667 Issue #10: "Old Wounds"

I slept through dinner.

Angelica tried to rouse me, but I feigned a coma and just stayed in bed. I wasn’t really that hungry anyway after the hefty breakfast that Adam had made. I was still wondering what in the world provoked him to cook such a masterpiece of a meal—I didn’t even know he could cook.

Darkness quickly fell and the hushed conversations downstairs soon subsided. I figured that everyone had fallen asleep and forced myself to do the same.

I hoped that dreaming wasn’t an option tonight, but I was thrust into a bizarre mix of shadows and wavering figures.

Voices were muttering in a language I didn’t recognize as candlelight danced on the side of a stone facade.

I had no idea where I was, but something told me that this dream wasn’t a mere fabrication in my mind. The vision was hazy like I was in a cloud of ethereal fog, but I could make out two men knelt in front of an altar, their hands clasped in prayer.

“Is it true, brother?” One man asked the other as I watched on.

“It is true, brother. We have found the Messiah.” The other returned, bowing his head before the altar again.

“Praise be He!” The first brother raised his arms to the sky, and it was then that I could see that he was holding something.

It was a baby.

What was I witnessing?

The dream shifted and we were in another time, but the play was the same.

Two men, different men, talking about the Messiah and how they had found him. A different child uplifted in one man’s arms.

This went on through various incarnations and the snippets always culminated in one of the brothers holding up an infant boy.

The visions were starting to get dizzying when everything shifted again, but there were no brothers now and no infant child…just a man in a dark cloak standing in an even darker room before a match was struck and I could see him holding a chalice in his hands.

There were artifacts scattered about at his feet as someone went along in the shadows, lighting torches along a wall.

“There is only one true Messiah and I am He.” The man shouted the words, causing me to jump within the dream and he turned towards me as if he knew I had been listening the whole time.

I caught only a glimpse of his face, but screamed out in terror as I willed myself to wake up.

And I did.

I woke up, but it was just as dark as it had been in my dream and I fumbled for the bedside lamp, but there wasn’t one.

It was cold and damp wherever I was laying and I shuddered as I got to my feet from the chilly stone floor and felt my way around in the dark till I found a doorway.

I had somehow been transported again, but I would never find my way out in the dead of night, so I willed myself to be outside where at least the sliver of a moon and shining stars could light my way.

There I was, standing atop the hillside next to the Tor in the wee hours of the morning in nothing but my pajamas. It was cold out and I started to shake as I tried to get my bearings after coming back from such an odd dream.

I had no idea what I had witnessed or what any of it meant, but I needed to get back to the castle we were staying at before anyone knew I was missing.

(*)

I could hear people moving around downstairs and knew that the sun was up.

Somehow I had made it back to the castle in one piece and fell back to sleep, even though I worried about being thrust into another nightmarish dream that could transport me to God knows where.

“The other one was stolen now too.” I heard Adam’s voice coming from downstairs and drug myself out of bed.

“Both are gone? Why didn’t they just take them at the same time?” Naomi responded to Adam’s statement.

“What’s going on?” I appeared at the top of the stairs and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

“Someone stole the other relic of St. Andrew from the cathedral last night.” Adam waved me down the stairs and I came to stand in front of the television.

There was a newscast on about another theft at St. Mary’s Cathedral: now both holy relics were missing.

“Did they catch anything this time?” I wondered out loud as I sat down on the sofa.

“Nope. I guess whoever is doing this wised up to their mistake and covered the cameras or something.” Adam turned down the sound on the television.

“I think we need to make a trip to the cathedral and take a look around. It may give us something to go off of.” I yawned. I hadn’t slept well at all.

“You look worn out; did you even sleep?” Salome came to rest beside me and handed me a cup of coffee.

“Uh, sort of.” I debated on whether or not to mention my dream just yet.

“You going to be okay to go out?” Adam now asked and I just nodded.

“Let’s get dressed then and head to the cathedral. It will take us about forty-five minutes to get out that way.” I got up from the sofa and set my coffee down as I finished my sentence.

“Are you driving? I didn’t have a good time trying to stay on the left.” Adam scrunched up his nose.

“I hate driving, but yes. I know where we’re going because I visited the cathedral on my last trip here.” I responded before climbing the stairs again.

“Meet back down here in ten?” Adam called up to me and I nodded before disappearing into the attic.

(*)

I dressed myself rather quickly and met everyone in the foyer before we climbed in the car and headed out to St. Mary’s Cathedral.

The drive wasn’t as bad as I anticipated, but it was raining and I had a hard time seeing with only one working eye out of the three.

The cathedral wasn’t as big as some of the churches I had seen pictures of in the US, but it was brilliant to behold none the less with its gothic style architecture and stained glass facade.

We parked and climbed the steps to the front door where we were welcomed by a nun in habit.

“Good afternoon. Welcome to St. Mary’s Cathedral.” She greeted us, “Have you come to tour the church or are you interested in becoming parishioners?”

She had such a friendly face and a strange tinge of emotion filled me up: I was worried for her safety.

“A tour if that is possible. My friends and I are in Edinburgh on holiday and I told them this was a must see site.” I smiled at her.

“Wonderful. Despite what went on here in the past week, we refuse to close our doors to those seeking Christ.” She ushered us in through the front doors and followed us as we walked down the aisle towards the altar.

“You’ve been here before?” She turned to me and I nodded, “So you must have been graced by the holy relics of St. Andrew?”

“I did get to see them, but it was many years ago.” I spoke to her as my friends peered around her to where the reliquaries had been housed.

“They were such a blessing and they have been a staple of the cathedral for years.” She seemed upset as she spoke about something that had been a national icon for over three decades.

“They were definitely something incredible to behold and I am so sorry that they have been stolen…Sister?” I gave my condolences.

“Ruth. And yes, it is a tragedy, but they will be returned to us if we have faith.” She blindly believed that they would come back to the cathedral somehow.

“I really hope so.” I felt for her and the church and expressed as much.

“Feel free to look around, but note that you are being monitored. It’s simply precautionary, but we don’t want another incident.” Sister Ruth pointed to armed guards that were standing by the altar and near the front doors.

I thanked her and the lot of us broke off to quietly inspect our surroundings.

“What kind of power do you think this one has?” Adam leaned closer to me as I admired the stained glass of the windows.

“From the looks of it—levitation, possibly invisibility, maybe telekinesis.” I postulated as we stood shoulder to shoulder.

“But you’d think they’d have to be inside for that and all of this happened after hours. From the news story it didn’t look like there was any apparent break in.” Adam followed me over to the altar as we spoke.

“Not if that person knew anything about the cathedral. If they were skilled enough with their powers they could possibly remotely locate the relics.” I explained.

“But how would they get them out of the church? They’d have to open a door somewhere.” Adam made a good point.

“I don’t know then. They apparently didn’t have knowledge of all of the surveillance cameras in here, but they somehow got the relics out the doors.” I casually glanced around me to note the several cameras that were high up on the walls. I saw no blinking red lights, so they must have been short-circuited somehow.

“This doesn’t make any sense. And why? Why steal holy relics that have no monetary value?” Adam paused by the altar and looked at the vacant spots on the wall where the reliquaries had been.

“They possibly could on the black market…humans are weird and find monetary value in the strangest things.” Something had caught my attention mid conversation and I paused.

“You’re right.” Adam wasn’t seeing what I was as I knelt down next to the front pew.

There was a grate in the floor for the air conditioning and I followed it along the wall to several more. The farthest one back by the last pew closest to the door looked askew.

“Do you see that?” I quietly pointed to the grate.

Adam casually walked towards it, pretending to analyze more off the stained glass, before gently nudging it with his foot.

“It’s loose.” He whispered at me and I came to inspect it myself.

I wondered out loud, “You think these lead outside?”

“Possibly, if there is external venting.” Adam was on the same page as I was.

“This could be how they got the relics out of here, but that would take even more skill with navigating something like that through the vents. Based on the size of the reliquaries, they could fit through here.” I looked over my shoulder to see the others quietly milling about.

“But the question is, how do we find who is doing this? We literally have no leads.” Adam gently pulled me away from the broken grate and back towards the others.

“Well, do you think this is a random theft? Would one of our kind just steal something out of the blue like this for no reason? There might be other thefts of the sort that have been reported on, so I think we need to dig in and do some research.” I made a suggestion, thinking I had a good idea.

“Good point. Let’s get out of here and go get some lunch and try to figure out what our next step will be.” Adam made his own suggestion and quietly got the attention of everyone else so we could make our leave.

I thanked Sister Ruth as we neared the exit and she took my hand before we could make it out the door.

“Thank you for visiting the cathedral, young lady. Go with God.” She blessed me and we exited the cathedral to go find lunch and plan where to head from here.