The Vicar

Her skin was the color of sweet August wheat. Scarlet rivulets trickled from the corners of her mouth. I beheld her blasphemous beauty in December, at midnight, standing in the church cemetery. A black cat sat in white snow at her feet, peering at me with its penetrating amber eyes. Without moving her lips, Lydia Belgrasse called to me. She smiled, offering glistening white death—or life eternal—in her un-holy bed. Lust entices, and then consumes the foolhardy entirely

, I recalled.

Today, one hundred years hence, I kneel asking God’s forgiveness beneath a crucifix that sears my ageless face.


The Woman

I am no hideous winged bat, no Transylvanian comic book ghoul. I am merely Lydia from Chippenham, in the south of England. Eighteen years passed until my birth; a hundred more, with nights of dining midst sweet blood and cries for mercy.

Philip of Canterbury, my first love, has gone. They killed him. I did not think it possible. He waits for me in Hades, but he shall wait forever.

He is lovely, this man, one foot lingering on the church steps. The cat stares at him. I smile and call with silent words, knowing he will come to me.


I Am

These sons and daughters of Satan, haters of my children, scourges upon the earth! I am bound by laws written by my hand to stay my fury in all things mortal.

This priest, shepherd of Chippenham’s congregation, is lost.

He kneels, a piteous hollow shell, bleating, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” She lurks in the shadows, mocking.

I am the desert wind. I am the cataract of stars. I am the fierce sun that blinds men. I am who am. Thus—violating no law—I show my face to this abomination. Lydia curses as he turns to ash.

Impressum

Lektorat: Self
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 27.06.2012

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