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Chapter Text

Asturias, Spain. Around an hour east from Ovieda as the crow flies, in foothills and folds of the Peñamayor mountain range, a road that begins as tarmac, thins to gravel and finally breaks into spidering capillaries of sanded footpaths that lead almost to the heavens as they climb. The air is cooler in the hills and in the morning the mist trawls from the peak of the Trigueiro mount and down into the gorges below, hewn from rock old as time by the blood flow of the river Pra making its descent towards the ocean.

It is a quiet world there. In the lower hills tourists backpack and visit the sheep farms to sample the cheese. Some more adventurous souls climb higher, on foot or with rigging and ropes. But few go as far as the narrowest of paths, so rarely trod that they are cracked and carpeted in places by sweet blades of grass and the telltale flowers of malvas and tiny blue irises. Up in these steep and verdant meadows deer and wild boar are far more likely companions than man. In the winter snow blankets the hills at that height in chiffon powder and in summer the slopes are jewels against the dove grey peaks, chiselled into the skyline.

Peñamayor is a world above the world, removed from the clamour of the nearby city and the coast. A place that forgot time, if only you could reach the places where 'below' finally slipped away. And in the shadows of the peaks, in one of those high, high places, rest El Convento de Santa Philomena.

Built in the 16th century, to an unknowing eye it could at first appear more a farmhouse than a monasterial refuge. Nestled in a place where the hills plateaued, one of the seldom taken sand paths led up to a low wall whose bricks had been bound together by moss in it's age and beyond that a courtyard where a gnarled olive tree grew at the centre of the pavings and chickens roamed free beneath it's shade, content to scratch at the earth between the stones. A flight of uneven steps, worn and bowed by the centuries of feet that had trodden them, led up to the heart building of the convent itself, hewn in wheat colour stones, its terracotta roof long remade in gold and green by lichen and time. Alcoved doors stood in the shadow of a terrace with an arch leading the way, a simple bronze cross hung overhead. Beside the central, symmetrical block with its sloped roof other buildings were annexed on over time, a handful of them that were so varied in height dependent on where their foundations settled into the hill that the overall impression of the convent was of a set of pillar candles that had been all been burned to various degrees.

Through the arch, the door opened to reveal an entrance hall with cool white walls, painted stone, and low ceilings of dark umber wood. Further exploratory steps left and right led to living quarters, kitchens, and of course the chapel, and in the centre of the asymmetric homestead windows looked into the sanctuary of the convent garden. Rather than clipped, prim lawns and flowerbeds the space was deliberately wild, a constructive chaos containing herbs and forages and food allowed to grow amongst each other as God saw fit, carefully tended so all flourished but without enforced regiment, shaded by fruit trees that encircled the grotto. It was a symbiotic bed of life, much as the lives of the sisters who dwelt together within Santa Philomena.

At its height in the mid nineteenth century the convent had been home to around eighty women, and around a quarter of these had been cloistered. The sisters of Santa Philomena served the surrounding province of Asturias, those that left the convent to minister to the larger community acting as nurses, teachers, charitable workers. Time, however, took its toll upon not only the convent's walls but it's population too. Gradually as the world progressed fewer postulants came, religious life falling in favour in the wake of new rights for women in the secular world and greater access to both education and work for these newly liberated generations.

The real death blow though, came from the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, or, as it was more colloquially known, 'Vatican II'. Bringing about radical changes in both congregational and personal worship, the new doctrines resulted in many feeling their relationship with God through the Roman Catholic Church had lost its sanctity and given way to selective devotion which meant it was not really devotion at all. The loss to avowed religious communities across the world was astonishing. Tens of thousands of men and women who had given everything for their God suddenly faced the thought that their sacrifices were rejected by the Church and their way of life without meaning. Many convents, abbeys and monasteries would ultimately close and fall to decay in the fallout of this revised Church, that in it's honest intent to bring the lay people home had inadvertently ostracised many of its own clergy.

Santa Philomena had not been immune to this tragedy. By the twenty first century, the once thriving mountain convent housed only fourteen women, and only three of these under the age of fifty. The world was changing still and the remote sanctuary of God was gradually dying, held on only by an ardent few, many of its annexes now boarded up due to disuse and disrepair, the nuns all but forgotten by the world below. It was a place that was disappearing, a place where one could vanish oneself if God was all one needed.

Manuel Aringarosa remembered Santa Philomena. He remembered it from his youth in Ovieda, when on his arrival to the town the Mother Superior had sent him a veritable summons to inspect the priest who would be building his new Church. He remembered how he was sure the climb would kill him once he had to leave his car, the road too narrow to take him any way but on foot. He remembered the warm welcome he'd been given when he'd arrived, the Sisters bringing him limeade sweetened with brown sugar made with limes from their own garden, and laughing brightly at how very red his face was. He remembered the Mother being sharp as a knife edge as she'd questioned him on both his intentions and his qualifications, but once seemingly satisfied he meant to do only God's will softening and inviting him to join for food and Vespers, then giving him a bed for the night so he didn't have to make that dreadful climb down again in the same day. He remembered the coolness, the scent of lemon balm on the breeze from the gardens, the sweet, silvery sound of the sisters' singing during morning worship before he left. He remembered the house of God it was, how it permeated the very air there, entirely tangible.

For the years he spent in Ovieda, Aringarosa corresponded frequently and frankly with the Mother Superior of Santa Philomena. She offered friendly council while he was still finding his feet with the locals, and the sisters companionship while he had no parish of his own, sometimes bringing him gifts of food and holistic medicines from the mount, sometimes having him as their guest on feast days. As he grew in prominence with each passing year, the Mother watched with interest, even as her own community dwindled further. When he left Ovieda for America and new seniority within Opus Dei, he still humbled himself before the women of Santa Philomena, for they knew God in a way he never could and remained staunch in their service to Him, even as they were all painfully aware, Aringarosa included, that the convent's way of life was slowly coming to an end.

They had parted in friendship founded on their mutual faith, the Mother Superior reminding him in a kind sort of chiding that no matter how great he grew, he could still come home to Asturias and find peace in humility there. He understood what she had meant; no matter what happened, he still had friends in the mountains of Spain.

Almost a decade later, laying in his hospital bed in London, the Bishop wondered through the haze of painkillers if that friendship would endure his crimes. It had been years since he had spoken to the Mother Superior at Philomena. For all he knew the convent had finally closed, its chapel doors locked for good. It was a ghost of a chance, but perhaps…

Aringarosa had no illusions of what was coming. He would be excommunicated for his part in the events in Paris and London. The prospect had already been discussed at his meeting with the Council at the Vatican and he knew it was only right. He had been betrayed and he had, woefully, betrayed others. Had he known that the 'Teacher' was going to incite Silas to murder, he never would have told the albino to obey their invisible benefactor. It had actually been promised that there would be no killing. That the Priory would have their lives spared, because with the recovery of the Magdalene sarcophagus, there would be no way to prove their claims about living heirs of Christ. It would just be a fairytale spouted by eccentric old men…

But Silas had spilled blood. A lot of it. And by his own foolish faith, Aringarosa knew in his heart he had endorsed it. Ignorance was as bad as action.

The Bishop felt as keenly that he had betrayed the albino as if he had forced the gun on him personally. He'd undone all the years that Silas had spent trying to be something more, something -better-, something worthy of God's love. His foster son's faith had been used so callously and given so blindly that he'd been turned into a terrible weapon. The damage was catastrophic.

Excommunication, Aringarosa mused, is too good for me.

Silas should have died. The nurses had said it. The police had said it. Found in Kensington Gardens, all but naked in the grass, the nurse who had finally relented to Aringarosa's pleading about the albino had explained that the state of undress had likely been what had saved him. Cold enough on a London night in February to slow down his bleeding to the point that he had been found by commuters still alive. By a genuine miracle the bullet had missed his bowel. It had nicked his liver but just a nick. Somehow, somehow against incredible odds, Silas had been repairable. He would live.

What manner of life would it be, though? Aringarosa recalled the condition Silas had been in when he had found him. Almost dead then, too, starving and beaten and utterly without hope. Hell was real to Silas, he had looked into it. The Bishop knew this as fact.

He had promised the albino a better life. A life with warm food and a clean bed. A life with structure, with discipline, a life with the absolute joy of knowing God moved through it. A life with unconditional love from the Almighty.

Now he has condemned this man back to prison. Back to Hell. He had broken his promises through his folly and Silas would suffer for the rest of his days…

Aringarosa was going to be excommunicated. He would soon have no power, no influence, no money.

There was no time to wait until he recuperated from his own wounds. Action had to be swift, it had to be concise, and it had to have God's backing, because it would take a miracle to see Silas out of chains. Even now in the ICU, unconscious and intubated, the nurse had told of how he was handcuffed to his bed rails.

The Bishop had a phone brought to him, fingers trembling as he began to dial a Spanish number he still knew by heart despite the years that had passed. If the sisters at Santa Philomena agreed to his request, then he would have to pray there was enough money left within his reach to get Silas' cuffs unlocked and pull him out of England…

"Dios me perdone por manipular la corrupción de los hombres," he prayed as a foreign dial tone sounded on the telephone. God forgive me for manipulating the corruptibility of men...

Silas never did know what it cost the Bishop to make him go missing, either from a financial or spiritual standpoint. He remembered very little of being smuggled from the hospital. He did know through the cloud of opiates and pain that it had been a uniformed officer who had undone his cuffs a week after he had woken in an alien hospital room. He knew too that he was not ready to be moved when he had tried to stand and felt a ripping agony sear through his abdomen, actually blinding him for several long moments until he could breathe again. He was bundled into a wheelchair and passed a note before the officer began wheeling him, his vision shaking as he read the familiar hand:

Go with them. I am sorry, my son, for all I have done. I can do little else for you now, but try to ensure you safe passage. Remember, if you have learned nothing else, that forgiveness is God's greatest gift. I pray that you find peace. We will not speak again.

Time slipped again and Silas lost where he was. In and out of consciousness, he knew that he was moving, though by foot or vehicle he had no idea. It was night and the lights of London made his head feel as if it was going to explode. A sting in his arm heralded more pain medication and he thought he heard a kind voice, but it was speaking in English and he was too far gone to be able to concentrate on understanding it.

Once he woke in a room he had never seen and heard the sound of the voice nearby but muted by distance, another room somewhere. His eyes came into focus briefly on a crucifix pinned to the pale wall, Jesus' head lifted to gaze heavenward, and the first flicker of clarity came; he had prayed for forgiveness. He had gotten on his knees in the light of the moon and laid his soul before God, asking for it to be made clean. The pain told him he wasn't dead. Had God heard him..?

On the second day he was lucid enough he knew he was in the back of a large, dark car, a young man in a very expensive suit sat opposite him, his attention fixed on a smart phone in his hand. His suit and haircut and shoes all spoke of ludicrous wealth, but there was an Opus Dei symbol on the pin securing his silk tie. Silas exhaled when he saw this, the relief enough to nullify the pain under his ribs. This was a friend…

As the journey wore on the expensive man explained Aringarosa had arranged him passage out of the reach of the law as far as he could, but once he was out of the jurisdiction of the Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciare then Opus Dei could help no further. They could not absolve him of his crimes and even they were not above Interpol. He was being given the means to disappear, but he had to do so.

Silas' hazy gaze peered out of the window, silent all the while as instructions were given, explanations of his counterfeit documents, the remaining medications he would need to take while his wounds healed, the small amount of funds that had been afforded him. It all sailed over his head, his thoughts far away as he watched rain begin to peel down the car window.

Aringarosa had saved him once again. Saved him when he was the least deserving to be saved. He should have died. He should have burned. He had asked God for mercy but he had not for a moment expected to receive it. He wasn't worthy of such grace…

Climbing the stairs onto the small jet had felt like crawling over broken glass. Collapsing into the padded seat aboard the plane, leaden eyelids slid closed and he felt someone else buckle his seatbelt. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't care. Aringarosa was gone. Opus Dei would soon be gone. He had realised in the car he was wearing lay clothes, his woollen robes that had been his symbol of his service to God gone. Silas was gone. He was a spectre once more…

The expensive man had not disembarked from the plane. They had landed in Aerodromo La Morgal, a small, private airstrip usually used for helicopter and light aircraft excursions, rather than the commercial Asturias airport. Customs had boarded but barely glanced at their documents, and an envelope exchanged hands from the ghost's keeper to the official that was swiftly tucked inside the agent's blazer. The ghost felt nothing.

The customs agent ushered him down the plane steps and into a waiting car, a navy sedan with blacked out windows. The driver glanced back at him in the rear view mirror and the albino felt a brief flicker of something when he saw a priest's collar. Not joy, not relief, just- familiarity.

"Buenas tardes, hermano. Debo llevarte a tu nuevo hogar. No mucho más lejos ahora," the priest greeted and offered a small, stiff smile through the mirror before pulling away across the tarmac of the airport.

"I am taking you home…" Silas had a home. Used to have. Home was for people. Ghosts didn't have homes. They merely haunted other people's ones.

Pale eyes stared out of the window, and for a moment there was a glint of surprise in them. He knew the view before him. He had been here before, a long time ago. When he had helped raise a church brick by brick, working at night to be safe from the sun. He had watched the moon rise over the same coastline he saw before him now, a silver globe mirrored in the sea and lighting the way as he worked. Ovieda. The Bishop really had sent him home…

The car gradually climbed, the sea dropping away to become a winking sapphire in the distance until it vanished altogether behind verdant hills. The sky was changing colour, gold to pink as evening drew close and the landscape changed to farm paddocks and woodlands. Finally, at what seemed to be a beauty spot the car pulled into a gravel car park and the engine stopped, the priest twisting his seat to look back at his passenger, his voice hushed as he breathed in Spanish:

"I go no further, my friend. You must follow the path up and to the west, into the hills. Stay west and you will find refuge. The Lord be with you."

The spectre just stared a moment, then nodded. He didn't complete the response to the simple blessing. The words didn't want to form in his mouth. Instead he slid silently out of the car, pulling with him the small duffle bag that now contained his whole world. He didn't move for a while, even when the car pulled away and left him. Ahead there was a butter colour path cut into the mountain that stretched up into his vision, its vista splashed with gold from the setting sun. His side burned, the pain medication long worn off. Good. If he was to finish this pilgrimage then he would do so being cleansed by the piercing in his abdomen.

Forcing his feet forwards, he began the climb, the cooling air of the evening a balm on his skin as every step seemed to stretch further apart. At first the ground was even but over time it gave way to sand and pebbles and every fall of his feet was a knife blade puncturing his side. As the sky turned blood red, then deepened with indigo the incline steepened and the ghost that had once been Silas struggled to breathe as he pressed his way on. He thought about abandoning the bag, but could not bear to throw away Bishop Aringarosa's final act of kindness to him, and so continued to carry what increasingly became a weight of rock and iron to his damaged body.

Night fell as he pushed on, picking out the path West as he had been instructed, aided by the setting of the sun in his navigation. The moon crested overhead and the spectre gazed up at it, almost delirious with pain and exhaustion when the ground beneath his feet finally began to balance and level, guided on by the silver wheel above. When its light fell onto bright stone walls it brought forth in him such a dizzying wave of euphoria that for a moment he thought he had climbed all the way to Heaven.

With the last of his strength, the ghost half mounted, half rolled his way over the low slung wall that marked the refuge's boundary and landed with a hard smack on cold stone ground. Panting shallow breaths, his exhales steamed in the night air, clear blue eyes watching the stars wheel overhead, white lashes opening and closing slowly. Wherever he was, the ghost decided, it was better than the hospital he'd come from. He let his breathing subside, beyond exhausted and his whole abdomen aflame, but he felt a momentary peace. Here he was, in the heart of God's own creation, between the Heavens and the earth. He could rest here for a moment.

Rolling his gaze to his surroundings, he had enough sense left to spy the thick, spiralling trunk of an olive tree only a few feet away and exhaled slowly. Olive. The symbol of life continuing even when it seemed the whole world had been torn asunder.

With the last dredges of strength left that he could call upon, the ghost dragged himself on hands and knees across the courtyard to the foot of the twisted trunk and dropped there, curled on his side. The smell of earth and the green warmth of the ancient tree sheltering him enveloped the pale figure and finally he closed his eyes, a hot tear escaping from beneath his lashes to trace down his skin.

Oh God, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed…

The ghost had vanished. He had been made see through once more, and he knew the price, in the end; the price was the man he had been.

Chapter Text

The sisters of Santa Philomena always rose early, greeting the day with morning prayer often before the sun rose. The daily litany would begin before breakfast was permitted, and a dozen or so veiled heads would bow in the chapel while the sky lightened, doing their best to ignore rumbling stomachs and stifled yawns. The only novitiate among them had to suppress a smile on this particular morning when the belly of the elder sister knelt in front of her practically growled. The younger woman pressed her clasped fingers firmly to her lips to hold her amusement in, reasoning with God in her wordless prayers that He surely had a sense of humour and would probably overlook her brief slip in concentration. 

After prayers the shutters in the parts of the convent that were still used were opened to allow the morning light to flood in and breakfast of bread with salted tomato or fresh fruit with a great deal of freshly ground coffee was shared in the communal dining room. Once the nightly silence ended at seven a.m plans for daily chores and duties might be idly chatted about over the last dregs of coffee, along with the occasional piece of news from the outside world that might arrive by post. Then dishes were cleaned away, more prayers in chapel followed, and after the women would set about their work, the vast majority of their time invested in the maintenance of the secluded community's daily lives.

The novitiate was allowed a little more personal freedoms than the other women residing at Santa Philomena. Nothing ludicrous, of course. She was hardly wearing scarlet knickers under her vestments. But the Mother was softer on her than she needed to be, allowing her to choose her work duties rather than them simply being allocated, among other minor privileges, a fact the younger sister knew meant she was spoiled. Not all the places she'd lived had been so accommodating. But the Mother understood something as simple as being allowed to tend to the gardens and the convent's small flock of domesticated chickens made a large difference in the novice's happiness, the girl content to embrace gratitude and praise in her heart while she worked for the bounty of God's love in the growing things that sustained their little family of women. Every act should be made a prayer, after all. 

This morning was no different to countless others she had spent since arriving at the convent; apron on, pocket in the front filled with feed, the novitiate made her way down the uneven steps from the convent's front door in the early light, eager clucking greeting her as several small, jet black birds with crimson crests bolted across the courtyard to weave between her feet and peck at the hem of her habit. She smiled fondly at the demanding creatures, bidding them each good morning by name as she scattered handfuls of grain from the front of her apron. Once the brood was distracted by their breakfast she moved to search the nests hidden among the stones overgrown with moss and bracken that encircled the courtyard, looking for eggs. High enough in the hills here that foxes and dogs were no threat, the convent occupants had never bothered with coops, instead opting to let the chickens roost wherever they saw fit. That in turn gave way to the collection of eggs becoming a treasure hunt, something the young sister found amusement in as she dug through the brush and groped behind crumbling walls. This morning they had gifted the novice with eight fat, speckled prizes, carefully placed into the pocket where she'd previously stashed the feed to be carried back to the kitchen and turned into something hearty for supper. 

Pleased with her haul and brushing her hands down the textured linen of her apron to clean them off, the girl was about to turn back to go inside when she froze, staring in astonishment at the base of the tree in the centre of the space. What lay beneath it was certainly no chicken…

Inching forwards, wary feet stepped soundlessly across the flagstones until she broached the shade of the old olive, brows arched, unblinking gaze peering down at the crumpled figure beneath it's bows. He was large, much larger than her, she could tell that even as he lay drawn into himself, and so fair that he could have been wrought from polished marble. As she stared a pained exhale from him made her jump, quickly asserting that he was in fact a living, breathing being, the novitiate's nervousness giving way to concern after a few more moments silent study. He did not seem at all well.

Swallowing the thick lump that the fear of the unknown had lodged in her throat, she sank to her knees on the cool slabs of stone beneath them, her gaze flickering over what was undoubtedly a troubled face even in sleep, deep shadows of some unknown hardship carved into porcelain features. Was he a tourist who had lost his way on the mountain? It wouldn't be the first time, not that she had ever seen an outsider since she had arrived to Philomena. She'd never so much as met the man who delivered the meat each month…

Moving slowly and with absolute care to not startle the sleeping stranger, the sister reached out and touched the back of her fingers to his brow, feeling for any obvious signs of fever or malaise. A fresh pang of pity seized her heart when he didn't so much as stir at the contact. He must have been weary down to the marrow of his bones.

The brief assessment revealed to the novice that the unknown visitor was in fact cool to the touch, chilled from his night in the open. Teeth grazing her lower lip, she moved her hand to lay it on his shoulder next and gave it the gentlest of squeezes, the closest she was willing to do to shaking him awake. The joint beneath his pullover, (which was entirely inadequate for sleeping under the stars in her opinion), was solid under her fingers, unyielding to her half hearted attempts to rouse him. He was not only large but perhaps also very strong, despite his sorry appearance huddled beneath the tree. She lifted her hand away to instinctively curl her fingers around the small silver cross that rest just beneath her habit collar, contemplating what was the right thing to do.

"Where did you come from..?" The words were all but inaudible, a question more to the air than the sleeping man. He did not appear physically like any other person she had met in her sheltered life, but she knew her experience of others was very narrow. He was just a man, flesh and blood and soul, the same as her, and in this moment he appeared to be a vulnerable one. Biting her cheek, the sister's fingers tightened around the cross pendant and immediately her prayers on what to do seemed to be answered, the thought popping into her head in her own voice clear as day in her mind; You have been taught charity… 

As silently as she had knelt the novitiate pushed herself to her feet and quickly moved back across the patio, breaking into a run once she was up the first set of steps while hoping the Mother would not see her, her habit clutched up in one hand to keep from tripping over the hem. Skittering into the kitchen, she deposited the eggs and the apron on the table, then began putting a rushed plate together, praying that God might overlook her sin of stealing as it was to feed another...

It was the ghost's own breathing that woke him. After a few hours deep, dreamless sleep, exhaustion gave way enough to pain that the piercing under his ribs each time he inhaled slowly brought him forth to consciousness. He kept his eyes closed, trying to hold onto the blissful emptiness of sleep for a little longer, but to no avail. Gradually his other senses came to, forcing him back to reality and the predicament he had found himself in the night before. He became aware of the hardness of the stone beneath him, how pressure points in his shoulder and hip ached from the solid ground that had been his mattress. There was the scent of the olive tree above him, the dirt below and wildflowers somewhere in between, the calls of songbirds wheeling overhead and-

He was warm.

Deeply uncomfortable in all other respects, yes, but warm…

Shifting a fraction, wary of moving too much lest he find himself at the mercy of some new adversary once it was clear he was awake, he felt the weight of the blanket that was strewn over his prone form move with him, the slight scratch of woven sheep wool skimming his neck. 

Blanket.

He had been discovered. 

His mind already tripping over itself trying to come up with escape scenarios from whatever unknown figure of law enforcement that had found him, the spectre opened wary eyes just a slit, trying to disguise the fact as he risked a glance out from beneath pale lashes, and fear gave way to the beginnings of confusion, then momentary awe. For a brief instant, with his mind still addled from the depths of weariness and all he had endured in getting to this place, the ghost thought he was witnessing a miraculous vision;

Before him a figure gleamed in golden light, rays spilling forth from it, it’s whole being luminescent. It seemed to be kneeling, bowed head obscuring its features, but so very bright that it must be a heavenly apparition, it must be an angel, it-

The spectre’s vision and mind gradually cleared and the brief rapture faded as the filters of half sleep lifted away. There was no saintly glow, no radiance from on high. Just the morning sun reflecting off of clean white cotton, it’s wearer dressed from head to toe in the simple but unmistakable garb of a nun. She was knelt perhaps twenty feet away from where he was crumpled beneath the tree, head low and hands in her lap, the polished wooden beads of a rosary gradually passing through her fingers, entirely absorbed in her prayers. 

The ghost watched her a while, long enough that she finished one decade and had started on the next. He couldn’t make her out in much detail yet, between distance and the shadow of the light veil covering her head. Wisps of champagne blonde bangs peaked from beneath the soft, snowy material, hiding her eyes. Her hands were small, fingers slender, holding the rosary as if it were made of spun gold. Young hands but hard working, the backs of them chapped from her labours. Her habit was white in its entirety, a little more silent study noting the lack of starched cap or collar or pinafore. Still a novice… 

The ghost felt a twist of regret as painful as any bullet as his mind threw back to the last woman of the cloth he had encountered. She would have been this way once, newly called to service, pious and prayerful as she came to God. How had it come to be that he had knelt with her blood staining his fingertips as he had administered the prayer commending her soul to Heaven, as if somehow that might negate the terrible deed he had just done? He had been so sure of himself, but immediately after the remorse had flooded him, and it returned now observing this unknown sister in her quiet devotions. Perhaps it was her phantom. Perhaps now she was without flesh too she was haunting him, his penance for ending her life…

Still too numbed by his own fatigue and the increasing strangeness of his current circumstances to move yet, pale blue eyes gradually became aware of something else in their periphery. Within arms reach there was a plate set on the flagstones, two hunks of bread lathered with some jam so sticky and rich it looked almost black set upon it, and beside that a tall glass of orange juice. Saliva pooled beneath his tongue. A ghost he may be, but a hungry one. He wasn't sure when he had last eaten. He still didn't move, though. Instead, he tore his gaze away from the temptation of sustenance and looked back to the praying figure, trying to understand what situation he had stumbled into on the vague instructions he'd been given to find shelter in the hills.

As if she could sense eyes on her the beads passing through the novice's hands became still and her head lifted a fraction, a flicker of eyes visible just for a moment before a hand lifted to cross herself. The spectre felt his chest tighten and his thighs tense, ready to bolt despite the throbbing pain he was in. His heart rate soared, panic setting in as the sister clipped her rosary back to her belt and her veiled head finally lifted properly to look at him. Breath held, several achingly long seconds went by as the two regarded one another across the courtyard. He was invisible no more. 

"It's alright you're quite safe here." 

The sister was the one to break the silence, her voice gentle across the courtyard. Her Spanish was accented, something slightly stiff in her pronunciation. Not a native speaker. The ghost did not say anything in reply. His jaw set, he pushed himself up through his elbow, struggling to sit, the blanket falling away. A low grunt escaped him unbidden as a searing bolt of sensation shot through his belly when he straightened and he immediately regretted the sound as he saw the novice move, swiftly pushing herself to her feet to stride across the flagstones and drop to her knees anew before him. The ghost avoided looking up at her, studying a crack in the paving stones instead as he heard her speak once more, the soft timbre of her voice clearer now she was close;

"Are you hurt? I can send for a doctor. Is there someone I could call for you? Family? Friends? Someone must be missing you…" 

He twitched his head no. Nobody would be missing him. He had lost that last connection with the living world when Aringarosa had written that they would never speak again.

"Did you get lost?"

Lost. Oh yes. He was lost now, that was very true. Without purpose, without cause, without church or home-

The ghost was flinched out of his thoughts as he felt the alien sensation of another's skin on his, soft fingers gently prying his hand open to press the coolness of glass into his palm. 

"Here. Drink. It's a long walk to get here. You'll be dehydrated."

Pulled out of his self pitying musings by the foreign touch of another, he finally looked up from the ground and into the face of this unknown Samaritan, pastel gaze met with one of deep, cornflower blue and full of warmth. The face looking down at him was heart shaped and smooth with youth, a crease of worry drawing brows together, nose dusted with freckles, cheeks coloured rose pink by the morning sunlight, cupid bow mouth small but soft with a tentative smile that was coloured by concern. It was not so much her features that struck the ghost; he had spent years trying to stop himself from being moved by physical loveliness, a baseless, facile way to measure a person's worth. It was the way she was looking at him. Doe eyes held his own steadily, compassion reflected back in her gaze, her expression open and without fear or judgement of him, and for a moment the ghost almost felt he had flesh again. He felt seen.

The novitiate's smile grew just a little as he looked up at her and with another gentle nudge of her fingers against his knuckles to coax him the glass of juice was lifted to his lips, the tangy nectar coating a grateful throat and washing away the sandpaper sensation in it as the sister drew her hand away and spoke once more;

"Do you know where you are?"

The glass was drained in its entirety and was set down on his thigh as he caught his breath, then there was a twitch of his head from one side to the other. The novice's brows lifted noticeably at the answer, a curious gleam in her eyes visible quicker than she could catch it. 

"The hills are called Peñamayor. You're almost at the centre of them. This is the convent of the blessed saint, Philomena. You really don't know?"

The spectre blinked slowly at this, digesting the information more sluggishly than he would have liked. A convent. Was this the shelter he was supposed to have found, or merely a fortunate accident?

The plate of bread and fruit preserves was guided into his hands and the glass lifted away, the sister clutching it between both palms in her lap as she continued;

"Do you have a name?"

The ghost dropped her gaze. Stared in silence into the shine of the jam. Didn't eat. Didn't answer.

"Alright. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I wouldn't be so quick to trust a stranger either, even one in the habit."

There was the sound of another smile in her voice, though the spectre did not look up to see it 

"My name is Bethany. There. Now I am not a stranger to you. You are safe here. Whatever has happened, we can help."

The ghost finally lifted his eyes to peer up at the novice kneeling before him, a fresh pang of discomfort and remorse causing a hard lump in his throat. He should tell her, tell her he didn't deserve any kindness, any safety, any charity from women of God after he had failed Him so spectacularly and completely-

"Betania! Entra ahora!"

The ghost fell back from the precipice of almost speaking as a new voice whipsnapped across the courtyard, the barked command having an immediate and jarring effect on the young woman in white. Eyes large, she pulled back from where she was knelt as though the ground burned her, hurriedly stepping back in a near stumble as she was apparently caught doing something wrong. Her head dropped to in a bow deep enough rest her chin on her chest, glass clutched tight in her fingers. There was a brief bob of her knees in a sort of half curtsey almost, before she turned to rush up the steps from the courtyard without casting her foundling charge another glance, the picture of contrition as the soft patter of feet faded away. As she fled, the ghost moved to tuck the plate of bread behind him, the old habit of hiding food that might be under threat dying hard from his days living wild on vicious streets. 

The speaker stepped into sight around the olive tree once the footfalls.of the novitiate could no longer be heard, the source of the command revealed to be a much older woman, also in the habit but this time her veil was black and arranged over the stiff cap framing a face easily in it's sixties. The elder nun stood with her hands folded over her stomach to look down at the ghost with dark eyes that seemed to pierce right through him, an air of calm authority emanating from her. She seemed all at once slight and fragile and also as if the sharpness within her could cut anyone who crossed her in half. It was the air of someone who had absolute conviction in who she was and what was her purpose. 

"You are Aringarosa's boy."

It was not a question. The ghost did not respond. 

"I have been waiting for you."

The elder woman turned on her heel to start back across the patio, until she paused after a few feet to look back at the pale foundling still under the olive tree, his white face wary at what was.happening. The woman tut and lifted her voice once more, her tone that of a scolding mother;

"Well then, get yourself up. You can either come inside or go back down the mountain and try your luck in the city, but either way you cannot remain in our gardens distracting our Sisters. Make your choice, child. I shall not wait for you all day. The Lord's work does not pause, not even for you..."

The Abbess was not as gentle as his brief encounter with the novitiate. She led him into the convent, the spectre struggling some to keep up with her steps as he followed her, toting his meager duffle bag through low ceilinged corridors on the path to her offices. His weary mind did not take much note of his surroundings beyond the fact that they were blanketed in a hallowed quiet. He did not see any other faces.

In her offices the Abbess insisted he sat, but she stood, razor eyes fixed on him as she informed him cooly of what would become of him at the convent;

"You are here at the appeal of Bishop Aringarosa and God's mercy. I know more of you than I should like and less than I woutd choose, but it is not my place to make any judgement of you. You may stay only until you are healed, whereupon you shall be expected to find lodging elsewhere. I will assist you in finding a suitable monastery, if that is what you wish, providing you have conducted yourself in an appropriate manner while you are here. You will not converse with our sisters unless you are spoken to, ill or in need of some other assistance. You will not eat with them, sit with them or do anything which may distress or distract them. When you are well enough to do so, you will work. You will sleep when we sleep and pray when we pray. You will live humbly and ascetically while you are here. I understand you spent several years as a numeracy within Opus Dei so that should be no hardship for you. We will provide you with a bed, meals, medical care and as much protection from outside eyes as we can afford you. I trust that my expectations are clear…"

The ghost had merely nodded. Aringarosa had arranged this, Aringarosa still trying to save him, still trying to protect him from the cruelties of men and their laws… If the Bishop trusted this woman and her order then he would too. Aringarosa still had his loyalty, his love even, after all that had happened. Aringarosa was to be obeyed, more than ever now when he had no other identity. 

He was given a cell in a part of the convent that smelled of damp and belonged more to spiders than the women of Philomena, that he could tell. There was a bed though, and a chest of drawers with a wash basin and jug set atop it, a wooden crucifix over the small clouded window that lit the room above the headboard. The bed was dressed with sheets that were pilled with age but bright white in their cleanliness and carried the scent of lemons. He was not surprised when he heard the Abbess lock the door behind him. He would not have trusted him to move freely in the convent either.

Despite the throbbing it caused in his abdomen, the ghost lowered himself to the floor and laid on his belly, forehead pressed to the cool stone, arms flung out to the sides to prostrate himself absolutely before the Lord as he prayed. He gave thanks for the room he was in, for the Abbess and her admittance of him, for Aringarosa in his endless kindness, still trying to give him shelter. He gave thanks for the pain of the surgery scars, reminding him that he was so blessed to still be alive and not yet in Hell's fire. He gave thanks for the novitiate with the glass of orange juice who was not afraid of him.

He prayed for forgiveness. For cleansing. For clarity. For the souls that he had dispatched from this world.

He prayed until he felt calm, the light through the milky glass of the window changing from morning to midday. Then he pushed himself from the ground, limbs stuff and muscles trembling as he moved to pour some water into the chipped china basin and pulled off his clothing, washing away sweat and dust and, he hoped, some of his shame. He scrubbed himself raw, stood naked in the air to dry. Picked at the dressings on his abdomen. They needed changing. 

Lifting the duffle bag onto the bed the ghost unzipped it at last, rummaging through the contents. There was a ziplock stuffed with white tubs of medication, press on bandages, surgical tape. Beneath that layers of dark brown wool, the ghost's eyes burning as he drew out the clean monastic robes, clutching fistfuls of the fabric and burying his face in them. Aringarosa understood. Understood this was all he was...

The aching within him seemed to subside some when he pulled the robe over his white body, as if being in them once more was a balm physically and spiritually. There was a second set and some underwear that he carefully placed in the chest of drawers, and he was about to zip the bag when something in the bottom of it caught his eye.

The cilice glinted in the diffused sunlight as he lifted it eyelevel, the barbed loops draped over the back of his hand winking at him.

Aringarosa always understood.