To Be Continued…

The room had been prepared hours earlier, though nothing about it felt prepared enough.

The windows were shut and curtained. The lights were dim but not low—Father Tristan insisted on clarity. Darkness invited imagination; light revealed what was truly there. A small table stood against the far wall, draped in white linen, holding the crucifix, the holy water, the Ritual book, and the oil. The cross on the wall above the bed had been tightened earlier that morning; Father Galen remembered testing it himself, twisting the screw until it would not give.

The woman lay restrained only by gravity and exhaustion. No chains. No leather. Her wrists were free at her sides, her hands trembling faintly as if remembering a motion they no longer wished to perform. Sweat dampened her hair, which clung to her temples and the nape of her neck. Her breathing came shallow, uneven, as though she were afraid of what might enter if she inhaled too deeply.

Father Tristan Greene stood at the foot of the bed, black stole already draped over his shoulders, violet thread catching the light when he moved. He did not rush. He never rushed. The Rite, he believed, demanded the same patience as grief or prayer or dying.

Father Galen Hadaway stood a step behind him, the Ritual book open in his hands. Fresh from seminary, his fingers still bore the faint ink stains of a man who had learned faith through margins and footnotes. He swallowed, once, then steadied himself.

Tristan nodded.

“Begin.”

Galen’s voice was measured, reverent, as he spoke the opening prayers—invocations of the Trinity, petitions for protection, the calling-down of divine authority not his own. The words filled the room the way incense might: invisible, unmistakable. Tristan traced the Sign of the Cross in the air, then over the woman herself, his hand steady.

She flinched.

At the sprinkling of holy water, her breath caught sharply, a sound somewhere between a gasp and a suppressed cry. Tristan watched closely, not for drama but for truth. The water darkened the fabric at her collarbone, slid cold along her skin.

He began the Litany—slow, deliberate. Saints invoked one by one, heaven pressed gently but insistently against the thin wall of the present moment. Galen responded as prescribed, voice tightening on certain names, smoothing on others. The woman’s lips moved soundlessly at first, then stilled.

When Tristan addressed the presence directly, his tone changed—not louder, not harsher, but firmer, as one might speak to a storm while standing unmoved. He commanded nothing of his own authority. He asked nothing. He recited what the Church had entrusted him to say, precisely, obediently, every phrase where it belonged.

The woman arched once, sharply, then collapsed back against the mattress. A low sound escaped her throat—not a scream, not a word. Tristan did not look away.

Scripture followed. Passages chosen not for comfort but for proclamation. Galen read, his voice steadier now, grounded in the rhythm of the text. At certain lines, the woman’s breathing quickened; at others, her face slackened into something almost peaceful, as if memories were being unlocked and released without ceremony.

When Tristan laid his hand on her forehead, anointing as prescribed, she sobbed—once, raw and human and unmistakably her own.

“Enough,” she whispered hoarsely.

Tristan paused—not in fear, but in discernment.

“Enough of what?” he asked gently.

Her eyes fluttered open. For the first time since the Rite had begun, she looked at him directly.

“Of hiding,” she said. “Of being quiet.”

Tristan exchanged a glance with Galen. This was not resistance. This was emergence.

He continued.

The final prayers came like a closing door—not slammed, not locked, but shut with intention. The authority invoked was absolute, yet delivered without triumph. When Tristan made the final Sign of the Cross, the room seemed to exhale.

Silence followed.

Not the tense silence of before, but the deep, heavy quiet of something concluded.

The woman’s breathing slowed. Her hands relaxed. Her eyes closed.

Minutes passed.

Then she spoke again, softly.

“Father?”

Tristan stepped closer. “Yes.”

“I need to confess.”

Galen’s breath caught, just slightly.

Tristan did not smile, but something eased behind his eyes. “Of course,” he said.

He gestured for Galen to prepare the stole properly. The Ritual book was set aside. This was no longer confrontation. This was reconciliation.

Her confession was halting but sincere—sins spoken without dramatics, without evasion. Not the grand, theatrical transgressions Galen had half-expected, but the quiet failures of a life worn thin: bitterness nurtured, mercy withheld, love refused out of fear. Tristan listened without interruption, his gaze lowered, his presence unwavering.

When he spoke the words of absolution, her shoulders shook—not violently, but as though something long clenched had finally loosened its grip.

“I want the Eucharist,” she said after a moment. “If I can.”

Tristan nodded. “You can.”

The small host was brought with care, reverence layered upon reverence. As she received it, her hands trembled—not with fear now, but awe. She closed her eyes, tears sliding freely down her cheeks.

“Thank you,” she whispered. To whom, it was impossible to say.

They remained with her for a time afterward, as prescribed. She slept—not the uneasy, twitching half-sleep of earlier, but the deep, even rest of someone unburdened. Her breathing evened. Her brow smoothed. Whatever storm had passed through her seemed, at last, to have moved on.

Galen let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“It worked,” he said quietly.

Tristan did not answer immediately. He watched the woman’s chest rise and fall.

“Yes,” he said finally. “It did.”

They gathered their things in silence. The crucifix remained on the wall, upright, unmoving. Galen glanced at it once more before extinguishing the candle.

Outside, the hallway lights hummed softly. The world resumed its ordinary weight.

As they stepped out, Tristan paused, hand resting briefly on the doorframe, as though listening for something only he could hear. Then he nodded once and closed the door gently behind them.

The latch clicked.

Inside the room, the woman stirred.

Sweat bloomed suddenly across her skin, cold and immediate. Her eyes flew open, heart hammering as though summoned by an unseen hand. The air felt thicker now, charged—not hostile, not welcoming, simply present.

Somewhere above her, metal shifted.

Slowly—almost thoughtfully—the cross on the wall turned on its screw.

Upside-down.

The woman gasped, breath tearing from her chest as she pushed herself upright, sheets tangled around her legs. Her pulse roared in her ears. The room smelled faintly of oil and salt and something else she could not name.

Then came the sound.

A laugh.

Not loud. Not wild. Intimate. Amused.

It did not come from any one corner of the room, but from everywhere at once—and from somewhere uncomfortably close.

Her mouth opened to scream.

The light flickered.

And then—

Silence.