearly knocked me back down the steps. It was unexpected and so powerful that I just barely found my footing. Outraged that Mr. Garris neglected to warn me about the one significant thing that could be of harm to me, I marched towards him with a boiling vexation that was about to gush out of me in a cloud of steam. That is what was going to happen, and would have happened, if Mr. Garris hadn't knelt before me, revealing an object that otherwise would have been hidden by his giant body.

A handful of tea candles were illuminating the object from three cascading iron racks with the upper most circular rack being the largest. The moonlight shimmered through the one stained glass window that was directly to our left. It wasn't high due to the building being so small, but the designs of the stained glass made the light break into different shades as it spilled across the thing before us. I squinted my eyes at the wooden statue of what should have been the Virgin Mary towering before me, with open arms welcoming an embrace. I dropped to me knees, unable to control the weakness permeating through my body as I stared in disbelief at her decimated face. Something sharp had mercilessly scratched at her benign countenance until it was barely recognizable. Long claws had dug deep into the whole of her head, and some of the black talons were still embedded into her right cheek. Her two loving eyes that look down vigilantly were replaced by holes that were bored into the head. The nose had been torn off and cast to the ground, and the lips appeared to have been bitten off with wolf-like teeth marks still visible in the wood. Worst of all, the shadows of the candle flames were dancing along her feet, elongated by the perfect positioning of the moon to make the flames resemble long, forked tongues or some kind of slithering tendrils. I dare not tell of what abuses the rest of the statue had suffered, for I could no longer call myself a gentleman if I did. Suffice it to say that as a man who at the time was on the fence about following Christianity, I was absolutely stupefied with fright. Not only was I moved so by this ghastly sight, but I also felt myself signing the cross before me like I did when I was a little boy.

I wasn't completely Christian, but the little amount of the Christian faith that I had kept since I was a child was enough to manifest a red flag when something so close to God had been a target of foul-play. I believed in God wholeheartedly, which meant that I believed wholeheartedly in the devil. This game of charades the village was playing was certainly asinine, but to go so far as to offend the holy servants of God was the same as knocking on the devil's door. Because I was so suddenly distressed about the situation I had put myself into, I hadn't noticed that Mr. Garris was staring at me with questioning eyes. When I turned to tell him I wanted out of the church, I locked eyes with him, held it for a second, then relented. I could understand now why I was treated like a child. I was tampering with something I knew nothing about, and if Mr. Garris's looks of pity were any indication of the danger I was in, I had only just realized it. 


© Mikal Minarich