She woke in a familiar stupor. The blankets which swaddled her body seemed also to envelop her mind in warmth, drawing her back to sleep, but though she was too tired to remember where she was, enough of her remained alert to sense an incongruity between her memory and the space she sensed beyond her closed eyes. It was much too quiet; the light was too dim; the bed was too small. Little by little, these details chipped away at the spell, until all at once it was shattered.
Áine sat up. She was not in the flat. There was no armoire or a big mirror, no lamplight pouring in from below a foggy window, no rocking chair, no mother sleeping softly beside her. That’s right. She was in an empty dorm in a faraway church. She was further away from home than she had ever been before. But that wasn’t true either. Home, as she understood it, no longer existed except in memory, and that was nothing more than a phantom that again slipped away into darkness the very moment she felt it was real. She could try to chase it—will herself into sleep once more—but those feelings were transient by nature, and to try to hold on to them was as useless as trying to hold on to the wind.
She felt a sudden pang of loneliness, and, knowing not else what to do, she slipped out from the covers of her bed onto the cold, stone floor. A wooden door stood at the opposite her, and she crept toward it as quietly as a cat. She reached up for the knob and began to open it slowly, revealing a dark and drafty hallway. With her eyes still unadjusted to the dark, she could not see where she was going, and she brushed her fingers against the wall to guide her as she slunk toward a sliver of light that poked beneath another door at the end of the hall. She tried to open it carefully, too, but the hinge groaned loudly at her cautious movement, and so she resolved to open it in a singular motion. Gripping the metal handle with one hand, she placed her other hand on the narrow side of the door and stepped carefully out of its path as she jerked it open. It screeched like a goat, but she steadied quickly, and the church was silent once more. She hoped she had not woken anyone.
Under the pale light of the moon, the chapel seemed cavernous. Its ceilings stretched into darkness further than Áine could see, and the panes of stained glass which lined the upper walls captured hues of silver and blue that fell upon the ground with long shadows. She walked between the empty pews, toward the altar, where even in the dim light, she could make out the features of the Six in the plaster relief of the reredos.
Her bare feet were growing numb from the cold, and so she sat upon the bench nearest to the altar and crossed her legs, shivering a little. There, she gazed at the ceramic faces the Chromat had described to her just a day prior. It was strange how much they seemed to change in the light of night: some details vanished, rendering each face less clear in its individuality amongst the rest; and other details, like the contours of their wrinkles and cheekbones, appeared even more intense in the harsh shadows. And so the essential details remained, distilled as they were. The Wanderer reposed in listlessness, the Arbiter grimaced from duty, the Smith’s brow furrowed in focus, and the Matron…
Áine paused when she looked at her. Her hair was straight and black; her eyes were weary, though still she smiled. Perhaps it was merely a trick of the light, but the expression she saw there was painfully familiar. She sat there, entranced, for some time, her heart aching with nostalgia and grief. She thought about what the Chromat had said—that the Six were not Gods, as many believed, but Aspects of humanity. Truthfully, she did not understand her meaning, for she did not understand what it is that separates a God from a person anyways. But now, as tears she scarcely noticed began to well in her eyes, she began to understand. To look at the sculpture was like peering into a lone pool of grey water, clear and yet so very cold in what was reflected there.
In the face of the Matron, she saw a glimpse of her mother. She gazed upon it with reverence, like a worshiper, and it was as if she could still hear Her gentle voice, feel Her ghostly embrace and warm breath upon her body.
Surely, God is a mother’s love, for it is sublime, transcendent, unbound by time or space. No matter where Áine went, it would follow her like a shadow, waiting patiently for its moment to take hold when she was powerless to stop it.
She trembled as she wept. There was nothing to do but wait for it to pass. Light shatters in a prism—so too does the world shatter when seen through tears, shrouded, uncertain, unclear. The prayer she whispered would never be answered.
April 13, 2024
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