The Atwelle Confession

by Joel Gordonson

  A solemn nod tipped towards DuBois from the black hood. DuBois gave a questioning look at Lanham while his wife had an expression of deep concern.

  “Is Margaret here?” Father Regis asked.

  DuBois looked at his wife and back at Father Regis. “Of course. She is asleep in her bed.”

  “That is as it should be,” said Father Regis. “I fear we may well have disturbed you unnecessarily. But may I still check to be sure she is safe from any harm?”

  “That will not be necessary, Father,” DuBois replied.

  “No, it is right that I do so, especially on All Hallows’ Eve,” he insisted while approaching DuBois’ wife on the stairs. “There may be evil about on this night. Please take me to her room. I will not wake her.”

  With a frightened look at him, the woman turned and led Father Regis up the stairs. The other men followed close behind. Quietly opening the door to Margaret’s bedroom, her mother held out a candle to reveal a figure lying still under the blankets of her bed. The men gathered at the door.

  “See,” DuBois turned to them. “She is sleeping.”

  Father Regis spoke softly to Margaret’s mother.

  “I must make amends. May I bless her as she sleeps to allay your concern? I am sure I will not wake her.”

  “Of course, Father. Thank you,” she replied.

  Father Regis moved to the bed. He raised his hand with his fingers poised to make the sign of the cross. Suddenly he reached out with his other hand and threw back the covers with a swift forceful pull.

  “Father!” DuBois called out in alarm. His wife threw her hands to her mouth.

  Uncovered on the bed lay nothing but a mound of blankets and clothes.

  2017 Don lay very still on the cold stone floor as he regained a foggy sense of consciousness. His throbbing head soon sensed the aches he knew would become bruises. Carefully moving each limb, he winced as a sharp pain shot through his ankle. At the sound of a groan next to him, Don opened his eyes.

  There lay Father Adams alongside him with the vicar’s arm trapped underneath Don’s body. The man’s glazed eyes were trying to fix on Don’s face. Don sat up quickly and backed away on his hands and knees. His movement seemed to bring Father Adams’s vision into focus.

  “Are you all right?” Father Adams’s voice was weak.

  Don nodded. The vicar could see Don was wary of him. He took as deep a breath as he could to speak.

  “I am not who you have to worry about,” said Father Adams. “I called the police earlier. They should be here soon.” His face grimaced as his hand went to his chest.

  Don realized the old man could not move and posed no threat. “Where are you hurt?”

  “It’s my heart and my ribs,” answered the vicar after some labored breaths. “You fell directly on me.”

  “Let me loosen your collar,” said Don as he reached out for the tight black clerical collar surrounding the man’s neck.

  “No. There’s no time,” he wheezed. His hand moved from his chest and reached into his coat where he struggled to pull something from his breast pocket. With an effort, he held up a large, heavy key.

  “Here, take this key. It’s to the chest in—”

  Father Adams ran out of breath and could not finish the sentence. Slowly drawing in as much air as he could, he gave Don an urgent look.

  “Go open the chest in my study. Quickly!” He stopped to take another breath. “It will tell you what you need to know.”

  Don looked around. “Let me get you some help.”

  “The chest!” the vicar insisted, his shaking hand pointing in the direction of his study.

  Don took the key and started to stand when the vicar grabbed his arm weakly.

  “And Micah,” he said in a struggling whisper.

  “Who’s Micah?” Don asked him.

  “Three.”

  Don could hardly hear his fading voice.

  “I don’t understand, vicar.”

  “Go!” Father Adams ordered with the little breath he had left.

  Rising from the hard floor, Don felt his body ache all over from the fall, and his right ankle hurt worse than he expected. He limped as quickly as he could down the length of the church to the small entry to the ancient spiral stone staircase leading up to the vicar’s study. At the top of the stairs, he pushed open the door. A low light came from the lamp sitting on the vicar’s desk. There in the corner sat the long low massive chest.

  Don quickly called for an ambulance for Father Adams before hobbling over to the chest. He inserted the key into the lock. The lock initially resisted until the key finally turned with a heavy clicking sound. But when he tried to lift the long lid, it didn’t budge. Don grabbed the lid at a different spot and tried to wrench it free. It still refused to open.

  He ran his hand along the length of the lid and realized the problem. There were two more keyholes barely visible around each corner on the side of the lid. The two keyholes looked smaller, and he feared they needed a different key. Relieved when the large key fit at first, he frowned when it would not move after he tried to turn it. He tried again and again with no luck. Frustrated, he jiggled the key and moved it around. To his surprise, the entire key slid into the lock up to its handle at the end. When he tried to turn it again, he heard the lock give way. Don scrambled on his hands and knees to the lock on the other corner. He pushed the key up to its hilt into the lock and turned it until he felt the lid free up with a final click.

  In the shadows of the room, Don at first could not see anything but darkness inside the chest. The darkness inside, he soon discovered, came from black vestments carefully folded and filling the chest. Don grabbed them and tossed them aside on the floor as he dug down, until he could peer deep into the chest. There was a shelf with a wooden handle on top. Grasping the handle, he carefully pulled. Up and out of the shelf slid a three-sided wooden box. The open side revealed a piece of thick aged parchment folded several times with two large wax seals next to each other on the top fold.

  Don hobbled over to the vicar’s desk. He swept to the side everything on the desk including the vicar’s worn Bible. Then he carefully unfolded the ancient parchment document and positioned the desk lamp directly over it. Studying its script quickly, he paused often to reread carefully some of the words. When he reached the signatures at the end of the document, Don shook his head in wonder before refolding the document and placing it in his coat pocket.

  His whole body hurt as he stood up. When he walked around the corner of the desk, the sharp pain in his ankle took away his breath. He leaned on the desk a moment to steady himself. His hand pressed down against the vicar’s Bible. Pausing a moment to let the pain pass, he looked down at the worn book filled with bookmarks.

  “Micah three,” Don muttered as he flipped open the Bible.

  “The Book of Micah,” he confirmed as he found chapter three bookmarked in the Old Testament by a small envelope tucked between the pages. Don read the opening verses of chapter three that were carefully underlined in pencil:

  And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment?

  Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;

  Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.

  Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them, at that time as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings.

  He turned the envelope over to look at both sides. The front was covered with so many stamps there was only a small open space where the letter was addressed to Father Adams in Haiti. Don hastily slipped a single-page letter out of the envelope and read it quickly before standing up once again to head to the door.

  Feeling his way down the stone stairs, he entered the nave and shuffled as f
ast as he could back to where he had left Father Adams. Don felt the beads of sweat on his forehead though the air in the church was cold on his face. Questions for the vicar swirled in his mind along with his concern for the man.

  “Vicar?” Don called out as he limped hurriedly into the chancel to the corner of the church where he had left Father Adams. But the only thing in the shadows on the floor were the remnants of the broken gargoyle to which Don had clung for his life. The vicar was nowhere to be seen.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  1532 The storm passed over Atwelle, and the bright moon of All Hallows’ Eve filled the sky as Lanham, DuBois, and the two clergymen hurried down the road toward the town. An eerie stillness fell over the land and silenced the laymen as Father Regis and Father Cuthbert spoke in hushed tones.

  “They could be anywhere among the souls who have been denied entry to both heaven and hell,” Father Cuthbert said to Father Regis. “Tonight is the first of the dark half of the year. It is the night when both hell and heaven can find their way to Earth.”

  “If these spirits are neither in heaven or hell, where do they go?” Father Regis asked. He was not thinking of spirits as much as he was thinking of Christopher and Margaret.

  “That is difficult to say. This night they are active as they move through our world in search of an eternal home,” Father Cuthbert replied.

  Father Regis looked over at the black hood that hid Father Cuthbert’s face.

  “And because the spirits are active on this night, we bless our homes to protect the people inside. And we pray beside the graves of our loved ones for their souls.”

  “But it is not only the spirits who haunt this night,” said Father Cuthbert, who worried about the children of Lanham and DuBois. “It is also the goblins and witches and agents of the devil that celebrate their black rites to claim the lost spirits and souls of the dead roaming the earth.”

  Where the men should go suddenly became clear to Father Regis.

  “Father Cuthbert, where do we pray for our dead?”

  “In the graveyard and in the church where they lie.”

  “And if we pray to protect our homes, where is our home, Father Cuthbert?”

  “The church,” he answered.

  “And where in Atwelle would one celebrate rites for souls roaming the earth lost between heaven and hell?” Father Regis asked.

  Father Cuthbert stopped short and looked at him. “A place that is part of the earth and yet part of heaven.”

  “An unfinished church that is partly consecrated,” Father Regis finished the answer.

  “Should they come with us?” Father Cuthbert asked the question as though Lanham and DuBois could not hear him.

  “Oh yes,” answered Father Regis without hesitation. “They shall come with us,” he said firmly as he walked even more briskly toward the town.

  Winding their way quickly through the streets and along the waterway of Atwelle, the four men finally arrived at the church. They entered through the door standing open to the roofless shell of the church. The moon shone brightly, and deep shadows were cast on the grounds surrounded by the uncompleted walls.

  Once inside, they moved cautiously down the length of the church, not knowing what to expect. They saw and heard nothing until a small light appeared on the ground toward the end of the church. Then a second light lit up next to it like a small flame.

  “Evil spirits rising,” whispered Father Cuthbert until fear froze the words in his throat.

  All four men knelt low to the ground behind a stack of timbers that were waiting to be carved into roof beams. The lights continued to rise until they illuminated the hands and arms holding them.

  “The sergeant’s missing limbs,” said Father Regis in a horrified whisper. “Coming out of the ground.”

  Lanham and DuBois were white with terror as they too recognized the man’s gloves. Father Cuthbert was transfixed by what appeared before them.

  “On this night, the souls of the dead revisit their homes,” he said in a low murmur.

  “Wait—look!” Father Regis interrupted in a hushed voice.

  As the candles continued to rise, the full figure of a man appeared to be holding them. The man’s figure was accompanied by the silhouette of a woman who stood behind him with her arms raised up. Both DuBois and Lanham were seized with fear at the sight of the apparitions floating out of the ground.

  “The sergeant and Molly,” the two of them whispered almost simultaneously without hearing one another.

  “They are not coming out of the ground.” Father Regis leaned forward. “They are coming out of the crypt,” he realized.

  The ghost of the sergeant turned to face the woman he loved. The light of the candles fell on her face and stiff arms raised high.

  DuBois reached over and grabbed Lanham’s arm. It was Lanham’s son holding the candles in the sergeant’s gloves. Margaret DuBois stood before him. Above her extended arms, she held the still body of a naked baby.

  While murmuring a short unintelligible chant, Margaret laid the infant’s body on the ground. Christopher responded with a similar rhythmic incantation in Latin. When he finished, he handed one of the candles to Margaret before picking up a goblet sitting next to the entrance to the crypt. Raising up the cup, he made the sign of the cross with the candle in his hand above the goblet and then made a slow measured gesture with the candle below the goblet.

  “The sign of the devil!” hissed Father Cuthbert.

  Margaret began waving her head about wildly, her hair flying back and forth around the candle in her hand. She seemed to be chanting once again as if speaking in tongues. Christopher raised the goblet high in the air and called out another phrase in Latin.

  Lanham and DuBois saw the two clergymen tense with a start at Christopher’s words before he turned to hand the goblet to Margaret. She passed her candle to Christopher and placed both hands around the cup. Drawing it to her lips, she tipped her head back as she drank.

  Even in the moonlight, the four men could see the dark lines of blood running from the corners of her mouth. Her head came forward, and she passed the cup to Christopher. He handed her the candles as he took the goblet in his hands.

  Watching Christopher raise the cup to drink, Richard Lanham stood suddenly.

  “No!” he yelled at his son.

  Christopher gave a startled look in the direction of the four men. Margaret, blood dripping from her chin, let out a scream of fright and then a shriek of fury. Christopher threw the goblet to the ground to grab the candles from Margaret. Their flames went out. The four men heard Margaret scream in the dark once more before everything went silent.

  The four men moved forward carefully in the moonlight to the entrance to the crypt. Margaret and Christopher were nowhere to be seen. Father Cuthbert found the cold body of the baby and started praying over the small corpse. Hearing the prayers in Latin, DuBois and Lanham fell despondently to their knees, not knowing what else to do.

  Father Regis turned on the two shocked men with an accusing look.

  “These are the most horrific and ghastly acts that humans can commit anywhere and under any circumstances. But such vile deeds done in the shadows of this unfinished church—this holy ground—can be matched in God’s eyes by no other sin.”

  The men kneeled on the ground in silence, unable to raise protest or defense.

  “There can be no doubt,” the priest continued, “that such abomination and heinous crimes shall be punished by excommunication through the pope’s edict and by execution on the king’s command. These are certain.”

  At this announcement, the shaken men looked up at the priest and monk. Father Cuthbert slowly nodded his head in somber agreement. DuBois spoke with a plea in his voice.

  “Father, there must be some way mercy can be shown.”

  “Yes, Father,” agreed Lanham. “What can we do?”

  “You will do what any Christian who has responsibility for sin must do,” the priest answered. “You will give co
nfession and do penance for these evil works.”

  Both men nodded humbly. Yet the priest gave them another stern look.

  “And it will be public confession and penance.”

  “That will not happen, Father,” Lanham declared immediately as if the loathsome sight they had just experienced could be denied.

  “It cannot be,” confirmed DuBois. “That would be our doom, the end of our families.”

  “Hear me and make no mistake,” Father Regis glowered at them. “You will confess all in front of God and the world, and pay a dear price for God’s forgiveness if you are even to dare ask for His mercy.”

  As the two men started to object once again, Father Regis silenced them with a raised hand. Father Cuthbert stepped behind them as if to prevent their escape.

  “Hear me out, for you have no choice in the matter,” decreed Father Regis. “Your wealth and power will proffer no immunity. But your families and fortunes will not be destroyed if you listen well and follow my instructions.

  “These words, written under your signature and seal, will state the manner by which you shall do your public confession and penance . . .”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  2017 Don stood there not knowing what to do. The hand axe and battered old ladder lay on the church floor among the scattered wood chunks and splinters from the gargoyle and its casing above. There were no signs of Father Adams or what had become of him.

  The rush of gusting wind outside sounded like large waves hitting the shore. Another low flash of lightning came through the stained glass bathing the altar in a splash of unnatural reddish orange light. A low rumble of thunder followed seconds later.

  When the sounds of the thunder and the wind ebbed simultaneously for just an instant, Don’s ears perked up at an unfamiliar sound. He paused, trying to hear over the renewed gusts of wind. Then he heard it again. It sounded almost like a distant small cry. Puzzling over what it could be, he heard it again a second later. This time, the sound seemed to come from the altar.

  Don limped on his throbbing ankle as quickly as he could over to the altar and circled it cautiously. He saw that one of the large ornate candlesticks was missing. A deafening crack of thunder and a bright flash of lightning spun his head toward the large stained glass window. His eyes fell on the grate over the entrance to the crypt. It was slightly ajar. He shuffled painfully to the grate and kneeled next to it.