Chapter Text
Rain began pattering softly on the vibrant green leaves of the trees and the glowing blades of grass. The sky was still bright blue but the edges of it seemed to fade away into the hazy shimmer of gray mist. You hurried up toward the stone church, pushing open the door and stepping inside. It was empty, to no surprise, but you waited at the threshold of the door anyway. When no one came out of one of the other rooms, you closed the door, and headed for one of the pews.
The church was beautiful, as was all the old architecture in the town. The waning sunlight shone through the stained glass windows, casting rainbows of light across the brick floor. You sat in one of the pews, wiping droplets of warm rain off of your face. A gentle silence filled the space around you, rising from the brick floor up to the vaulted ceiling. You closed your eyes and breathed in deeply. It smelled of its ancient roots, of grass and moss and rain. It smelled of old leather and older paper, of wood polish, of fruity wine, of the stale crackers used in Communion.
You sat and waited out the rain in the church. It only lasted ten or so minutes, drizzling against the stained glass. As you waited, your eyes caught sight of something strange. In front of the altar was a stoup made of the same pale sand-colored stone as the church. This little holy water font, however, was not like any one you had seen before. This one had the face of a man carved into it, his features nearly obscured by leaves. You’d seen it before, in your travels and in your studies. It was the Green Man. A symbol of new growth, rebirth, spring. You supposed it sort of fit the church, and not just because it was sitting in the most verdant patch of land you’d ever seen before. The idea of rebirth, growing, changing, that was a part of the church’s teachings – being made into a new person, shedding the old life, transforming into someone better. You’d just never expected to see the face of the Green Man carved into a font for holy water.
It was curious. You approached the stoup and studied it. You circled around it, anticipating something of a similar nature on the other sides, perhaps fruits and trees depicted in the Bible, or even symbolic images such as lambs and doves. You found, however, the carved image of a naked woman, exposing herself to the viewer. To you. To whoever was standing behind the font.
You looked at the altar behind the font. The priest. It was facing where the priest would stand.
A cold feeling settled over your body and you tried to rationalize it. It was an old town, an old church. This stoup looked ancient, as well. It could have very well been an artifact of the pre-Christian tribes who lived in England. And they repurposed it to hold holy water. They left the image of the Green Man on the front because he symbolized beliefs at the center of the church, right? Renewal and rebirth?
But why would they leave the carving of the naked, leering woman on the back of it? And why would it be pointed directly at the man who had taken a vow of celibacy for his entire life?
He’s protecting the modesty of the congregation, you tried to reason with yourself, but that didn’t make much sense, either. This wasn’t hiding a dirty image to spare the masses. This was hiding a dirty image to keep for oneself.
The warmth that had enveloped you was suddenly wicked away, replaced with an unnatural cold that sent goosebumps up your arms. The rain had stopped. You needed to get out of the church.
You opened the door and stepped out into the humid air, the rain having ceased but its evidence clear across the shining grass and dripping leaves. You wrapped your arms around yourself, trying to rub away the goosebumps still prickling your skin.
“Did you find shelter in our little church?”
You jumped almost out of your skin and turned toward the voice. A man – a priest – the priest – sat on a bench pushed against the side of the church, close to the door you’d just exited out of. He hadn’t been there when you’d arrived, you were sure of it. He stood out so starkly against the vibrant green earth and the sandy stone church, dressed in his solid black cassock. He looked out of place.
“I’m sorry,” you said quickly, “I was just trying to get out of the rain.”
“That’s perfectly fine. The weather here can be quite unpredictable. It’s why I leave the church doors unlocked.”
You glanced uneasily at the doors. Where had he come from? Had he been in the church when you were, in one of the other rooms, and had slipped out a back way to wait for you at the front?
“Visitors are always welcome,” he said. His dark eyes were fixated on you. “You’re not trespassing, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No, it’s not. I’m afraid I may have left some mud tracks on the floor in there.”
His eyes shifted slightly toward the door – you doubted he could see it from his position on the bench – and then back to you. His thin lips barely moved in anything closely resembling a smile. “It’s alright if you did. That’s not a sin.”
“I know,” you huffed out a nervous laugh. “I just feel bad for muddying your church is all.”
He shifted and clasped his hands together, resting them in his lap. “What brought you out this way? Or did you intend to come to the church? Were you looking for someone to talk to?”
“I was just taking a walk. It’s a really lovely town, I wanted to explore some of it before it got too dark.”
He nodded with his head, silently requesting you to sit next to him. You hesitated for a moment, thought of the font in the church with its strange carvings, then crossed over the lush lawn and sank down on the bench beside him, leaving plenty of room between the two of you.
“Where are you visiting from?”
“The city,” you said, purposely vague. He didn’t need to know which city specifically. If he drew his own conclusions, then that was fine with you.
He nodded again, his eyes focused on the gnarled trees and their shimmering leaves. Water cascaded from the branches, creating a second rain for the grass below. Birds and insects resumed their soft songs.
“Where, in our lovely town,” his tone was almost mocking, “are you staying?”
“Just a little place,” you said, again vague. It wasn’t quite true. The house you were renting was actually huge, considering you were all on your own. You were going to lie outright and say a motel, but you actually couldn’t remember seeing a motel on your way through town. You hadn’t seen any places to stay, except for the house with its apple tree and blood-red rooms.
“You must be renting the house from Geoffrey.”
The suddenness of hearing the man’s name startled you. But of course the priest would know about Geoffrey and his rental house. Everyone in town probably knew Geoffrey – he seemed like the type that knew everyone and whom everyone knew – and there probably weren’t very many rental properties in the town. And while it was a small town and you’d given enough clues to indicate where you were staying, it still unnerved you how quickly this man had discerned your current place of residence. Probably, you guessed, everyone in town knew by now that you were renting the house. Probably, you realized, everyone in town knew where you were staying, and that you were alone, and that anyone could watch for when you left and when you returned.
“Yes,” you said.
“We’re not a nosy town,” he said, finally turning to look at you. His eyes were a rich brown color and they seemed to glimmer with a joke that you weren’t allowed to hear yet. “We’re just small. Close knit.”
“It’s nice.” You turned your eyes away from his, but kept him in your sight. You weren’t sure you wanted to give him the shield of your blind spot. “Just what I needed for a little while.”
“So you did come to our town for a reason. And the church, too, I’m sure.” His gaze was intense on the side of your face, and you were drawn back to him, back to his eyes, back to his serious face and gray hair and the way he seemed to hold so much space on that wooden bench. “What were you looking for?”
“A place to get out of the rain.”
“I mean in our town. What were you running from?”
“What makes you think I was running from something?”
Finally, the corner of his mouth twitched in a semblance of a smile. Your stomach turned itself into a knot. He was, surprisingly, uncomfortably, quite handsome when he smiled like that.
“The only people who come to this town are trying to get away from something. There are plenty of places for people to go for holidays. You could’ve picked any number of places outside of the city, but you chose here. I’m curious as to why.”
“I don’t know. It was a name out of a hat, I just chose it.”
“The same way you just chose to rent Geoffrey’s house and the same way you just chose to follow the trail that leads to the church?”
“Yes.” Your heart was pounding in your throat. You turned a firm look onto the priest who matched it effortlessly. “There was nothing special about it, it was just convenient. All of it.”
“Just like my leaving the church doors unlocked was convenient.”
Your cheeks flushed pink but you couldn’t manage to break eye contact with the man. There was something so oddly familiar about him. The curve of his face or the shape of his eyes. Maybe the way he held his mouth or the steady way he talked.
Suddenly, he looked up at the sky, the gray mist fizzled away in the sunlight, and then glanced to the church at his back.
“It is a lovely old church, isn’t it? It could rival cathedrals, in my humble opinion. You know, this church is older than most of the cathedrals in the country. Older than most of the cities, too.”
The building might have been, but the stained glass windows and wooden pews were not, you knew that much.
“I saw some interesting architecture inside,” you said. “The stained glass is beautiful.”
He looked at you again, his eyes shining. “It is, yes. Very beautiful. Almost as beautiful as our holy water font. You saw it, didn’t you? It’s hard to miss.”
“Yes, I saw it.” You hesitated as you tried to think of something to say about it. How out of place it seemed, how inappropriate it was for a church, how it had fascinated you and still fascinated you with its depiction of the Green Man and the naked, beckoning woman.
You knew her name, too, somewhere in the back of your mind. A face of fertility, of sensuality, of birth and rebirth and reproduction. The priest smiled at you, his lips pulling up farther at the corners than before. It was as if he knew you knew. Like he was in your mind and he could see your reaction when you first stumbled upon the font, curious and then embarrassed. It was like he could see it and he enjoyed it.
He reached out and touched the back of your hand. His skin was smooth and cool. It made your own skin burn. He slipped his hand under yours and held it, wrapping his other hand over top.
“If you’ve come here for a reason, you can tell me,” he said, voice gentle enough but still filled with authority. It seemed he was off the subject of the Green Man font for the moment. “Just because you tell me outside of the confessional booth doesn’t mean that I can violate the Seal of Confession. I am a vicar, after all.” He leaned in closer to you, just enough that his warm breath, smelling of the rain and earth around you, could brush over your face. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
Your eyelids fluttered rapidly, the air moist and warm. It felt as if you could fall asleep right there on the bench with the priest – no, not priest, vicar – holding your hand. You wouldn’t even mind it, not really. You could crawl into his lap and close your eyes, and he would watch over you while you slept. The birds would keep time as the cloudless sky turned from lightning blue to dusky orange, and then the vicar would wake you just as Geoffrey crested the hill to bring you back to the home you were renting. You’d follow Geoffrey back to the house, where he’d wish you a good night, and you’d pick an apple from the tree and crawl into the bed, and see visions of the Green Man and Sheela na gig – that was her name, you knew you’d seen her before – dancing on the ceiling until you fell asleep again.
You smiled at the vicar, studying his eyes and the soft drape of his gray hair and the warmth of his hands over yours (his fingers were brushing so gently over the back of your hands, dipping between your fingers, rubbing the soft skin there), and then shook your head gently.
“I don’t have any secrets,” you said, your smile never fading. He seemed to draw closer, seemed to rub firmer circles against the skin between your fingers. You lowered your voice as he had and wondered if it had the same dreamy, warm effect it’d had on you. “But I have a feeling you do.”