Intro-Emmett's Story.

The stone chapel was lit by candlelight alone. The stained glass windows looking down on the pews were so caked with the passing of time that even in the daylight no light shone through, let alone on such a starless night. The old priest standing at the front of the church had never allowed himself to be taken in by any sort of mythology or superstition before.

But on this strange night, when the moon and the stars seemed to have lost their will to shine, he felt the slightest twinge of discomfort, causing him to roll his head to work out the nonexistent kink in his neck, or check over his shoulder to catch a glance of the shadow following him. He tried to shake himself free of what he considered to be a great deal of nonsense, reciting prayers and verses relentlessly. Try as he might, there was no shaking this heaviness that seemed to have crashed upon him.

As he stood in front of his parishioners and looked out at their bowed heads, he gave it up to human condition and vowed to work through it. However, he could not help but think as he walked behind the podium from which he gave his sermons that the candlelight seemed to have cast an ill shadow across the room.

All through his sermon, shadows flickered in the corner of his eye, causing him to stop a few times in his sermon and look to the side. The longer he spoke, the more frustrated he became, not only with the candlelight but with himself. As he led the congregation in a final prayer, he offered up a separate prayer to the Lord, a placatory prayer to deliver him from his own foolishness.  As they spoke the ‘amen’, the aged priest’s eye was drawn to the center of the room. A man was standing at the end of the aisle, watching him. The startled priest wondered if he had been there through the entire sermon. This man was not watching him with intensity or fire. He seemed to be watching him almost absently, his mind in another world. The expression on his face was anguished.

Shaking his head as though clearing water from his ears, the priest stepped down from the pulpit for confessionals. The man’s eyes were still upon him, an invisible string fixing his eyes to the priest.  The priest greeted the parishioners distractedly, listening with only half an ear and moving from one to another in mid-sentence, leaving some of the congregation standing in the middle of the church looking rather affronted. The priest did not notice these angered glances following him, but moved to get to the confessional box as quickly as possible, though he was lobbied by his congregation for meaningless conversations concerning his sermon, which he could not seem to remember the content of.

By the time he and his deacons had reached the confessional boxes set into the side of the church, the old priest’s hands were shaking so badly that a deacon had to close the box for him. As he had made his way through the people, he had taken notice of a few things about the strange man in the back. The first thing he had noticed was height. The man was head and shoulders above the rest of the churchgoers, with black hair that had been pulled out of its tie. He was richly dressed, and his clothes and bearing spoke of nobility, if not royalty.

Whoever he was, the priest decided, it did not matter. There was something that was not right about that man, something that shook the normally practical old priest to his bones. Darkness exuded from him, practically seeped from his skin. The priest prayed to God that this man did not come into his confessional box, perhaps that he did not even partake in confessional at all, and the old priest started violently every time the parishioner’s door to the box opened.

The Lord, it seemed, had other ideas for the old priest. The parishioner’s door opened and the priest, doing his best to look at the wall opposite him so he might not know who was on the other side, felt his heartbeat quicken tenfold as the silhouette beside him spoke.

“Father…Father, forgive me, for I have…I have sinned g-greatly, Father.”

The voice that spoke was refined, elegant, one that had no place in a small town of farmers and craftsmen, one that had been educated and practiced, and it was also deeply remorseful and frightened. He stuttered slightly and his voice shook as he spoke.

The old priest took his time to respond, trying to keep his voice even and calm as he prompted,

“Tell me of your sins, my child. Why do you seek forgiveness from the Almighty God?”

He prayed as he spoke the words.

The shadow on the other side took several deep, shaking breaths and began to speak, but buried his face in his hands almost immediately. After several minutes, he began again, this time slowly and softly.

“Father, I… I cannot bring myself to put to words the monstrous things I have done. I cannot speak them, for if I speak them then they are surely truth. T-They cannot be truth. They simply cannot be truth.”

His voice broke on his last word and the old priest could see that he was doubled over, his hands on his head, shaking violently.

The priest drew a deep, silent breath to steady himself.

“The Lord will judge all equally. No sin is too great or too small for His notice. He judges all equally, my son. Not each according to the severity of their crime. Do not be afraid, my child, for the path to redemption begins with repentance, no matter how great your offense.”

The priest took another deep breath when he stopped speaking and smiled a little to himself, rather proud that he had spoken so composedly and so neutrally. Maybe, he thought, this was just a test from the Lord. If so, he seemed to have passed it and he smiled a little more at this thought.

The man spoke slowly, deliberately.

“Yes. Yes, I am repentant, Father. I wish to God that it had not happened. I would give anything to change what I have done. Anything at all. But repentance alone cannot save me, Father. I am surely the wickedest man to have set foot in your chapel; I give you this on my honor, though I have none left. I am no thief, Father, nor am I sexually immoral, and I do not lie. No, my actions have been far more despicable, infinitely more deplorable than what now seems so childish. But God cannot save me from this.”

The young man seemed to gain resolve from his speech, and with a new confidence in his voice he continued.

“God cannot, or perhaps he will not save me from this, Father. There are forces set against me now that are not angels, nor are they devils. Unless God sees fit to snatch me from the hand of justice, of rightful revenge, there is no salvation for me. I am a doomed man, Father, for when in history has God ever stopped a wretch and a murderer from receiving his dues? No, there is no salvation for me.”

With this statement, he moved to leave the box. Upon opening the door, he paused and turned his head back to the priest.

“Though there is no hope for me, Father, I will pray to whoever is still listening to me that you will be blessed for the kindness you have shown me. Live well, Father.”

With these last words he left the box. The shaken priest listened until he heard the rap of heeled boots on stone reach the door, and the creaking of the massive oak door opening and closing before he left the confessional box. The moment he was out of the box, he fell on his knees in prayer and did not cease praying until the deacons made him return to his room hours later.

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