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The confessional curtain sat open, the gloom inside inviting and warm. Outside the pews lined up like soldiers standing at attention before the altar. The marble floor gleamed a cold frosty white that echoed frigid clinks as heels hit the ground. High arched ceilings bounced the sounds from corbel to cornice kaleidoscoping the sound into fractals.
A black clad woman, wraith like staccato tapped to the altar to prostrate herself. Feet facing the nave, head toward the entrance, arms spread wide, her midnight attire soaking in the floor’s chill, she pressed her nose into the tile, directly in the cross in the T carved into the flagstone.
Rain pattered against the stained-glass window arching over the apse. Even in the glum afternoon light wavered through the window and threw shades of red and orange across the chancel. The altar cloth, white, edged in golden threads, looked mottled as if stained sanguine by the pyre depicted, burning the ebony winged falling angel upon its descent into Hell. Umber clawed fingers reached from the flames, rending the angel’s skin, drawing him downward into the abyss.
Upon the altar cloth a cast iron cauldron squatted, fat and round. Its flat black exterior seemed to suck in the light, even as a tendril of white smoke twirled into the air. Acrid incense spiraling upward merged with the soot emanating from two blood red candles dripping hot wax into globs on the satin fabric. The soft material fell forward from the altar displaying an embroidered chalice created in gold with the X of power, the inverted triangle of water, the LVX bringing light.
The woman began to chant, lips brushing against the stone floor as she spoke. “What you’ve done you can’t undo.” Again, and again she spilled the words from her mouth ignoring the pressure on her nose, the drag against her lips, the taste of dirt. She slid her arms along the floor fingers feeling the flagstone until they dipped into the cut-out S on her left and N on her right. Spiked nails, painted black, scraped through the letter’s channels tracing out the curves and lines, grinding down. Flattening her palms against the engraved letters, softened, and rounded at the edges from countless hands, she pressed her lips into the T lingering in a mortal kiss.
A scraping screech rent the rain’s drone as the oak confessional door opened. A priest clad in cerulean blue held the door open. His hand clad in black leather gripped the door knob tightly as his skeletal face regarded the woman on the floor. Turning his back on the prone figure he straightened the confessional curtain, pinching each fold into equal waves. He stepped into the enveloping darkness and brushed non-existent dust from the wooden kneeler. Lips pursed he blew against the latticework that separated him from the penitent and the vestiges of a spiderweb floated to the floor.
Returning to his box, the priest creaked the door closed, settled himself on his chair, cheek facing the lattice and spread his robes over his lap, smoothing the silken fabric over his thighs. He bent slightly in the cramped space grasping the well-worn handle of a brass bell. Once, he rang it and the claxon rang. Again, he rang the bell. Clang-clang it clamored against the silence, calling and demanding notice.
“In nomine peccatoris,” the priest intoned as the bell resonated. He placed the bell in his lap letting his robes muffle the reverberations. He bowed his head, whispering “in nomine peccatoris,” a second time. One hand on the handle, the other pinching the clapper. Raising it, he pressed his lips against the bell’s waist.
Releasing the clapper, he dropped the bell to his side flicking his wrist, so it rang loud and hard. “In nomine amantis,” the priest called out. Muffling the bell against his skirts, the spoke to himself “in nominee amantis.”
Penduluming his arm, the priest shook the bell thrice, calling out “in nominee impii pueri.”
Glancing through the latticework the priest saw the woman standing outside the confessional. “Enter, beloved of Satan,” the priest beckoned.
She raised her skirts displaying crimson stockings tucked into patent leather kitten heels. Stepping up into the box she knelt in front of the lattice, bowing her head and placing the tips of her fingers at the base of the obscured window.
“Bless me, emissary of Lucifer, so I may bask in his profane light.”
The priest brought his hand to the lattice pressing a ghoul shaped ring through the quatrefoil openings. “Kiss his minion as you would kiss him,” he uttered the sharp face glittering silver against the black leather glove.
Soft lips, still cold from the floor pressed against the demonic visage. She held herself there for a long moment, eyes downcast, nearly closed. The cloying dusty smell of antiquity surrounded her as she felt the throngs who knelt before her. It felt as if she’d bowed here before, as if she were the ancients coaxed forward through time. The ring pulled away from her lips and she looked up following the shine as the priest brought the ring to his own mouth.
Red and wet, his tongue pointed at the tip, touched the ring, and lapped up her kiss. In the shadows his skin glowed white, his mouth, cheeks, and eye sockets black as coal, one iris dark the other shining like snow. Bathed in shadows he seemed halfway between life and death, a corpse yet living, skeletal but still vital.
“Speak your thought to me, as you would to him.”
“Papa,” woman began, eyes searching through the lattice window, trying to see him. “I feel I know you, though we haven’t spoken before.”
“But we have spoken, for I have died many times, my darling, and I’ve always ended up back with you. A different version of you maybe, but you all the same.”