Nothing did, and somehow that was worse.
“Katharina.” He glanced up and smiled. “Good. I thought we might work on something new today. Perhaps Isaiah, about those who have walked in darkness?”
“Of course,” I said, moving to take my seat across from him. “‘Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has dawned.’?1”
“Just so.” He opened the book and found the passage. His hands were steady. No smoke billowed from beneath his nails, no shadowstwitched within his veins. I watched his fingers trace the text and remembered—tried not to remember—how they’d felt against my face.
It was a dream. Nothing but a dream.
“Populus qui ambulabat in tenebris,” he began, then paused. “Something is upsetting you.”
I jerked my gaze up from his hands, where I’d been watching the veins beneath his skin. “I’m sorry, Father. I’m listening.”
“You’re looking at me as though I’ve grown horns.” His tone was light, teasing, but his eyes searched mine with concern. “Is something wrong?”
Yes. No. I don’t know.
“No, everything is fine,” I mumbled, which wasn’t entirely a lie. He was fine. It was I who was haunted.
If something had taken him, wouldn’t I know? Wouldn’t Ifeelit?
Heinrich gently closed the book, setting it aside. “If something is weighing on you, you know you can tell me. In confession, if you’d prefer the formality. Whatever you need.” He gestured back toward the chapel. “I’m here to help carry your burdens, Katharina. That’s what I’m for. Do not fear to use me.”
His last words sent heat rising along my neck, which only made the guilt squeeze tighter around my heart.
This was Heinrich, my priest, my shepherd. There was nothing but kindness in his voice, and yet my mind still wandered toward desire. Thoughts that—should I voice them—would damn me surely as my actions in the well house.
“Yes,” I heard myself say. “I’d like to confess.”
We rose together. He held the small door of the booth aside so I could enter first—always the small courtesies with him, the gestures that made me feel cared for. I knelt in the dim space and heard him settle on the other side of the screen. Close enough that I could hear his breathing. Far enough that I couldn’t see his face.
Maybe that made it easier.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” The words cameautomatically after years of practice. “It has been one week since my last confession.”
“Go on, child.”
Child. He always called me that during confession, and I hated it. Hated being reduced to something small and blameless when I felt anything but.
“I have been…struggling with desire,” I began carefully. The wood was hard beneath my knees. I focused on that small discomfort and used it to anchor myself. “Not only sinful desire, though there is that too. But I desire…” What did I desire? To live in a world that wasn’t waiting for one misstep to tear me down? To help those in need without everything working against me? “I desire…” I faltered, then pushed forward. “I desire things I have no right to want.”
Silence from the other side. Then, after a deep breath, “What makes you think you have no right?”
The question caught me off guard. “Because I—because it’s not my place. Because wanting is how women fall.”
“Wanting is human. That is the nature God gave us,” Heinrich said, and there was something soft in his voice. “That’s not the same as falling.”
My hands twisted together in my lap.Then why does it feel like I’ve been falling ever since they took her away?
Another pause. I could hear him shift on the other side of the screen, imagined him leaning closer.
“Tell me what you want, Katharina.”
The command in his voice made something low in my belly tighten. That wasn’t how he normally spoke in confession, but it freed a small part of me that had been waiting for permission to release everything simmering inside me.
I thought of the couples dancing around the bonfires. I thought of my dream, before it had turned to nightmare. Of his hands in my hair, his tongue meeting mine.
“I want…” God help me. “I want—” The words caught inmy throat. “I want to be touched without shame. To be wanted. To want and not feel monstrous for it.”
