Night Below - A Letter Home

A Letter Home

Mar. 19th, 2008 at 10:39 PM

((Written in a close, neat hand on both sides of a piece of paper.))

Dear Reverend Mother:

I write this in the sincere hope that my letter reaches the mainland, but the post from Midian is rather unreliable. I would attempt a call instead, but the phone lines in the church are down, for reasons I'll explain in a moment. I could have asked the father for permission to use his personal line, but he has been terribly distracted of late, for reasons you'll soon understand, and I could not find it in my heart to trouble the poor man further.

There is so much to tell you, but in this letter I will keep myself to the news of greatest importance.

I am writing this letter from Zoe's Cafe, a small eatery on Midian's main street, little more than a block from the church. I feel safer there, especially during the daytime, than I do anywhere else in the city--and yes, I know you read this with surprise, but you will understand when I tell you what happened in the church on Palm Sunday. The church no longer feels like a sanctuary, and even the stalwart presence of the father comforts me only a little. I am, in truth, more terrified than I have ever been.

A week ago last Sunday, a young cat of the church--one of the nekos, you'll remember--was murdered horribly, and in her will she asked Fr. Eamon to give her a Christian funeral. She was well on her way to the catechumenate, and Fr. Eamon agreed. Many in our parish mourned the young woman deeply.

The father received word from the deceased's daughter that one of the woman's suspected murderers was planning an appearance at the funeral. The city's police were notified by the family of the deceased; many of her fellow cats made plans to stand watch as well. I could not attend due to parish duties in another part of the city, but from all accounts, the service started well, and the father and the attending mourners were able to make it through most of the requiem mass itself. Unfortunately, it was not long before the aforementioned suspect made an appearance, accompanied by other allies, and the funeral service spun rapidly into madness.

Oh, Reverend Mother. You cannot imagine. The woman's body was desecrated with violence. Her daughter was terribly injured, along with many others who fought hard to stop the intruders. Gas of some nature was released, and the father tried to save some of those in attendance, but a subsequent explosion and some sort of tranquilizers used by the monsters invading the church put the father out of the action. And... oh heavens, it is too terrible. The father and at least one other parishioner--there may have been more, but the father has not yet discovered the details--were kidnapped by the intruders and carried off into the night. And tortured. Yes. I do not know the fate of the young woman kidnapped with the father--Fr. Eamon would not speak of it, except to say that she survived--but the father himself has been grievously hurt. His face is battered--bruised and badly cut, his nose broken. His arm was broken as well. And when he asked for my help in changing his bandages, I found multiple lacerations to his back and a deep stab wound to his shoulder.

You may well ask who treated him initially. There are angels in Midian still--he was rescued by Guin, another catwalker, and two unnamed friends of the latter, and treated with expert medical attention as far as I can see. I was impressed with the care taken in his bandages and the setting of his arm, and you know how exacting a nurse I can be. Still, when I took my nurses' training, I did not expect to be tending to a priest. Perhaps God knew when he led me to that vocation how much it would be needed here in Midian, where the monsters are.

Everything has changed, Reverend Mother. The church has been badly damaged. I spent today cleaning the char marks from the stonework--which despite the explosion, still stands, as sturdy as ever, thank heavens--and cleaning up the shattered remains of the pews, the lectern, the broken glass from the windows (oh, that lovely stained glass!), the remnants of the burnt aisle runner... and the huge old Bible the father used at Mass. I found it, torn into pieces and stained with blood, buried beneath the ruins of the lectern. Until that moment, I had not cried, but I confess I did so then, kneeling in the midst of the chapel's destruction, the Bible's tattered pages pressed to my chest.

Praise God, the front of the church before the altar, the beautiful organ, the confessional and the holy water font--all of these are intact, so I thank God for the small favors we have. And we have not been idle with our sorrow--the church is slowly being cleaned, and the father is already making plans for repairing and replacing what we have lost. I attempted to contact one of the city's "suppliers" this afternoon, in fact, but no one was in--I shall try again tomorrow. So yes, we are working to fix what was broken, to replace what was stolen from us, but I fear there are some things that can never be truly healed. I pray and know that we must be strong, that we will come through this trial tempered by fire and greater for it in the end--as the father says, triumph is born of adversity. But I am so terribly afraid, Reverend Mother. The shadows seem longer inside the church, and despite my hard work at cleaning, I still see the ghosts of bloodstains on the floor, and the spaces were the pews once stood, where the beautiful Bible rested... they seem to mock me with their emptiness.

And the father... he has cloaked himself in darkness. He speaks little now--and he spoke little enough to begin with--but I find him now standing in silence in the middle of the night-dark church, his arm in a sling, his eyes seeming to burn in his battered face. Depression I could understand--this is a terrible thing that has happened to him--but it is not sadness I feel. It is anger I sense in his unreadable expressions, in the clench of his one good hand, and I cannot help wondering what will become of us all.

Pray for us, Reverend Mother.

Yours in Christ,
Sr. Lisbeth Dollinger