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Shallow breaths. Overwhelming panic. A great sense of guilt.
That’s John's holy trinity.
He grips his cross, the harsh edges digging into his skin, each sharp pain brought by the action a sacrifice to beg God to ‘bless this spiritual weapon’ with more holiness than he could ever muster.
Amy Martin watches him from the distance – lurking in the dark shadows that cascade over the room in deep waves, legs dangling slightly as she gently hovers over the floor, head slightly askew, eyes glinting in the dim light that hangs gravely between the both of them like an opening to the Heavens.
He rages at his fear. This fear; this cowardice – a feeling he’s grown accustomed to – is directed at a child.
No. He corrects himself, ashamed at even considering the thought. At the demon.
And as he slowly raises his cross, he ponders what could’ve been. Perhaps he could’ve met Amy at his parish. Perhaps he could’ve been present at her confirmation. Perhaps he could’ve watched her grow. Perhaps he could’ve been her consultant. Her mentor. Her guardian. To finally live up to his second name like his own father never could: Ward.
It could’ve been, he thinks. A deep sadness settles around his heart. It could’ve been.
Suddenly, everything pauses.
The light flickers briefly.
Amy darts forward.
John woke up.
Shallow breaths. Overwhelming panic. A great sense of guilt.
That’s John’s holy trinity.
He darted his eyes around the tranquil room, its silence unsettling and oddly unfamiliar.
Where’s Molly? He thought. The shallow concave shape that should’ve been beside him was absent, as if no one had been there in the first place. He lightly touched the space. Cold.
He couldn’t hear her usual light steps in the empty halls, nor the usual comforting chatter of reality that would drift in from the living room television.
A sense of derealisation and uneasiness settled deep in his stomach – a heavy weight keeping him in place.
Where’s Molly?
He shook his head, scolding himself. Molly was probably in the kitchen, fixing herself breakfast before going to work like she did every day, occasionally popping over to give John a kiss on the cheek.
Everyone leaves. You know this. You know this. You know this.
It was only silent because the door was closed.
Slightly groaning at the creak of what he hoped was his bed and not his bones, – God knows it was too early for his body to give up on him now – he stood up. He let himself sneak a brief glance at the wooden cross that was hung up high on the wall behind him; a reminder of the life he left.
Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.
It was only silent because the door was closed.
Molly had asked that he take it down multiple times. She knew that it affected him. She knew of the sleepless nights he’d have, where instead of sleeping he’d look up at the grave wooden cross with a sense of mourning, selfishly longing for something more, selfishly longing for the sense of normalcy he’d acquired before—
Before.
He doesn’t like to think about before.
His breaths fog the glass of his mentor’s car. His own reflection avoids itself. A cheery song crackles painfully from the radio, digging into the crevices of his brain like a needle tracing the muscle, crawling desperately through minuscule gaps – the dead from their graves. Father Allred’s voice melts into the rapidly moving world in front of John – they’re all just colours.
“John.”
“Hmm?” John hums back, albeit a bit irritated at the disruption of his momentary peace.
“Have you ever performed an exorcism?”
Paper.
He stared at it from where he stood, as if it were an omen of death. He supposed it sort of was.
It was only silent because the door was closed.
“Have you ever performed an exorcism?”
Feigning curiosity and choking on the lump that was forming in his throat, he picked up the paper.
John,
It was only silent because the door was closed.
I can't do this anymore.
“Have you ever
It was only silent because the door
I will always
It was only silent
“This is it.”
A lonely home in the middle of the woods – a dim light of life glowing from a singular window in a ghostly manner. Despite being considered a home, John thinks it looks otherwise.
Peeling paint, darkness digging deep in each room visible to any wanderers, isolated, yet still standing. He finds himself resonating with it quite deeply. He looks down.
Three knocks. Light flooding from the front door. The parents of Amy Martin invite them inside.
John notices the dishevelled demeanour of the mother instantly. Her eyes dart around the room. She wrings her fingers together as if they’re only things holding her together. She jumps at each creak, each towering shadow. Her eyes are painfully earnest, digging themselves into John’s own, taking its place in his memory. The father, however, simply looks like a stranger strung into a situation he isn’t meant to be involved in. Nervous, awkward, embarrassed.
“We had to tie her in the basement.” the father mumbles, averting his eyes, ashamed. John can’t help but narrow his eyes in irritation. Is this guy seriously more worried about his personal image right now?
Father Allred places a hand on John’s shoulder, appearing to sense his annoyance. John doesn’t know whether he performs this gesture as a warning or a comfort.
“We will take a look,” he says, a settling smile contorted on his face, lined with age and experience. John feels a stab of sudden envy.
The basement is an empty void to hell. John can make out the faint, raspy breathing of what he assumes is Amy Martin lost in the darkness.
“Are there lights?” he asks the couple. The mother nods. They leave. John and Allred go down.
Amy’s head is hung, her hair covering the majority of her face save for a peek of her left eye that John can’t exactly make out. She breathes in shallow breaths, its sound loud in the quiet room. One singular bulb hangs uselessly from the middle of the ceiling, the light scarcely clawing at the dark corners of the basement.
He’s scared. More scared than he’s ever been. He knows there’s something else here – something more than them; something more than God.
It doesn’t feel like a physical being, more like a spiritual presence. A presence that he could feel in between the gaps of his muscle, an evil barely contained inside his skin, an evil creeping up his trachea and entering his skull with the precision of a militant at a gunpoint. He shivers.
“Hello, Amy,” Allred greets, too cheery to John’s personal liking. His voice is like a bullet in a church.
Silence.
“Can you hear me, Amy?”
Cold fingers creep up his neck.
It's not real. John thinks to himself.
“Respice ad me, daemondium.”
She looks up. Haunted eyes touch John’s with an ounce of mockery, red at the corners due to previous tears, dark circles engraved like battle scars under her ghostly gaze.
“Hello, priest.”
John wakes up.
Shallow breaths. Overwhelming panic. A great sense of guilt.
That’s John’s holy trinity.
He darts his eyes around the tranquil room, its silence still unsettling but familiar.
The soft, yellow glow of the sunrise floods through the thin fabric of his sad excuse for curtains and projects into his prison of a room. Out of habit, he turns to look beside him.
Empty. Untouched. Cold.
A deep mourning grapples at his chest.
What’s new? He thinks, almost letting out a bitter laugh.
It’s only silent because the door...
Furrowing his eyebrows, he tries to recollect his memories. This isn’t new either – the missing puzzle pieces. Usually, if they didn’t come back at that very moment, they would come back later during the day like a long-lost friend. Sometimes they wouldn’t.
Doesn’t matter. He decides with a grave finality. It isn’t like they’re worth remembering anyway.
Three knocks reverberate from the old wood of his door.
He jumps, hand darting to his pocket for his cross out of instinct.
“John?” a voice calls, somewhat hesitant.
He frowns.
Silence.
It’s only silent because the door is closed.
“Hey, John,” the voice calls again, agitation hiding the hint of genuine fear peeking from behind it. “you awake?”
It’s only silent because the door is closed.
He opens the door.
“Amy.” he breathes out.
Amy quirks an eyebrow, confused, but looking relieved. She’s wearing an old t-shirt, clearly having only woken up recently, and her fringe is curled tightly around a purple hair curler.
She got the fringe a few days ago, John recalls. He needed a haircut that day too. He lightly touches the back of his hair out of habitual uneasiness, ensuring that what he just remembered was true and not a fabrication of his imagination, shoulders relaxing when his scarred fingertips brush against the fresh prickle of recently shaved hair.
It was only silent because the door was closed.
Deep circles are woven beneath sad eyes and scars litter pale skin, but a small smile still tugs hesitantly at the corners of her lips. Her expression morphs into one of sheepish embarrassment when he spots the coffee pot in her hand.
“I’m sorry,” she laughs nervously, slightly raising up the pot with her right hand. “I don’t know how to use this thing.”
Oh, that’s right.
He adopted Amy.
John looks at her for a moment, processing, and she looks back at him. He realises her eyes are slightly red and swollen, as if she’d been crying. A moment of silence.
“Are you okay?” they ask in unison, surprising each other with the ridiculous coincidence.
Another moment of silence. They smile awkwardly at each other. But even despite the awkwardness of it, the gesture itself doesn’t feel uncomfortable.
He takes the pot carefully from her hands.
“Come with me,” he offers, understanding her silence more deeply than he thinks she’d ever know. “I’ll teach you how to use it.”
“What, so I’ll have to make you coffee in the mornings instead? No thanks.” she jokes back with a mischievous grin, face showing discreetly affectionate appreciation when he simply smiles back in return to her quip.
The light chatter of civilians and life seep into the kitchen in quiet muffles as Amy waits (albeit a tad impatiently) for the coffee pot to finish brewing. John had gone through each instruction with her, without the actual coffee, since she’d insisted on doing it herself with the intention of learning, much to John’s reassurance that he didn’t mind doing it for her. The fact that he’d do it every day until the day he dies is left unsaid.
He quietly hums a church song he remembers from his parish as he pours thick pancake batter onto a butter-greased pan. It was played on the old organ, usually on third Sunday masses. He didn’t know the name of the piece, but it was his favourite.
The mixture of the warm morning glow on his skin, the smell of pancakes, brewing coffee, and the comfort of another person in his home was something John hasn’t yet grown used to. There’s always that nagging question at the back of his mind: “What will happen now?”
His hand falters slightly, making the pancake a bit wonky, and he curses himself in his head. He just had to mess this up, didn’t he?
Amy laughs at his side, the sound absent of mockery. He smiles sheepishly at her.
“What’s up with ugly?” Amy snickers, cocking her head to the sad-looking pancake.
“It's seen better days.” John shrugs.
No words are exchanged after that. A comfortable silence nestles between them. He feels warm.
Please don’t let this be taken away from me. He pleads. Let me have this. Let me have this.
“The coffee is ready now, right?” Amy asks, disrupting his thoughts.
“Hmm,” he ponders, taking a brief glance at the pot that steams angrily from the stove. “yes, I think so.” Then, as Amy reaches to pick up the pot, he warns, “Be careful.”
She snorts, “Alright, old man. You worried, or something?”
John doesn’t reply and tries to ignore the faint ache of fear that grasps at his chest by keeping his focus on the last pancake.
She picks up the pot and sets it on the table gently, acknowledging his silence with a tinge of fondness.
“See? All fine,” she reassures. John hums in response.
“Pancakes are done!” he announces, placing a steaming pile beside the coffee pot. Amy, who is sat at the end of the table, eagerly grabs two, hissing in pain when the scorching heat burns her fingers. John laughs. She sticks her tongue out.
“Do you have syrup?” she asks.
“No,” he answers apologetically, making a mental note to get syrup from the store later. “I’m not a big fan of syrup, actually.”
Amy’s jaw drops. He averts his eyes in embarrassment.
“You don’t like syrup?”
“It's sticky!” he defends, feeling a bit silly and childish for doing so. “Besides, it’s unhealthy.”
She cackles at his weak excuse, instead helping herself to a wad of butter in replacement of the absent syrup, offering some to John who politely declines and pours himself some coffee.
He sighs at the smell. It’s good.
“This is well made, Amy.” he compliments, taking a sip despite the fact it hasn’t cooled yet. He has a habit of forcing himself to endure pain, relishing in the scarred aftermath. It feels like an approval of his suffering. A trophy.
He looked at the shining piece of metal. Sharp, enticing, beckoning.
Mark 5:5.
Scratching at his arms slightly, not digging harshly enough to bleed, he looked away.
Amy beams at him. He lifts up the pot in question, tilting his head askew in silent query. She nods and reaches her mug over.
Light crevices of scars are engraved into her arm. His heart aches at the sight, mourning his previous cowardice and weakness. Perhaps if he had been more brave. Perhaps if he had more faith. Perhaps if he had been there sooner, been more strong—
“Thanks, Dad,” Amy says as he pours black coffee into her mug. His brain takes a moment to register it, startled. He looks up. Amy doesn’t seem to notice what she just said.
“You have sugar, right?” she asks, mostly to herself, getting up from the table to scrounge the overhead cabinets to find the sugar in question and hissing a little celebratory “Yes!” when she succeeds.
Amongst this, John has a little momentary personal crisis of his own.
“Don’t be afraid, hijo.” Father Garcia said, cocking his shotgun. John almost fell to his knees to thank his saviour, but was taken aback by the term.
Hijo. Hijo hijo hijo. It swirled like a carousel in his brain, playing over and over, a broken record only heard by John.
Son.
That’s all he’s ever wanted to be.
Amy happily scoops and stirs a sickly amount of sugar into her coffee, keeping it black. John has his coffee the opposite – only with milk. She doesn’t notice his shining eyes, and he scarcely manages to grab his composure as soon as she looks up again.
He mourns Amy’s lost childhood. He mourns that he couldn’t provide a better life for her – protect her from what had occurred. He mourns his own faults – faults that he can’t ever take back.
Trying to drown the urge to throttle himself, he takes a quick gulp of the steaming coffee, the pain from the heat settling any violent thoughts that had previously infested his mind.
Amy hums, looking at the television from the kitchen. It takes John a few seconds to recognise the song. It’s his favourite one.
Low, nostalgic notes sing from the organ as John’s congregants start flooding out of the church in small swarms. He stands at the exit with Amy, bidding farewells and offering the occasional blessing to those in need of it. It eventually all ends at one last congregant – the organ player; Sarah.
She’s an old woman by no doubt. Smile lines are embedded into her soft features and crinkles trace the corners of her eyes, produced by past joyful instances. She’s tranquil; a breath of fresh air after a long day. John likes her a lot.
“See you next Sunday, dear,” she says, placing a hand on his shoulder. He smiles unconsciously.
She looks to his side, noticing Amy, standing politely but tapping her foot in hidden impatience. Sarah tilts her head slightly. Something like recognition flashes across her expression, eyes flickering briefly to John. It’s gone as soon as it appears.
“Now, who’s this?” Sarah asks, smiling warmly.
“Amelia...” John starts. He hesitates, however, glancing beside him to look at Amy, unsure of what to say. Amy stares back at him; eyes slightly widened with something like hidden vulnerability, an expression of hope and longing discreet on her face. It’s a feeling John knows all too well.
“Amelia Ward.” He confirms. “My daughter."
John smiles proudly, albeit maybe with a bit too much ego, but can you really blame him? He’s been blessed with the best child he could ever have, and he’ll appreciate her as much as he wants.
Amy continues to look at him, eyes reflecting the overhead light, and beams the warmth of a million suns.
John traces his healing scars absently, his coffee mug burning into the palm of his hand. Amy replicates the motion just as unconsciously as he.
“That’s my favourite character.” John points out suddenly.
“She’s my favourite character too!” Amy says, surprised yet pleased. “I didn’t know you liked this show.”
He shrugs, embarrassed. “Guilty pleasure.”
“Oh, come on, it isn’t that violent.”
“Well, I have vows to commit to—”
“Classic Ward excuse—”
“Hey! Don’t forget you’re a Ward too.”
Silence. The faint comforting chatter of reality drifting in from the living room television. A light feeling of déjà vu brought in by the noise, however without the usual pained relief that originally follows soon after. He clutches a bit tighter on the mug.
“You mean that?” she asks quietly.
John laughs like the answer is obvious, shoulders relaxing.
“Of course.”
It was only silent because the door was closed.