“Do not be frightened, Constance. It’s a shock, I know. But it really is me.” He slowly walked around the bed and sat down. “It was time to finally meet in person.” His expression was almost… tender. My breath caught as I felt his eyes tracing each inch of my face. “You are beautiful, my Constant Star.”
I closed my eyes tightly. “No. No, no. Stop playing tricks, Mr. Voice. This isn’t funny. I’m tired and I want to go to bed.” When I got no response, I opened my eyes to peek at him, but he was still there.
“Shh… we will have plenty of time to talk, I just… wanted to see you for my own selfish motives, I suppose.” To my utter shock, he reached toward me and cupped my cheek. His hand was warm, soft, and so very masculine. “Beautiful,” he whispered.
And just as quickly as I could blink, he was gone. I waited a few moments, my arms wrapped around my drawn-up legs, staring at the closed door. But he didn’t return. Slowly I reached over and felt the coverlet at the end of the bed wear he had been sitting. There was an indent there, still warm from his weight.
“He’s real,” I said to the room. Shaking my head, I tried to deny it again. I ran all the logical reasons and past experiences through my mind, replaying every single thing Solomon/Mr. Voice and I had ever said to one another.
“Constant Star” was what he’d once named me one night when I was six. I’d been crying about not ever having had a nickname like the other children in the orphanage did. I thought the nickname was ridiculous, and we had laughed and laughed then, but the name stuck.
He hadn’t called me that in years.
There was no other explanation. It really was him.
In a daze, I undressed, my thoughts filled with all sorts of craziness, from excitement to fear, to confusion and relief. What did this mean for our friendship? Was that part over? And more importantly, how was any of this possible? Was it true, then, that I really was touched by something… extraordinary? Was I psychic? And why did God have to add this to my already growing list of things that separated me even more from everyone around me?
Too tired to care anymore for answers, I slipped into the cool sheets. As soon as my head touched the pillow, I was fast asleep.
I dreamed I walked through the breeze way and stood at the threshold of the church, looking ahead at all those gathered. Clergy, parishioners. The congregation of Trevorstone had grown, filling every inch of available space. Shadows danced outside the aisles of dark walnut pews, and candles in tall candelabras and sconces gleamed, burning with life. Every face was directed to the front, where Father Kent, in a white robe and gold scapular, stood before the altar. His lips were moving, probably reciting the Penitential Act, but I heard no words, only bells ringing, a beautiful wave of soft chimes that flowed around me like water. The sound was above and below. Beside, far and near, circling.
Sisters Hazel and Abigail stood at the side of the altar, smiling, totally transformed in manner and age. They bowed their veiled heads. “The Bride has come,” they sang.
“Come, my beloved. Come home.” Solomon’s voice broke my attention from them, and I looked ahead to where Father Kent was. His eyes were on me.
The bells stopped, only to be replaced with the congregation repeating his rite. “Beloved, come. Mercy unto us,” they intoned.
As if an invisible rope was tied around my breasts pulling me forward, I walked. My feet were bare, and I realized I was naked. I felt powerful, though. Not ashamed. This was me. No habit, no veil, no shoes on my feet. Only that voice dipped in gold, beckoning me.
“Constance,” Solomon said through Father Kent’s lips. “Come home.”
And so I did as he commanded. With one foot in front of the other, I walked the aisle like a bride, ever closer and closer to the one who looked upon me as if I were everything in the world that was true. His Beloved. But what looked only yards away from the start, now seemed endless—a cavernous space from my feet to him, and the more steps I took, then more he shrank into the ever-growing horizon.
“Solomon? Come closer!” I cried out in a panic, but he and the altar kept getting further and further away from me. I looked around me now and saw I was no longer in the church but in a field of dark purple and crimson delphinium. The sky above me darkened with angry fat thunder clouds, and the sun was a dark circle with only a ring of white light outlining it. An eclipse.
Pure fear assailed me, and my steps faltered, weakening my knees until—
Suddenly, I sat up, my hair plastered with sweat against my cheeks and the back of my neck. I was in my bed, in my single room at Trevorstone Parish. It was a dream, a nightmare.
“Solomon?” I whispered on a panicked breath. “Solomon, I need you.”
Silence.
“Please, Solomon. Mr. Voice. Please.”
The feeling of loss was overwhelming when, after waiting in vain for an eternity for any response, I finally fell back to sleep.
Chapter Five
I didn’t see Father Kent again until mass that next night, which certainly didn’t give me an opportunity to speak with him. He hadn’t come to eat with us at dinner before that, nor did he come to my room after everyone had gone to bed. Later that night in my own bed, I laid there in the dark, waiting to hear Solomon’s voice, but the room was pregnant with silence.
It was on my third day at the parish that he summoned me to his office.
Sister Beady-eyes gave me the message while I was stapling little ziplock bags of treats for the children of Trevorstone under the ever-watchful eye of Sister Diane, a nun who I was tempted to slap whenever she corrected me on some stupid little thing I was doing wrong. I’d been tasked with making the giftbags for the Blessings of Hope, which started tomorrow.
Already, the parish had an undercurrent of anticipation for the event. Last night, two priests from Anderson County had arrived. Supposedly, they were volunteering their time as well and would be staying with us the rest of the week. Sister Hazel had appointed them the first two rooms in the resident hall, kicking out the two Sisters that occupied it.
I kept waiting to hear some type of gossip—nuns were notorious for the juice—but this place was unlike anything I’d ever witnessed. These people, even the new arrivals, were too sedate. It was like the time we novitiates visited the seniors at Gladberry Center: a gaggle of constipated, frowning old biddies who knitted and complained all damn day.
Putting down my stapler and ignoring the distaste on Sister Diane’s face, I gladly left the room and headed for the breeze way exit for Father Kent’s office.
It was going on lunchtime, so I assumed his appointments or whatever it was small-time clergy did during the morning was done. Which meant we’d be alone, no doubt.
I was nervous, my hands sweating, as I walked dutifully to his door, past the church entrance whose doors stood closed to the public at this time of day.
With a deep breath, I opened the office door. “Father Kent?”
“In here, child.”
Solomon’s voice. I closed my eyes in sadness and longing, just standing there holding the doorjamb to support my weight
It was the first time since I’d arrived that I actually longed for home. To Mother Mary Margret, to my closet and trapped souls. To Hannah and Jack and even old Sister Bethany’s food.