Persephone’s Fall – Page 34
After half an hour of talking with the priest, I excuse myself to go use the lady’s room, but actually I just want to get out of the stuffy office. The heat, combined with a lengthy discussions on what psalms would be best to read, is putting me to sleep.
The interior of the cathedral is cool and dark, lit only by this sort of diffuse red glow coming in from the stained glass windows. I don’t know what it is about dark churches, but they’re not as comforting as they should be. It’s a holy building, right? But sometimes it seems to me like the cleaner something is, the easier it is to corrupt. You hear about fallen angels, not about those of us in the middle, with souls dyed dirty grey by moments of both sin and righteousness.
We associate holiness with the light, so when you remove the light from a church, it seems more possible that outside sin might somehow infiltrate, subvert, defile.
Or maybe I am the darkness. My fascination with the drop is a sin. When I finally go through it, that will be a major sin. Unforgiveable. Maybe the church senses my intentions. Maybe it’s trying to expel me. Perhaps I’m the corruption, already infiltrated, preparing to stand up before God and lie to him at the altar.
When Hades’ voice rises up behind me, I jump about thirty feet.
“Get lost, Persephone?”
I manage to swallow the profanity that wants to jump off my tongue, at least. I turn around to yell at Hades for scaring me, and for that smirk in his voice that says he knows he caught me, but the priest is there with him. Instead, I turn the words into a sheepish grin, and say “Sorry, I noticed the door was open, and curiosity got the better of me.”
The priest’s name is Father William. Wilhelm. Something… he smiles at me. “Quite all right, child. It’s lovely in here, isn’t it?”
I force my smile to broaden. “Lovely. Yes.”
“I think we’re all set for next Sunday, barring a few minor things that your fiance said he’d take care of. You should be thankful he’s so involved. Many grooms are overwhelmed and just give up, requiring the bride-to-be to take care of everything.”
“He’s has been incredibly helpful.” I glance at Hades, who rolls his eyes. The smirk hasn’t left his face, and it broadens slightly when I give him a ‘get me out of here’ look. But he steps forward.
“I’m sorry, Father, but we have to go. We have an appointment seamstress that we really need to get to.” There goes Hades, lying to priests. He takes my arm and leads me gently to the door. “I’ll get those documents to you soon.”
“Ah. Very well. See you soon!”
As we leave, he’s standing in the middle of the darkened cathedral, head cocked slightly to one side, at peace with himself and the church. The wind escaping as the door closes behind us sounds to me almost like a relieved sigh.
