I pursed my lips.“I never thought of it like that.In Daddy’s church, it was all about our personal relationship with God.I never really considered how we’re actually a part of His body.Not literally, anyway.”
“We call it the communion of saints.The mystical union.Remember, child, that after Jesus exhorted his disciples to go into their rooms in secret to pray, the prayer he gave them began withour Father, notmyFather.That’s because we’re always one in Him, we’re never alone, because we’re with each other.And because we’re all the body of Christ, He’s truly with usalwayswhen we come together as His people.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, resisting the urge to pull it out by the roots.“But you’re still going to die.”
“But I’ll also never die.Jesus said as much.‘I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.Believest thou this?’”
I nodded.“John eleven.Somewhere in that chapter, I think.”
“Precisely.”Father O’Malley’s grin spread even wider.“That means time and space need not separate us.Not even death can separate us, child.For we who die in Christ nevertrulydie.Just as death could not hold Christ’s human body in the grave, neither does it hold the body of Christ in death.We live in Christ, even if our earthly pilgrimage ends.And we’re still together, unified in that same body.I will never be so far from you as you think.”
I stared at the priest blankly for a moment.“If I get the body of Christ!But if you’re not here in the this-worldly kind of way, to consecrate the Sacrament, how will I have access to the body?”
“You’ve received the body and blood from my hand as if from the Lord Himself,” the priest explained.“And you will again, one way or another, I am sure of it.But even if you are unable to receive the Sacrament, you need only receive Christ in faith, and trust that you still belong to Him.I will never be so far from you as you imagine, even once I pass into heaven, so long as you persist in faith.”
“This feels like abandonment,” I spat, whirling to face him.“You brought us to faith, taught us to endure through the Sacrament, and now you leave us to—what?Starve?Descend into the very damnation you promised we could avoid?”
Father O’Malley’s expression remained maddeningly serene.With effort that made the tendons in his neck stand out like cords, he leaned forward and reached toward something on his desk.His hands trembled so violently that for a moment I feared he might knock over the inkwell.Finally, his fingers found purchase on a package wrapped in brown cloth, perhaps the length and width of a book, tied with simple twine.
“I have not forgotten my obligations to you, Alice,” he said, pulling the package closer.“Nor would I leave you without provision for your journey ahead.”
Father O’Malley’s fingers worked at the twine with painful deliberation, each movement a battle against his body’s rebellion.The simple knot that any child could have undone in seconds became an ordeal under his trembling hands.I nearly reached out to help him but stopped myself—there was something sacred in his struggle, a dignity I dared not violate.Finally, the twine fell away, and he peeled back the brown cloth with the reverence one might show in unveiling a relic.
The book that emerged was modest in appearance—worn leather binding, pages yellowed with age, the gilt lettering on its spine nearly rubbed away by countless hands.Yet when he pushed it across the desk toward me, I hesitated as though it might burn me the way the Eucharist did.
“The Way of Perfection,” I read aloud, making out the faded title.“St.Teresa of Ávila.”
“This will be your guide now,” Father O’Malley said, his voice gaining strength despite the weakness that consumed his frame.
I stared at the book without touching it, confusion knotting my brow.“But I have a Bible.Why would I need—“
“Not to replace your Bible,” he interrupted gently.“To illuminate it.To help you navigate its truths personally, intimately.St.Teresa understood suffering in ways that few saints did.She understood the dark night of the soul, the feeling of God’s absence even while desperately seeking His presence.”His eyes met mine with an intensity that belied his frail state.“She will teach you to pursue the kind of holiness necessary to resist the reptiles that claw at your soul.”
The metaphor struck too close to the truth.I felt those reptiles always—coiled in my chest, hissing their temptations, their scales scraping against whatever remained of my humanity.My fingers finally found the courage to touch the book’s cover, the leather cool beneath my equally cold touch.
“You’ve been that for me!”The words burst from me with unexpected vehemence.“You’re my mentor!You’ve shown me truths about our faith that my own father never saw, despite all his years in the pulpit.The way you interpret Scripture, the depths you find in passages he only skimmed—“ My voice cracked, though no tears could come from these dead eyes.“I can’t lose you, Father.Not when I’ve only just begun to understand.”
Father O’Malley’s expression softened with such compassion that it nearly undid me.“Dear child, you must find the strength not in me, but within the suffering itself.I am merely a vessel, cracked and failing.The truths I’ve shared come not from my wisdom but from the centuries of saints who came before.St.Teresa will be a far better guide than this dying priest.”
“But she’s been dead for three hundred years!”I protested, my fingers tightening on the book’s edges.“She can’t answer my questions, can’t help me interpret what I experience.She never knew what it was to be—“ I caught myself before saying the word vampire, though we both knew what haunted the silence.
“Open it,” Father O’Malley instructed.“The page I’ve marked.”
My hands moved without conscious thought, finding the silk ribbon that marked a spot perhaps a third of the way through.The pages fell open to reveal his careful marginalia in fading ink.One passage had been underlined with such emphasis that the pen had nearly torn through the paper:
“It is a great advantage not to be in the world, and so, the less we are in it, the more entirely we shall be in Him.”
Father O’Malley quoted it from memory, his voice taking on the cadence of prayer.“She wrote those words while enclosed in her convent, cut off from the world by choice.You, Alice, have been cut off by—circumstance.But the principle remains.Your separation from the living world can become your path to union with the divine.”
I traced the words with my finger, feeling their weight even as my mind reeled at the irony.Here I sat, a creature of the night, holding a guide to spiritual perfection written by a saint who had never tasted blood, never felt the hunger that gnawed at me every waking moment, never known what it was to exist in the space between salvation and damnation.
“She speaks here of detachment,” Father O’Malley continued, turning to another marked section.“Of dying to self.But you, Alice—you have already died.Your physical death could become the foundation of profound spiritual life, if you allow it.”
“Or it could be my damnation,” I countered.
“The choice remains yours.”His words carried no judgment, only statement of fact.“The new priest will arrive within the week.Father John Sullivan, newly ordained, full of zeal and orthodox fervor.”
My dead heart seemed to clench.“Will he—does he know about us?”
