by Tony Nalley
“The church bell was given to us from France!” I whispered to myself. “It was given to us by King Louis- Philippe of France who met with Father Flaget while in exile in Cuba. That was at least the third of forth time that I had found his name mentioned!”
So I searched for a listing for Louis Philippe. “Louis Philippe I (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, in what was known as the July Monarchy. The son of a duke who supported the French Revolution but was nevertheless guillotined, Louis Philippe fled France as a young man and spent 21 years in exile, including considerable time in the United States. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was a prince du sang.”
“He was a Prince du sang?” I read again, this time out loud, and I quickly looked up its meaning. “A Prince du sang – was a ‘prince of blood’!”
“He was a Prince of Blood!” I gasped.
“A ‘prince of blood’ was a person who was legitimately descended in the male line from the monarch of a country. In France, the rank of ‘prince du sang’ was the highest held at court after the immediate family of the king during the ancient régime and the Bourbon Restoration. A ‘prince du sang’ or a ‘princesse du sang’ had to be a legitimate member of the reigning dynasty (after 1589, the House of Bourbon). In some European monarchies, but especially, in the kingdom of France, this title was a specific rank in its own right.”
“Son!” Mama called to me from the stairway as I jumped at her voice!
“Yes Ma’am?” I answered back.
“It’s time to be gettin’ to bed. We’ve got an early day tomorrow. We’ve got to go to town in the morning.” She continued. “So you need to turn out the light and get some sleep!”
“Okay Mom!” I replied as I closed my books and turned off my lamps light.
But I didn’t get any sleep at all. I mean how could I go to sleep with all that was goin’ on? All that I had been learnin’ about and everything that had been happenin’ to me was runnin’ around and through my head at about a million miles an hour!
Lystra! The Prince of Blood! The church bell!
Could the bell of St Joe’s be the one from my vision?
I would have to see it for myself!
I wondered if I could get my mom to drop me off at the Library tomorrow. I’d have a better chance of her droppin’ me off there than at the church I guessed. Cause she would never let me climb up there into the bell tower! No sir! But I would have to see it!
I mean I didn’t know what seein’ it would do to help me figure out about the cave at the rock quarry or the ghost in our barn, but I guessed that I had to start somewhere.
I did have a map of our town in my desk drawer. That would help. I’d just need to make sure and remember to take it with me in the mornin’; with a pencil and a piece of paper for takin’ notes.
I lay there in the darkness for what seemed like hours, just listenin’ to the sounds comin’ in from my window.
Mama says that most people don’t get the luxury of listenin’ to crickets and bull frogs at night from right outside of their windows like we do. But I would have given practically anythin’ right then to have been able to have given that luxury away! And to have just had some peace and quiet!
I couldn’t sleep at all, so I sneaked out my flashlight and I looked up one last subject for the night …“Werewolf”. “A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope, is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shape shift into a wolf or a wolf-like creature, either purposely by being bitten by another ‘werewolf’, or after being placed under a curse. This transformation is often associated with the appearance of a full moon.”
“…either …by bein’ bitten by another werewolf, or after bein’ placed under a curse.” I read again and whispered to myself. “…a curse.”
My mind raced with the possibilities of what those last few words upon the pages of that book might mean! Could there have been a curse placed upon these people? Could a curse be the link that was tyin’ all of these people, places and events together?
Outside of my window the sounds of dogs barkin’ echoed through the night air and made me shut off my flashlight quickly! And I lie there listenin’ attentively, almost without breathin’ for a while!
I wondered what they were barkin’ at. But the long weepin’ sound of the lonesome wolf’s howl that followed silenced my questionin’ thoughts!
I pulled my covers up over my head! And I lay there in the darkness and security of my blanket for a very long time, even after the sounds had stopped and I had fallen fast asleep.
And I remained there completely covered up until early the next mornin’, long after the sun had come up and the new day had dawned.
Thirteen
Essence of the Past
Time begins for each of us at the moment of our birth. The concept of that which occurred prior to it appears trivial and devoid of meanin’. The illusion bein’ that time is a constant, movin’ perpetually forward in a straight line. When in actuality, time progresses in a sequentially circular motion …intertwined with spiralin’ complexity; thereby allowin’ those things that were, to once again become the things that are …thus allowin’ history to repeat itself.
This was the way I really thought about things. And I was proud of myself for thinkin’ it! But sometimes, when I thought about it further …I wondered how I was even able to get myself up out of the bed in the mornin’!
If you heard tale of it from my sister, bein’ able to get up out of bed by myself wasn’t somethin’ that I was quite capable of doin’, unless she was there pullin’ me out of it as I was holdin’ on to my covers for dear life, with her draggin’ me across the floor! But thankfully, that only seemed to happen durin’ the school mornin’s when there was only a limited amount of time for me to get myself up and ready to catch the school bus! I usually got up just in time to catch it as it was comin’ down the road!
Mama dropped me off in town by the Library that mornin’. It was the great big fat building that sat in our town square, next to the Talbott Tavern and right across from our CountyCourthouse. The buildin’ looked like it had just eaten a great big bologna sandwich or somethin’ and had just plopped itself down on the corner of the street awhile so it could rest itself!
Mama had to run some errands and she instructed me to wait for her there. An instruction …I had every intention of doin’!
“I’ll be back to pick you up in about an hour.” Mama told me. “You don’t leave the Library to go anyplace else. You understand me? I will be waitin’ for you right out here in one of these parking spaces when you come out.”
“Okay Mom.” I said as I closed the car door. “I’ll see ya’ll in a little while.”
I watched her drive away in our white Chevy Malibu as both she and my little sister waved goodbye. And I watched em’ as they drove around the Courthouse and then as they headed straight up Main Street. I watched em’ until I saw em’ drive right out of sight.
And once I knew for certain that they were actually gone and I couldn’t see em’ no more, well …I lit out as fast as greased lightenin’ down the street towards St. Joe Church!
I really didn’t lie. I mean, I hadn’t actually gone ‘in’ to the Library; therefore I really couldn’t ‘leave it’ to go anyplace else. So it really …wasn’t even disobeyin’! At least that’s the way it made sense to me in my head! I knew it was a technicality and all, and that I’d probably get into a whole passel of trouble if anyone ever found out about it, but it seemed like a logical way to think through a difficult situation at the time! Unless of course if my mama was to find out!
And I did have every intention of waiting at the Library for her when she got back, I really did!
I was just gonna do that part once I’d got back!
As I made my way down the sidewalk to the church, I quickly discovered that things on a map aren’t as all fired close to one another as they seem on a piece of paper! Especially when you’re actuall
y standin’ one place and you’re tryin’ to get to someplace else! The church was clearly two and a half blocks away from where the Library was and even by my runnin’ like a dog down the friggin’ street, it still took me a couple of minutes to get there! I had to stop and stuff and catch my breath and all, you know? And there were grownups lookin’ at me funny and stuff too!
I only hoped that my mama didn’t come back around the block to check on me, while I was high tailin’ it down the street! I mean she had raised me and all, so she knew very well what I was capable of doin’! I’d guess that of anyone else on the planet she’d probably be the one who knew me the best, maybe even better that I knew myself!
I made it past the two stop light crossin’s and I ran right up to the front of the church by way of the wide concrete walkway that was laid out between the two giant statues; images carved in stone of Bardstown’s Bishops: Flaget and Spalding. These statues were always kind of scary lookin’ to me, I guess cause they were wearin’ those funny lookin’ pointed hats.
I wondered if they were actually that tall in real life. Cause they were alot bigger than I was! And I also wondered why the statues had been made in the first place! “I mean, doesn’t God say in the bible that we shouldn’t make for ourselves any graven images?” I thought to myself.
The 2nd Commandment from Exodus 20:4-6 You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my Commandments.”
I guess I needed to look that up! Maybe the Catholic Bible was different than everybody else’s?
I didn’t know for sure. I just knew that I wasn’t gonna kneel or bow down to any statues! Let alone kiss the feet of a statue like I heard they do to the one they call St. Peter!
“Doesn’t God tell us that we are all Saints?” I wondered. “So why exactly do Catholics pray to regular people?” I guessed that was a question for another time.
I stood there for a few moments and laid my hands upon the base of one of the sculptures, runnin’ my fingers over the rough and smoother surfaces. With the sun in the sky, the stone was amazingly warm to the touch, part of it was hot; which seemed all together odd to me, cause my first inclinations were that the granite would feel a whole lot cooler, but it was not the case!
“I gotta get up to the bell tower!” I thought to myself then. “Mama will be back to get me before I know it!”
I walked up the stone steps of the church between the six huge columns of white that seemed to reach up into the heavens for miles as they held up the ceilings crown. The facade was made with red brick, havin’ white nooks cut into its walls with still five other white sculptures; images of their saints sittin’ in em’.
I pushed down upon the large metal handles and opened up one of the rounded arched doors that held a single window glass above it. I opened it just as slowly and as little as I possibly could so that I could slip through it without anybody noticin’. At my age people were always wonderin’ stuff and askin’ stuff about me that I just didn’t have time to be concernin’ myself with! You know …stuff like ‘who was I’ and ‘what was my name’ and ‘what was I doin’ here’ and ‘who was my mama’ and other stuff like that!
Luckily for me, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of people or preachers around to be askin’ them kinds of questions of me, at least not that I could tell. So I just slipped right on inside the church foyer and closed the door behind me.
It was almost completely dark inside when I shut the door. So it took me a quick minute to get my eyes adjusted. But once they did I had myself a quick look around!
I’d only been inside of this church a couple of times before; once when me and my dad had come for a church service and then a couple of other times for a funeral or for a weddin’ or somethin’ like that. But as for knowin’ exactly how to get up to the bell tower, I was personally at a loss. From what I could deduce from the view from the outside of the buildin’ however, the bell tower appeared to sit directly above the foyer room in which I was now standin’.
That meant that one of the two dark green doors directly to the right or left of me had to contain a stairwell that would lead me up to it.
I opened the door to my right and stepped into a still darker room, feelin’ my way around in the darkness until I felt my way to the far right corner of the room and I flipped on the light switch. And then I gazed upon an old wooden staircase!
I knew that if Mama knew where I was at that exact moment in time, she would probably have come right down there and just killed me dead! There wouldn’t be a ‘body’ or any kind of identification left for anybody to find, except for maybe my shoes! Cause the rest of me would immediately explode just from the look in her eyes!
I’d have to admit, that I probably didn’t think my plan out very good, at least not of all the way through. But nevertheless, there I was climbin’ those stairs up that long solemn staircase in the diffused light …to the Bell Tower of St. Joseph’s Cathedral; with a limited amount of time to find what I was lookin’ for and with an equally limited amount time to get back to the Library before my mama found out I was gone!
The stairway led to the balcony above, which overlooked the grand cathedral, where eight large columns stood as watchful guardians over its walkways and where paintin’s and statues aligned its walls. The Alter stood in marbled grandeur at the base of the sanctuary with a giant paintin’ depictin’ Christ upon the cross at the peak of the room’s splendor. I stood in awe of the room’s majesty as its extent shown of beautiful multicolored lights that entered through stained glass windows that lined the outermost walls of both the eastern and western sides of the hallowed chamber. The view was serene and breathtaking!
I turned to open the door then that led still further upwards into the bell tower. But just as I turned the handle of the door, I discovered …it was locked!
Panic began to ensue! I had risked everything to get to this place at this moment and the ‘danged’ door was locked!
Argh! I couldn’t believe this was happenin’! I grabbed the metal handle again and thrust my whole body’s weight against the old wooden door as hard as I possibly could! And suddenly, just like that, it opened up! The door knob was unturnable and locked, but the latching lever hadn’t detached and the door had simply been stuck shut by the heat and old paint!
I entered the stairwell, flipped on it’s light and I climbed up those wooden steps eagerly; steps that lay directly behind the huge black hands of the Cathedral’s grand clocks; giant gears turnin’ and churnin’ and spinnin’ as I continued my climb ...up …up …up. I never knew before how it might feel if I were ever to be inside of a clock or a pocket watch before, but I figured that it would’ve been really close to what I was experiencin’ right there and at that particular moment in time!
There were four clocks that sat on different sides, facin’ outwards towards each of the north, south, east and westerly directions. The sounds were meticulous and loud for the spinnin’ and the whirlin’ of the gears. It was absolutely incredible how large the hands of these clocks were right up close and personal! It made me kind of wonder what time it was! And then I had to laugh at myself, just for thinkin’ it!
There were twenty rungs left up that flight of stairs as I climbed steadily onward and upward. My legs began to tire and shake and my breathin’ became heavy as my lungs breathed in and out rapidly! As I reached the final steps I found myself completely out of breath and in awe as I stood within the summit of the bell tower!
It was a large room where slatted windows opened to brightened thin strands of daylight comin’ in from all directions; windows from which I then ran to and stood before as I looked out upon the essence of the past, with vast mountain ranges afar off in
the distance!
I had never been up so high in my whole entire life! Everything looked so small; like little tiny toy doll houses; play cars and little people walkin’ around lookin’ as if they were nothin’ more than small ants or somethin’! I looked for our house over there by our mountain and I looked out to the river, the lake and the horizon. I could have stayed up there forever and no one would have ever known!