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Summary
The church smelled like varnished wood and old hymns.
It always did. Chloe had known that scent since she was a child and her small feet dangled from pews too big for her, fingers tangled in her mother’s as she learned when to sit, when to stand, when to kneel. Now, years later, the motions lived in her bones. She didn’t think about them anymore. Her body simply followed the rhythm. Kneel. Pray. Breathe.
The pearly blue rosary beads slipped through her fingers with practiced ease, each one a quiet anchor. Her lips moved in soft repetition, barely a whisper—something intimate, something steady. The world narrowed to the cadence of prayer, to the quiet echo of her own voice folding into the vaulted ceiling above.
“Hail Mary, full of grace…”
That’s when the doors creaked open.