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You liked to walk through the woods that backed up to the Monastery. The old abbey was such a secretive place - all mystery and compelling quietness. You liked to nose around the grounds, catch sight of the men who lived there, listen to the tones from the abbey’s organ.
You almost didn’t come tonight. The smattering of snow falling should have convinced you to stay home next to your heater and fireplace. Really, it shouldn’t have been snowing at all, but Spring seemed to come late this year. Even in mid-April the winter chill had yet to leave your hometown.
But you wanted to listen to the brothers sing. You wouldn’t be able to hear much, but if you got close enough, you could make out the melodies and harmonies drifting through the windows during the Easter vigil mass.
But as you creep closer to the tree line, out of the densest parts of the forest, you see a dark, lumpy shape laying on the forest floor.
A smarter person might have changed course and avoided whatever consequences might come from investigating a dark, lumpy shape laying on the forest floor. But you were curious. It was that curiosity that led you to spy on the Monastery to begin with - that curiosity that led you here tonight. So of course you listened to that before you ever listened to the rational part of your mind.
As you draw closer to the shape, you try to make out what exactly it is. Granted, it’s dark. The sun set ages ago, so you can’t see well to begin with. But you still try.
However, it’s not the shape of the thing that finally tells you what it is. It’s what you step in.
You don’t hear it at first, but after a few steps, you notice a squelch beneath your shoes that isn’t made by crushing snow. Looking down, you can’t quite make out what exactly is different about the forest floor - only that there’s some liquid or goo shining in the dim moonlight. You bend down to investigate, but before you can kneel, you’re overcome by the metallic smell. Blood.
A thick trail of blood leads up to and puddles beside the shape. And as you look down at what appears to be shredded fabric, you catch a glimpse of what is laying beneath that fabric. Your heart plummets when you realize what - or, rather who - you had stumbled upon.
He’s one of the brothers of the monastery. Even without the robes, you’d know. You had seen him around the grounds during previous visits, often catching him hiding in the open courtyard or wandering close to the forest while scribbling something in a notebook. He was your favorite to watch. Not just because he was handsome, which was nice, but really, it was because he seemed so out of place - like the pious life grated hard against him - like something about him being there just…wasn’t right. And yet there he was.
But as he lays here, he looks nothing like the man you’ve watched before. His robes are torn to shreds. His skin an ill pallor that’s beginning to sink in upon itself. Most of all, he just looks…wrong - like he’s lost something about himself. Something fundamental that no one would ever choose to lose.
You kneel beside him, pull his body into your lap and let the weight of his upper body rest on your legs. And only then do you notice where the puddle of blood beside him comes from.
Blood still trickles from the wounds and though you try not to jump to conclusions, the two punctures on his neck tell you enough to guess what happened to him.
“You poor thing,” You whisper, adjusting his body so his head can rest in the crook of your elbow, “What happened to you?”
You nearly jump out of your skin when his eyes creak open just the smallest bit. You’re not even sure he actually did open his eyes. It could have been a muscle twitch or something. But you force your arms to still, to continue holding him against your rapid heartbeat.
But he knows. The second he heard your voice his body jolted alive, fighting to hang on just a little longer. Just enough to finally see you.
You were really here - the one who kept coming back to spy on the monastery. He could finally see more of you than the brief glimpses he had caught before. He could finally connect the dots on the rough sketches he’d been scribbling in his notebook. He could finally meet you.
But everything is hazy. And his whole body hurts. He doesn’t even know where he is anymore or how he got here. But he can hear your voice like a beacon of clarity that pulls him back down to earth.
As you speak, the moonlight streaming through the trees bathes you in a silver halo, so much so that it seems the moonlight comes from you. You are the most beautiful thing he has ever seen and he wonders for a moment if he’s even worthy of looking at you.
“I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you’re still here with me. But I’m sorry it happened like this. I’m sorry you were alone.”
‘I’m not.’ he yearns to say. The words push up against the back of his tongue, but his throat is dry and he can’t make his lips move. So he looks into your eyes, hoping you can see the little flicker of his soul behind his eyes - hoping he can somehow tell you with his eyes that he knows you’re there.
Fuck, he knows. Moments before this, when he lay alone in the snow he had been afraid. Shivering and shuddering - feeling the cold sting against his skin where that thing had ripped his robes (He wonders briefly how much of his body you can see). But then you found him and pulled him against your body and let him feel warmth again.
And as he looks into your eyes now, all of that fear is quelled. All the blood, all the cold, all the pain - it melts away and is replaced by something warm and comforting and sweet within his chest. Your eyes hold everything good in the world just above him. Just looking at you is enough to soothe his every ache.
He takes a final moment to memorize your face, a final deep breath - willing his chest to move one last time, then goes entirely limp.
Your arms jolt out to carry all the weight of him once more. And for a moment, you just sit there, holding his still body in silence.
You don’t know what to do. You’re certain a man just died in your arms. A man you hardly know in a dark forest backed up to an old Monastery in the middle of a vigil mass.
As you look down at his blank face, trying to think of what to do, you’re overcome with pity for him. To die almost alone on a cold night is not the death this man deserved. You can feel tears for him welling in your eyes and as they fall, you pull his body to your chest, hugging close the remnants of this poor man before setting him on the forest floor.
You can’t bury him. You don’t have a shovel, nor do you have the strength to dig a grave for him. But something tells you that even if you could, you still wouldn’t bury him. There’s no explaining it, but something about him just doesn’t feel…done yet. It’s absurd. There is no breath. No pulse. Even the blood tricking from his wounds has stopped. And yet, you know you wouldn’t bury his body.
So you do what you can. You pull the collar of his robes up against the wind and prop his body against a tree, well guarded in a dark corner of the forest. You slip your coat off and lay it over him - hoping that if you’re correct and he’s not quite done yet, that the coat will keep him warm.
Just before you stand to leave, you cup his cold cheek in your hand, cradling hope and comfort against his hollow skin. And into his ear you softly whisper: “Whatever comes for you now, poor one, I hope you find happiness, whatever that means for you.”
And then you were gone.
~~~
The ministry is still a little overwhelming. Especially today.
The ministry halls - normally quiet and calm - are bustling with veteran Siblings racing to welcome new initiates. He’s supposed to come meet them this evening too. It’s one of his first official acts as Papa. And yet, he finds himself scared - worried, even, that he will somehow fail even this simple task.
He turns his eye to the corner of his desk. There’s a framed sketch there. A sketch of you. The one he’d viciously scribbled moments after he woke up, perched against a tree. It was one of the only things he remembered when he woke in that cold forest.
He’d ripped his notebook and pen from the pocket of his shredded robes and finished the sketches of you he had started weeks ago.
And now he keeps this one with him - framed and close no matter where he goes.
He often looks to you when he needs strength. Even if it‘s just a sketch of you, it’s enough to help him through anything. You’d saved him once before and so many times after that, though you’d never know it.
He dreams about that night often. Every week at least. Flashes of the initial attack have come back slowly over the years. That, he’s not entirely grateful for. But he remembers some things that are good enough to balance out the nightmares. He remembers that he was doing a last check of the grounds before the vigil mass when he was attacked. He remembers hoping to see you in the trees and thinking that if he saw you again he might invite you inside - just for mass. Just to meet you. And most of all, he remembers you and how the moonlight shone from you and how you’d guided him into his afterlife with your kind, comforting voice.
He’s been looking for you. Ever since that night he’s looked for you. Honestly, at this point he’s not even sure you’re real. Maybe you had been an angel. Or a demon. Or some figment of his imagination. But that’s never stopped him from looking for you. And if there was one benefit of his sudden promotion, it was that he had some level of power to look for you. He would be going on tour soon and in every venue, in every city, he’ll be looking for you - hoping, praying to Satan that you’re real.
As he looks at the sketch of you, he feels that same warmth he felt the night you saved him - the one that melted over him when he looked into your eyes. It’s reassurance enough that even if he’s scared, he can survive - he will survive.
And later that night, when he steps into the sanctuary to meet the new initiates, his breath catches in his throat and time stops altogether.
You’re here. You’re actually here. You’re not some figment of his imagination. Even obscured by the formal habit for the ceremony, he knows it’s you. You may have aged in the fifteen years it’s been since you held him, but he knows you. He would know your eyes, your voice, even in death or whatever comes for him now. You’re here. You’re real. And you’re just as beautiful as his hazy memory recalls. The moonlight shining upon you through the stained glass windows gives you the same silhouette as that night; the same silver halo. A message from god or Satan or whatever exists. One that says “Look at them. I’ve brought them to you.”
And in that moment, he is filled with the most radiant, blinding happiness he’s ever known.
He finally gets to meet you.