The feet (Part 2)

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The next is terrible but has to be told. The next is terrible. Are all the spiders crawled into the sanctuary? Why are my ankles so spidery all of a sudden? Who has planted all these carnivorous plants in the entryway? Why is everything so chilly of an unexpected and somber sudden? The next part will hardly go onto the page. It took me months to write it down -- I don't handle evil well, don't know how to describe it without facing the ghastly invitation to partake and die. The next part I don't like. The ink shrinks into itself and closes up its hands. Now when Elf went into the sanctuary the organ was playing, not music but the sort of scrolling or scribbling sound that an organ would make talking to itself. A hollow sound. This was the night of vigil, the night of prayer. My love walks into the blackness -- voluntarily! Pushed into the voluntary. All through the room people hung over the backs of their pews, praying and shivering. There were so many strangers, people drawn into the orbit of the holy week, almost the last sacred space left in America. At the far side a bony woman hung down with her blond hair over her eyes. Why had Don run away?

Elf huddled at the back of the church where seekers usually hovered. On this Thursday, however, people did not seek but were only found. The sweat of the Lord fell like a mound of blood. Indrawn breath grew harsh with the sense of divinity near.

The interim rector spoke words of simulated humility while the organ played. It played -- and yet there was no music for this service. Then people started filing forward to have their feet washed. Elf folded her damp socks and walked along the wet feeling upward-tilted cement. Then the first foot washer slipped away and another person down at the tub who, when she looked up, had Duessa's eyes -- mother's eyes -- blue spring water with ice prickles floating as in air. It was Duessa, smiling and shaking her blonde mane that was thousands of years old. The devil incarnate. A horror in the holy place. A sacrilege as quiet as a prayer.

Oh my darling daughter. I've caught up with you at last.

But no! Elf cried. You're not allowed in church! Go away! Leave me!

END OF PART 2

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