Chapter 7:The Guide of Long Darkness (3)

“…Please.”

For this moment, I had to believe him. I watched Victor’s back as he walked away and spread out my mangled palms. His palms were covered in dirt, and the delicate flesh was red and peeling from picking at the ground.

‘How incompetent and foolish human beings are…….’

The murmur of the crowd faded into the distance, and from somewhere, I heard Father Revencio’s voice. I looked around, my gaze clouded with ink, searching for the source of the voice.

‘A weak person who cannot save even his own life cannot save anyone else’

I looked everywhere and couldn’t see Father Revencio, but I could hear him so clearly, as if he were whispering in my ear.

‘man saves man……. That’s nonsense, humans envy, jealousy, and resent each other, leading to their deaths’

“No……!”

I covered my ears with both hands. I couldn’t make out where Father Revencio’s voice was coming from. I tried to run away, but it kept following me. It was as if he had been with me for a very long time.

‘incompetent, weak, cheating, evil…….’

The voice burrowed like a worm, and soon it was inside my ear. I could no longer think straight as the voices gnawed at my brain.

“Incompetent, weak, cheating, evil.”

My pale hands shook convulsively. The palm of his downcast hand was soaked with the blood of someone he’d never seen before.

I frowned at the smell of the thick, fishy blood.

“It’s Sarah’s blood, Sarah’s blood…….”

It’s her blood. In the end, I killed her. If she had stayed in the monastery instead of going out, the accident would not have happened. If only she hadn’t gone out and stayed in the monastery, she wouldn’t have been run over by a carriage.

My palms were covered in pools of blood, I couldn’t tell if it was real blood that was shed or just an illusion from my delirium.

‘Why do happy times always go by so fast?’

I found my head lifting as if entranced by Sarah’s clear voice, which awakened my senses. A fleeting light twinkled in my vacant eyes.

‘Do you think we can stay together forever?’

Sarah’s giggling laughter echoed in my ears. Father Revencio’s voice was no longer audible.

“Forever…….”

I looked down at my palm, which was dry and bloodless, just a dusty palm with peeling skin.

I pushed through the crowd, quickening my pace. No matter how many times Sarah asked me the same question, I would always give her the same answer.

“Yes, yes, yes, Sarah……!”

I pushed my way through the crowd until my knees limped. Tears welled up in the corners of my eyes and scattered through the festivities.

I ran without stopping, and there it was, Jared’s Aid Station. It was the infirmary of the Order of the Relief Knights, founded three hundred years ago to heal the wounded of the war.

Even as a Saint, I had often visited Jared’s Aid Station. As absurd as it sounds, I had to work nonstop, touching and caring for the patients with her bare hands, because people believed that the touch of a Saint could cure even the most incurable diseases.

“…Sarah.”

The familiar footsteps entered Jared’s shelter. The labyrinthine layout of the shelter hadn’t stopped me from finding her.

Somehow, Sarah was alone on an old bed, with Victor and the councilman standing a foot away, staring down at me.

“Uh, what happened?”

I said, grabbing Victor by the collar. He looked down at me with the same impassive gaze he had in the past.

“…What monastery did you say you were a nun of?”

“A nun from the monastery of Archelio. If you need medical treatment, I can pay for it.”

Anything to save Sarah’s life, even if it meant opening his hand to his father.

“I’ll make sure the abbey is notified of her death.”

It was a familiar look, the one he wore when he felt sorry for someone, when he pitied them.

“Ahh…….”

It couldn’t be.

My vision slowly faded to black. My whole body went limp, as if in the moment of death. I couldn’t hear a sound, couldn’t make a voice in the pitch blackness.

It was Sarah’s voice that I desperately searched for in my stalled thought circuits.

‘Do you think we can stay together forever?’

‘Yes, Sarah’

I couldn’t breathe anymore.

***

The first thing I felt as soon as I opened my eyes was a firm hand wrapped around my body. Slowly, I lifted my eyelids and saw a familiar face.

“Father…….”

I called out, and Father Edwin’s gaze shifted from the gentle embrace to me. He was usually cranky and nervous, but today he kept his lips pressed tightly together.

“What happened to Sister Sarah?”

My heart sank in my chest, dreading the expected answer.

“Sister Sarah has been sent back to her home.”

A single tear slipped from the corner of my eye as I listened to Father Edwin’s words in silence.

“Father, are you sure she really did return home alive?”

I wanted Father Edwin to assure that she was safe and sound, that she had returned home, that she was only resting at home to heal, but that she would be back at the monastery soon.

“…….”

Sadly, there was no reply. Father Edwin merely moved forward, holding my body tightly in his embrace.

“Father, please tell me……. Please, please.”

Father Edwin’s snow-white robes were damp with tears.

“Alicia, are you afraid of losing something?”

Father Edwin’s low voice fell calmly into the heavy air.

“As a priest in a monastery, I had to be present at the end of many people’s lives, even if they didn’t want to be.”

“There were times when a parishioner I met at Mass would leave without warning the next day.”

His steady footsteps resembled a comforting touch.

“After all that death, I thought it was time to get numb.”

He paused and looked down at me.

“And yet… I’m still, still afraid.”

Fear flashed in his eyes, a precarious unease that threatened to break him at any moment.

“Can’t we just pretend for a moment that she’s going home, just for today, that she’s going to…….”

His voice was as blunt as usual, but I could tell he was trying to hide his emotions for my confusion.

“Hmph…….”

I buried my face in Father Edwin’s chest and sobbed under my breath. He offered no words of comfort; he simply wandered around the monastery, holding me until I stopped crying, even though we had reached the front of the Archelio Abbey.

***

“God grant Sister Sarah eternal rest.”

Sarah had complained that she didn’t like her tomboyish name. Perhaps until the end of her life, she would pout her lips, refusing to be called by an ugly name.

“Let your eternal light shine upon him.”

Father Marco’s voice echoed through the monastery. Sarah’s parents bowed their heads in resignation, and her younger siblings, who didn’t speak English, huddled around her.

“May Sister Sarah and all the departed, by the mercy of God, rest in peace.”

The soft sound of a requiem mixed with someone’s sobs echoed through the silent monastery.

Sarah’s eyes were closed tightly, as if she had overslept, but she looked serene.

As the funeral Mass drew to a close, one by one, her relatives and fellow sisters approached her coffin to pay their last respects.

Sarah’s parents could only stare helplessly at their daughter lying motionless.

“…Now the bereaved may blow out the candles and weep.”

Sarah’s mother finally broke down and burst into tears. Through her sobs, she approached Sarah’s coffin, her footsteps muffled by a large bouquet of lilies.

“…Sarah.”

She felt as if she would wake up at the sound of her name at any moment. As she lay motionless, I placed the bouquet of white lilies in her arms.

“I think these are more for Sarah than me.”

I looked at her lovely face and smiled softly, wishing she could hear the words I had heard when I bought the bouquet.

‘Sister, what are you going to use all these lilies for?’

‘I want to give them to a friend’

‘It seems like a special relationship, giving a bouquet to a friend. It’s adorned to welcome the Saintess as a symbol of purity, but in truth, flowers have their own language.’

“…Undying love.”

Tears welled up in the corners of my eyes as I tried to keep a smile on my face.

The flowers were much more fitting for Sarah than for me. Cradling the large bouquet of lilies in her arms, Sarah’s face was still as relaxed as if she were asleep.