Dark Epiphany

Frazer Merritt

The priest climbed the stairs to the pulpit, perched midway up a sandstone column, and placed his hands on the lectern. Candlelight cast shifting shadows over the wood, animating the carved faces of angels and apostles; they seemed to gaze towards heaven, their features etched with anguished yearning. A shiver coursed through me as Father Jacques, a towering presence above the packed pews, raised the Bible above his head. His voice rang out, resonating through the church, “Open our ears, O Lord, to hear thy word and heed thy call.”

Concealed in shadows at the back of the nave, I sat rigid, my fingers twitching as prickly heat crept up my chest and arms and beads of sweat gathered beneath my black nun’s habit. A cascade of sparks momentarily blurred my vision, obscuring Father Jacques. Pressing my palms against my thighs, I fought a wave of dizziness. I dabbed at my brow with the hem of my wimple, silently beseeching God to grace me with the entirety of His voice – a symphony of baritone and soprano, mingled with animal purrs and growls – to reveal Himself beyond the confines of human interpretation. If only the Almighty would speak to me – something, anything – to wash away this damage and corruption.

“Today we commemorate the Epiphany, the manifestation of the Son of God amidst humanity…” After my father’s passing, I remember Jacques striding down the church hill, his white robes billowing majestically, approaching our village home. At the kitchen table, he clasped my mother’s hand, offering pious words of reassurance, promising parish funds to shield us from destitution, vowing to shepherd me into womanhood. My mother, sobbing, kissed his ring-adorned hand. Thus, the pact was sealed. Months later, Jacques stripped away my innocence, his bloated, clammy belly pressed against my back, and mumbled a demonic incantation: “This is God’s will, Adélaide, stop crying.” His serpent writhed between my legs, tearing flesh and spiting its burning venom inside me. Then, as I drifted up through the window and watched myself from afar, an epiphany struck: this man, his words, were all an inhuman, godless lie.

“Beloved brethren, as we prepare ourselves to partake in the sacred mysteries, let us call to mind our sins…” Oh, those sins of Father Jacques. Over the years, my eyes had darted around his rectory bedroom as his hairy arms fondled and caressed me beneath the crucifix, the gaze of Jesus eternally downward, sternly disapproving. If only I could forget Jacques’s litany of wine-whispers in my ear, “Hush, Adélaide, hush,” accompanied by grunts and snorts – until I grew into a woman, too old for his predilection. It was these sins of the Father, indelible, unforgivable, that killed the meaning of all those dead-ink words in my dead Bible book – my once holy sanctuary, now empty pages. 

“How blessed we are to be in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is the true church…” A ballooning pressure swelled in my stomach; I licked the air and suppressed the urge to retch. I had entrusted my faith to this institution and its scriptures, never questioning. The exact moment my faith was lost eluded me, but perhaps it was when I had pleaded to Jesus as Jacques, naked and chanting, lashed me with a whip – silence. Or perhaps it was when I had pleaded to Jesus as Jacques pressed the thurible’s coals into my back – silence. Amidst His deafening quietude, I grasped that I craved Jacques’s tormenting attention, even after his abandonment for another girl, for solitude and isolation were worse. I stared at my sweaty palms and smeared them down my face. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” I whispered.

“Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us tranquility upon our day…” Yes, evil, so grandiose a word. Something belonging to the infernal depths of Hell, a force so all-powerful, it emanates solely from Satan’s horned head – but, no, it was nothing of the sort. Evil is soft fingertips between thighs; evil is clear blue eyes; evil is candle wax dripped on bruised skin. Evil has seeped into the very mortar of this church, rotting its foundation. And evil is a finger to lips and the silence of the parish. 

“May the Lord bless and keep you. Amen.” Gathering my robes, I averted my gaze from Father Jacques – his arms outstretched, his face igniting into a smile – and rushed out of the church. Across chalk-white cliffs, I marched, loosening my habit and wimple, letting the wind wrest them from my head, blowing the cloths away, yet I did not glance back. I carried on, lured by the clamor of crashing waves on la Manche.

At the edge of the precipice, I stumbled, falling to my hands and knees, dislodging a stone that fell down, down, down, through a flock of seagulls that floated above a creamy pool of foam where the waves had exploded and come to sulk; and when the gyroscope of birds saw this stone, they cried out, wings fluttering, until it was swallowed by the foam, a quiet plop, and the gulls becalmed and resumed their drifting. That could be me. A muted splash. I brushed hair out from my eyes and surveyed the empire of roiling waves, following them to the horizon where the water merged with the sky’s dominion. A phalanx of clouds hovered – one tribe white and illuminated by the sun, another tribe black and brooding. Soon, these clouds would tear at one another in their timeless clash, gathering their forces to rip across the land, unleashing their tempestuous wrath and death; and yet, this was benevolent violence – not good versus evil, but an elemental violence, the essence of nature, enduring long after the Church has returned to sand. Raindrops kissed my cheeks and the wind embraced my body, bearing with it a chorus of erupting waves, roars of thunder, crying gulls, and together, coalescing as one, they answered in an ancient, rumbling voice, “Amen.”

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