Work Text:
Pastor Wright had just finished his work for the night. He’d given a sermon earlier that morning, one that he thought went over rather well. It was his routine to start the outline for next week’s service on Sunday nights. So he had done exactly that. He’d gone home from service, had lunch, ran some errands, picked his grandson up from preschool, had dinner, and then gone back to the church to write. He always found that being in a place of worship helped get him into the right mindset to write a sermon.
By the time he had finished up and stowed the paper into his expensive desk drawer- donations had helped him purchase the new desk, and it was quite to his tastes- it was dark outside. He hoped his wife wouldn’t stress too much about him being gone so long. Especially with the storm that had whipped itself up outside. Storms in Georgia were nothing uncommon, so Pastor Wright wouldn’t worry himself. Lightning struck and thunder clapped and rain pattered against the stained glass windows.
Pastor Wright shut the lights off, ready to lock up for the night. Lightning struck again, it sounded closer this time. The lights flickered on for a split second before shutting themselves back off. It startled the pastor, admittedly. But it was nothing unusual in a storm like this. What was unusual was the man that now stood at the door blocking his exit.
Pastor Wright adjusted his glasses, staring at the man. He was tall, lanky, and horribly skinny. Perhaps a homeless refuge seeking sanctuary in the church. Hmph. “Can I help you, sir?” Wright called out.
“Perhaps you can,” the man replied. Lightning struck, briefly illuminating the man’s face. Wright noticed a few things. His cheekbones stuck prominently out of his face like rocks out of the ocean. His eyes were sunken in and barely visible behind his glasses. What really surprised him though, was the colour of the man’s eyes. A horrible orange, they were. Like rings of fire around his pupils. Not something of the earth. The storm still raged outside, uncaring of the struggles of man.
“Who are you?”
“You mean to tell me you do not remember me?” The man stepped closer. Wright ran a hand through his wispy white hair. The pastor surely did not know this man. He would remember him well if he did. There was something about him that made his mind tell him to run.
“I’m afraid not.”
“What else are you afraid of?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said, ‘I’m afraid not’. What are you afraid of?” The man walked closer and closer, up the steps until he met the pastor at the podium that he gave his sermons at.
“I don’t…” Pastor Wright’s eyes fell to the man’s lips. Cracked and dry and bleeding just a little. But underneath the dried skin was a small scar. It’d been there for a while, clearly. But he remembered a child that used to attend his church many years ago with that same incision on his lip. “Jonathan? Keeny’s boy?”
“Ah. So now you remember. What jogged your memory? Do tell me. I’m dying to know.”
“The- the scar on your lip.”
“Oh.” Jonathan looked almost disappointed at that. He bit into that same scarred lip as he looked the man over. “Regardless. I was in town and thought I’d visit. See how my dear old great-grandmother is doing.”
“Mary’s been dead for over 10 years, Jonathan.”
“Ah. Right. I forgot.” Wright could swear he felt his stomach twisting as he noticed the hints of a smile playing on Jonathan’s face.
“Well, I’m sure God is happy to have welcomed her into Heaven.”
“Heaven? Oh, no, no, Father. That woman will never see Heaven. She will never be able to look Saint Peter in the eye. Not after what she did to me.”
Wright stayed silent, but looked down at the floor.
Jonathan narrowed his eyes. “She was horrible to me, you know. The beatings weren’t the worst of it, not remotely. Still bad, of course. The scar on my lip? From her shoving me into a counter. But that isn’t even mentioning the long hours in the field. As soon as I could walk, she shoved a pitchfork into my hands and told me to get to work. The clothes that were always too small and the way she’d scream if I so much as asked for new ones. And she told me it was all divine will. That I deserved all that she did to me for the crime of being born the way that I am.”
Wright still said nothing.
“Interesting, Father. For someone who was just told that one of the women that had been attending this church for decades had been abusing her child so horribly, you don’t seem surprised.”
“Mary told me lots of things in confession to absolve herself.”
Jonathan stared at Wright, his brows furrowed and his jaw clenched. A thick silence hung over the room for thirty seconds, then a minute, then two, then five. The storm still raged outside, uncaring of the quarrel of man.
Only two words managed to shatter the silence like glass, two words from Jonathan Crane’s scarred lips. “You knew?”
Pastor Wright fidgeted with his hands like he was physically searching for the right words to get him out of this. “I have a duty to protect all children of God. Including Mary.”
“Mary? You had to protect Mary? What about me? What about the little boy that you knew she was torturing in that house?”
“It was not my place, Jonathan. You must understand-”
“Oh, I understand, Father. I understand now.” Jonathan reached underneath the podium, pulling out a thick hardcover book. He only glanced at the words on the cover, the two words that had been so often thrown at him to discredit his very existence.
“Tell me, Father. You are supposed to be a living vessel of the Lord himself. Would the Lord ever turn his back on a child in need?” He raised the book, bringing it down hard and fast on Pastor Wright’s head hard enough to knock him off his footing. Crack, went his skull.
“Jonathan, please-!”
“Would the Lord ever allow a demon in human skin and a black dress to step foot inside a holy place?” Jonathan discarded the book, grabbing the man’s hair and slamming his face into the hardwood floors.
Crack.
“Would the Lord allow that same demon to beat and abuse and torment a child who had done nothing to deserve such treatment?”
Crack.
“Would the Lord allow that child to be tainted and corrupted by that horrible demon until he, too, was no longer recognizable as man? So far he strayed from Adam, and so far she from Eve, they were closer to the snake that lured them into sin. Evil incarnate. Would the Lord allow that?”
Crack.
“Tell me, Father! Would he?”
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Jonathan let the pastor’s hair slip through his fingers. Wright wasn’t moving. Or breathing. Blood had stained the man’s white hair and suit. “Oh dear. I overdid it. My apologies, Father.”
He stood up and looked around. The storm still raged outside, uncaring of the atrocities of man. He chuckled to nobody but himself. “Killed in the very place you dedicated your life to. The irony is not lost on me, Father.”
Jonathan spun on his heels, walking towards the exit and singing a tune to himself as he approached the large wooden doors.
“Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin’ for to carry me home…”