Halloween is a time of year wherein the dead are closer to the living more than ever before. In the spirit of the holiday, I have written a Halloween story. I hope this tale provides plenty of spooky fun for all my readers. Enjoy!
The brush outside creaked like old wood in the wind. The air was cold tonight, unusually cold for an autumn evening. Had he been outside, Father Daniel suspected that the condensation would turn his breath into a thick fog and cover his glasses. As it was, he was lucky to be inside God’s house. The church’s heater did not prevent his hands from becoming numb, but it kept the worst of the cold from affecting him.
Saint Giles’ Catholic Church was almost a hundred years old now. Candles hanging from chandeliers illuminated the shadowy arches. The walls were lined with apocalyptic depictions of angels praying and singing, the Apostles garbed in priestly vestments, and the Stations of the Cross. At the back of the church, by the altar, were two statues. The first of the Virgin Mary, her eyes closed and hands clasped in solemn prayer, and the second was that of the adult Jesus, who looked down on the faithful with a warm smile. Their shadows fell over the long rows of empty pews.
The priest hurried about the church building as he did his chores. It was the tail-end of late-night confession hours, but nobody seemed to be there. Only after he was done cleaning the altar, moving the chairs, and inspecting the pews would he be allowed to go home.
As he passed by row after row, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a figure kneeling in the pews, deep in prayer. Her skin was as pale as snow, and her hair was ebony black. She wore dark clothes and a veil over her face. It was as though she had appeared there.
The priest wanted to go over and talk to her, but two things made him hesitate. One reason was his sense of propriety. He knew from experience how difficult it was for some people to work themselves into a prayerful state. Even as a priest, it could be difficult for him. He was the sort who could be easily distracted by the oddest of things, after all. More importantly, though, he found something unnerving about the woman – her manner of dress, the way she hid her face from view, and the way she somehow walked into the church with him noticing her all gave him an uneasy feeling. The way she whispered her prayers also unnerved him. Perhaps it was the empty church, but it was like her whispers were in his ear.
Despite his reluctance, the priest spoke aloud. “Excuse me, but are you here for confession?”
The woman stopped whispering and then stood up. She walked toward the priest with an airy yet quick motion. “Good evening, Father,” the woman said in a soft, whispery voice. “I apologize for keeping you up so late.”
“Not at all,” the priest said, shrugging his shoulders.
“To answer your question,” she said, looking up at the priest, her dark eyes peering through the veil. “Yes, I am here for confession, for I have greatly sinned and need penance.”
“Alright then, come along with me,” The priest said. He led the young woman to the confessional booth in the back of the church. It was like two dark boxes sitting side by side, a thin wall between the priest and the confessor. The priest would not be able to look the confessor in the eye, but both could hear each other in that intimate space.
The priest sat himself down in his corner of the confessional. Some might have found the room claustrophobic, but he was always comfortable in here. This was his element, after all. The woman on the other side of the wall from him didn’t seem to have any complaints either. Instead, there was silence, as though nobody was sitting across from him at all.
For a moment, the quiet was broken only by the sound of the priest’s breathing and his shifting in his wooden seat. The priest then broke the silence by asking “What is your name?”
“My name is Wendy Jennings,” the woman answered from the other side.
“Alright, Wendy, my name is Daniel. Now, let us begin.” The priest made the sign of the cross saying “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
“Amen,” Wendy repeated.
“When was your last confession?” The priest asked.
“It was… about a year ago,” Wendy replied.
The priest nodded his head. “Now,” he said. “What do you need to get off your chest?”
The room was silent once again. Every breath sounded like the whistling winds outside the church, and every heartbeat was like a banging drum. The priest swallowed and adjusted his collar. Was this woman not going to say anything? “It’s okay, take your time,” he encouraged. “It’s not like anyone is waiting after you in line.” He gave a small, nervous laugh and looked down at his hands.
“I suppose it started when I was younger,” she said. “When I was a child, I didn’t like how my parents kept secrets from me. I understand now that children often cannot handle the unvarnished truth of things, but back then, it felt like a betrayal. Whenever I was told ‘I’ll tell you when you’re older,’ it felt like they were taking advantage of my ignorance. I hated it and acted out.” She chuckled. “I was petty as a kid. I would steal candy from the pantry whenever I felt mom or dad was doing something bad. Not just because I wanted to eat the candy but also to get back at them.”
“Children often act out like that,” the priest said.
The priest couldn’t see the woman, but he imagined her shaking her head here. “I never grew out of those childish delusions. That fear has haunted me my entire life. The fear of someone close to me keeping secrets from me. It’s something I am ashamed of.”
“Do not worry. Confessing your sins will relieve you of their burden,” the priest said kindly.
There was a moment’s pause, then Wendy continued to speak. “My husband and I met in high school. It wasn’t precisely loved at first sight, but it was a near thing. We dated throughout college and married shortly after we graduated. We were so close… or so I thought.” Bitterness crept into her tone. “I thought we loved each other, but I suppose I took him for granted. I didn’t realize how quickly everything could fall apart.”
The priest leaned forward. “You wouldn’t be feeling guilty if you didn’t care about him,” he said.
Wendy sniffed. “One day,” she continued, “I was at home sorting through the mail. I had gotten off work early that day. In the mail, I came across an envelope addressed specifically to my husband. I probably shouldn’t have opened it without his permission, but I suppose I was curious. I looked at the letter and I saw that it was written by a woman. He’d known her for a very long time, it seems. She was mentioning the other letters he’d sent her over the years and…” At this, Father Daniel heard Wendy shifting in her part of the confessional. The night’s stillness was broken by the shaking of the small room.
“I was so angry,” Wendy continued, not noticing or not caring about the shaking. “I thought he was having an affair. When he got home, I questioned him on it. He seemed flustered about it – I mean, what person wouldn’t be? – but in my state of mind, I took that as an admission of guilt.” The wood shuddered, causing Father Daniel to lean back in his seat.
“I yelled at him,” she said, her voice gradually getting louder with every word. “I hit him. I threw appliances at him. One of them cut his face open. He walked out the door and… he didn’t bother coming back. Now, that’s bad enough, but the worst part was… he wasn’t having an affair. The other woman, she was just a pen pal he’d met once. One he’d met before me before she moved back to her home in Europe. He hadn’t even seen her in person for over a decade!” Then the shaking stopped and quiet overtook the confessional. A few moments passed where the two just sat in the quiet, shadowy church’s confessional.
“I think it’s a good thing you came here, Wendy,” Father Daniel said finally. “I think it’s also good that you were able to get this off your chest. Not everyone who comes here can confess something like that.”
“Yes,” the woman agreed blankly. “I regret it so much.”
“God will forgive you,” Father Daniel said gently. “He forgives all penitent sinners. Now, let us pray.”
After the two said their final prayers, Father Daniel walked out of the confessional booth. That was certainly an emotional, late-night confession. While it started getting emotional toward the end, Wendy seemed to have moved past what was weighing on her conscience by the end of it.
The priest turned to look at the confessional booth. Was Wendy still praying inside? Certainly, if she wanted to continue praying, the pews would be a better place, right? “Hey, are you okay in there?” The priest asked in a half-concerned, half-jovial way. There was no answer. Nervous, the priest gently tapped on the door. Still, there was not a sound. The priest stared at the door, caught between wanting to open it and unnerved by what he might find inside. Something inside of him was telling him not to open the small booth door. Concern for Wendy warred inside him for a couple of minutes.
Finally, Daniel’s concern won over his sense of propriety. “Wendy?” He quietly inquired. He took the handle of the door. It was so cold that he felt his hand burn at the touch. He hissed in pain but continued to slowly open the door until it was left a little ajar. The door’s hinges creaked as it revealed a preposterous sight.
Wendy was gone.
The next morning, Father Daniel sat at his breakfast table, reading the newspaper. He was thinking about Wendy Jennings when he saw her again in the least likely of places… on the front page of the local newspaper. It read:
31-year-old Wendy Jennings died in the hospital at midnight last night after being involved in a horrible car accident mid-afternoon. After coming in and out of consciousness for intermittent periods, she fell asleep for good at around 9 PM until her death.
“She was, at times, lucid,” one doctor said. “However, given her injuries, there was nothing much we could do for. In those last few hours, the most we could do was make sure her last moments were comfortable.”
Wendy Jennings was survived by her husband, Phillip, who was out of town at the time.
“I only wish I could have told her how much I love her before she died,” he said.
Read more on page A25.