The Obsidian Princess

Chapter 14

People normally avoided this place like a plague at night and even during the day except the priest and the gardener no one came. The vault was the safest place which would harbor any kind magic. Eloa started walking back towards the door with her eyes close when she could hear the whispers of children who were buried there. The souls of those poor babies still were in this place and there was nothing that she could do for them. She did not have the light in her to allow their souls to get away from this place. The cold touch of the small hands on her body and her gown was something she could not bear. Some of them had died of diseases and some of them had been poisoned, one had been raped and brutalized by her own uncle and one was pushed from the ledge by his brother in jealousy. The blood in this place was far too dark and heavy to bear even for her.

She could not even think about the plight of the children who were still roaming there. It was like they had been locked in this crypt body and soul and they were forbidden to cross over from this cemetery. And they were going to rot here for an eternity. Their pain and their grief and the torture of this pierced her skin and soul like anything. How could humans be so inhuman in the first place? It was like the entire race of humanity was not fit to be called humans any longer. And they had not been fit of being called humans for a very long time….

She knew that she could not go to the Church where the rest of the town went to unburden their secrets. She had always found it easier to come to this place where no one except the priest actually knew her. Moreover when she was in her senses and found herself roaming in the forest with her feet bare and without any kind of warm clothes over her body she was s**t scared. Eloa had thought that she would die out of hypothermia but strangely she did not feel cold. Neither did her skin turn blue from the original pale colour that she always had.

Her footsteps echoed on the wooden floor, which was once aesthetically pleasing. The stillness of the church sent shivers down her spine. The mirthful garden, where once young children played joyously, where the flowers bloomed under the sun rays, is now just a snow covered solitary path. There is water dripping from the roof, rhythmically, generating a melancholic melody. The door hinges are all rusted and the glass windows are all shattered, shattered like her peace after the abandonment of this church where she now came to pray and confess her sins.

She did not kneel at the pews to pray for she needed to confess.

The dark door of the confessional was swung open by her causing a slow and nasty creak which echoed through the hallway and the stained glasses were moved by the noise disturbing their restless sleep in the darkness. There were a few candles burning near the altar and a single dark candle to light the confessional box. The ghostly pale raven haired girl knelt down on the hard wooden floor and knocked at the partition of the confessional trying to convey in silence that a poor and disturbed soul was in need of guidance.

“Ahhhh Eloa…you are early here, don’t you think?” asked the voice of the priest who had been the one to baptize her after her birth. Her mother had found that the church in the town was not willing to touch her baby. So she had come here in this broken derelict church with a cemetery which survived on the donations and was by the maintained of the county.

“Good morning Father…I don’t know if I could have spent another minute without coming here and speaking. I don’t know what is happening to me and I don’t know at all to whom I can say this…” said Eloa as she could not stop herself from shaking.

“Speak child. Unburden yourself. God is listening you,” came his voice from the other side.

“Father there is something happening to me…I am doing things and I am seeing things which has no reasonable explanation…and I am scared…I am very scared…I can’t even think what I should be doing and I didn’t know whom I could talk to …so I ran over here as soon as the dawn arose,” said Eloa, but her voice was trembling and she was absolutely shaken and the priest could understand that very well.

“My child…you need something warm to calm you down and then we can talk about all these things which are plaguing you since a few days….alright? There is no need to kneel down here in the confessional, come out of this box and we can comfortably sit in the pews and discuss, alright? Go and sit there while I shall bring some tea for you…is that okay, my child?” asked the priest, Father Soren as Eloa silently nodded and she came out of the confessional booth and sat in the first pew.

She waited patiently as she could feel that she could not stop herself from shivering and her teeth from chattering and she was very clear about the fact that it was not happening because of the cold. Her hands and feet were absolutely numb and impervious to the cold and it was because she was so frightened that she was shaking like a leaf about to fall in the cold winter winds. She looked up at the stained glass and found that Mother Mary was weeping with her dead son in her arms. She looked again closely and found that she was seeing wrong. Angels were singing at the Birth of Christ, the same image that she had been seeing so many years almost every month.

Father Soren came back soon with the cup of tea in his hand and offered her the cup gently and then looked at her clothes. She was wearing her night clothes and her feet were bare. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes were red, from crying.

“How long have you been crying dear? Your throat is husky and you are not wearing any warm clothes in the dead of the dawn Eloa….what is exactly happening…I don’t…I don’t really understand…are you not feeling cold?” asked Father Soren as he sat beside her.

“That is the strangest thing Father…I don’t know how I ended up in the forest at all…I was like…, I must have been sleepwalking…and the church was closer to me than my house so I came here,” said Eloa as she gently took a sip of the warm tea which was in her hands. Then she added,” And I am not feeling cold..”

“Then what are you so scared off? Were you being chased or followed by someone? What did you see?” asked Father Soren, who was as perplexed as her since he was not finding any logical conclusion from what she was saying and then again this was absolutely unlike her. She was one of the most coherent speakers that he had seen in his time as the priest in this church.

“I can tell you the last thing I remember. I don’t know what happened but I had a nightmare and then I woke up…and I was seeing a weird looking demon in my dream in a graveyard and then just the moment that I woke up I saw the same demon standing at the foot of my bed. You won’t believe me Father…it had this eyes which were slit like that of a snake, a gaunt skeletal face and horns rising from the top of its head and then I screamed and then it was not there…after that I don’t know where I was…I cannot remember getting out of my house at all Father,” said Eloa as she finished the tea and then she kept the cup beside her on the pew.

“Did you go somewhere else before coming here Eloa?” asked Father Soren as he looked at her feet carefully.

“Why do you ask that Father?” asked Eloa, a bit concerned if she was supposed to tell that she had found the crypt on her way to the church for the first time in all these years.

“It is not everyone who finds the crypt there Eloa. But you did, that is the reason I am asking this question,” said Father Soren as he looked into her eyes directly as he came to realize something that she might not be entirely human.