inthewildwood | Fic: Hagiolatry (Chapter Three) (Reply)

When Frankie blinked awake, the first thing she felt was an overwhelming sense of contentment. It was almost like waking up in her childhood bedroom at home, but instead of feeling her old flannel sheets on the mattress and hearing her mother humming as she made breakfast, the sheets were raggedy cotton and she could hear indistinct singing in the distance. She blinked. The ceiling overhead was dark wood, with beams that crisscrossed between the walls. The whole room was lit with a vaguely yellow light, like it was illuminated with a bunch of overbright candles. She blinked again, and turned her head. Next to her was a polished desk covered with papers and made of the same dark wood as the ceiling beams. A crucifix stood on the desk’s right corner.

“Hey sleeping beauty.”

Frankie raised her head. Patty was perched on a folding chair next to the bed, looking her with combined amusement and concern. “You slept for thirteen hours, you know that? I was starting to think about calling the hospital and asking what the hell they put in that Vicodin.”

Frankie raised her head groggily. “Where am I?”

“You don’t remember?”

Frankie shook her head. The last thing she could remember was staring up at the ceiling of the Jackpot, blood dripping down her forehead and into her eyes as the screams of the crowd echoed in her ears. There had been guys there, and Patty and Donna- had they carried her out? Was she in some kind of hospital? She took a deep breath, but she couldn’t smell any of the antiseptic odour she’d come to recognize as the hospital’s perfume. All she smelled was . . . incense?

"You’re at St Anthony’s,” Patty said gently. “You freaked out and started bleeding at the club last night, and a priest showed up and carried you over here. Seriously, you don’t remember any of it?”

Frankie shook her head again, twisting around to get a better look at the room. It was office-sized, paneled with the same dark wood that made up the ceiling, and apart from her cot, it looked like it was someone’s office. There was the desk sitting against the wall, with a leather armchair in front of it. Her bed was jammed into the opposite corner. “What time is it?”

“Nine in the morning.” Patty leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees and looking at Frankie appraisingly. “Donna was here for awhile last night, but I sent her home. You know she wouldn’t get any sleep unless she knew someone was looking out for you.”

“Yeah.” Frankie swing her legs over the side of the cot and stood up unsteadily. “The priest who brought me here- what was his name?” She still had no idea what was going on, but she figured she owed some thanks to the guy who’d scraped her off the sidewalk. Tentatively, she put a hand up to her forehead to feel for blood. There wasn’t much, but a few dried flakes did come off and stick to her fingers when she pulled her hand away. She could feel cuts there, deep slices that felt like they’d been made with a razor. They stung when she brushed her fingers against them, so she dropped her hand to her side.

“He said his name’s Father Derning,” Patty said. “He’s the pastor here. He said he knows what’s going on with you, but . . .”

Frankie turned to look at her. “But what?”

Patty gave her a searching look. “What is going on, Frankie? All of a sudden you’re freaking out all over the place, you’re bleeding like crazy, you’re talking about all kinds of weird shit-”

“Weird shit?”

“At the club last night,” Patty said impatiently, “you were going on and on about how ‘they’ were calling you a king and they were wrong, and you were just- it’s like you went crazy, Frankie. Were you on something?”

The question sounded sincere enough, but Frankie scowled in response. “Are you really asking me that? You know me. I don’t even get drunk that often.”

“Yeah, I know you.” Patty sighed. “And normally I wouldn’t ask, but- this is all so fucking weird. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“Yeah, well,” Frankie pushed herself to her feet. “Neither do I.”

Patty nodded and got up. On her way to the door, she paused, one hand on the handle. “Donna’s really worried about you.”

Frankie rubbed a hand across her forehead, avoiding the cuts. “I know.”

Patty chewed on her bottom lip, apparently debating whether or not to continue. Frankie waited.

“Look, I-” Patty took a deep breath. “I worry about her, you know? If she thinks you’re sick or in trouble, she’ll freak out until things get better, and I don’t want to see her freak out.”

She paused. The silence stretched out between them until Frankie said “I know.”

“Yeah,” Patty sighed heavily. “Look I’m not going to tell you to, like, stay away from her or lie about what’s going on- whatever is going on- because that’s bullshit- but if you don’t have to let her know about it- just try not to, okay?”

Frankie stared at her. “So am I just supposed to lie? ‘Oh yeah everything’s totally fine I’m not bleeding from massive head wounds at all?’”

“I don’t know!” Patty threw her hands up. “Look, this whole thing is just weird, okay? It’s fucking weird and I’m trying to deal, but Donna shouldn’t get dragged down with you. That’s not fair.”

Stung, Frankie could only keep staring at her. Patty dropped her gaze to the floor, flushing slightly. “Father Derning said he’d talk to you when Mass is over,” she mumbled before twisting the door handle and slipping out.

Frankie stood alone in the room for a long moment before burying her head in her hands. The headache from yesterday was coming back. She was starting to suspect it was there to stay. Normally she would have just popped an aspirin and gone on with her day, but normally she wouldn’t be standing in a church with scabby cuts on her forehead and one of her friends telling her that she was on her own. That was so far from fucking normal, she barely knew how to catalogue it.

The faint singing from outside had stopped, which Frankie guessed meant that Mass was over, or almost over. She grabbed her jacket from the bed- it smelled like stale sweat, and there were dried blood drips along the collar- and headed out into the body of the church. The calm feeling from when she’d woken up was pretty much gone, but at least she could head home, shower and feel sorry for herself in peace. The only thing she had to do now saw thank Father Derning (and maybe ask him something like “so do you generally pick up stray face-bleeders or am I a special case?”) which hopefully wouldn’t take more than a few minutes. The walls of the church felt suddenly suffocating, and she wanted to get out and get a breath of fresh air.

The church was emptying as she came out, with only a few stragglers still seated in the pews. Most of them were congregated at the door, chatting quietly with a man she assumed was Father Derning- he was the only one wearing a collar. The lineup to talk to him looked long, so Frankie slid onto the end of a pew, next to a little kid who had her head bowed like she was praying. Maybe she was. Probably she was. Frankie had never known any kids who were the type to sit still and pray, but maybe they all just hung out in churches.

Frankie had only been in churches once or twice- not out of any anti-religion sentiment, but just because she’d rarely had any reason to. Her parents had both been thoroughly blase on the subject of God, and so the only time she’d ever gone was when her grandparents were buried with a full ceremony at St. Jude’s. She’d been about seven at the time, and all she took away from the experience was the sensation of the stuffy, itchy clothes she’d been dressed in and the sermon about how they were all born sinners but luckily Jesus loved them anyway. Looking up at the crucifix in Father Derning’s church, she could easily see this Jesus going “fuck it” and leaving them to die anyway. His face was twisted in agony, blood painted on his wrists, forehead, ankles, and side. Frankie wasn’t Jesus, not even close, but if she died like that- well, she might hold a grudge. Maybe that was why she’d never found it in herself to believe in him- not because he seemed like a bad guy, but because she couldn’t buy that anyone would stick around after suffering like that.

“You hurt your arm.”

Frankie jumped a little, and glanced to the side. The little girl who had been praying next to her had looked up, and was now staring at the bandages on Frankie’s wrists. Instinctively, she turned the wrist away to hide the bloodstains before realizing that the kid has probably seen them already anyway.

“I, uh.” Kids weren’t exactly her strong suit. “Yeah, I did.”

“I hurt mine too,” the girl said solemnly. Sure enough, her left arm was swathed in a brightly decorated cast and strapped to her side in a sling. The only part that was visible were four fingers sticking out from the cast, white and puffy. “What’s your name?”

Frankie smiled at her. “My name’s Frankie. What’s yours?”

“Rebecca,” she said. Her gaze was still eerily solemn. She couldn’t have been older than ten.

“Hmm,” Frankie said, unable to come up with anything else to say. Rebecca’s stare was starting to freak her out. “How’d you hurt your arm?”

The girl dropped her gaze and bit her lip. Frankie’s stomach clenched, like someone had just punched her and knocked the air out of her. She didn’t consider herself a master of the art of bullshit, but everything about the way the kid was reacting- the eyes, the downturned mouth, the scuffing of her feet against the floor like she was being shouted at- told a story, and it wasn’t a story Frankie ever, ever wanted to hear.

“I fell off my bike,” she said finally, so quiet that Frankie had to bend down to catch the words. She brought her free hand up to chew on her thumbnail, and mumbled her next words around the thumb. “And I broke my arm.”

Frankie sat back in the pew, feeling like someone had dropped a rock into her stomach. Rebecca was still looking downward, examining her shoes. Frankie glanced around, looking for anyone who could come and help-

Help what? It wasn’t like she could point to the kid and say “someone hurt her” with any kind of authority. For all she knew, she was being ridiculous and paranoid and the girl really had fallen off her bike. But there was a feeling deep in her gut, all the way down to her bones, that she wasn’t wrong, no matter how badly she wanted to be. It wasn’t just the way the girl was acting. She couldn’t have said how she knew, but she just did. She was surer of this than she’d ever been of anything in her life. And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. The silence stretching out between them was thick enough for her to choke on.

“Want me to sign your cast?” she offered, finally. It was the only thing she could think of. The cast already had several colourful scribbles that looked like they’d come from other little kids. Having a few more smiley faces scrawled on her arm wasn’t going to help Rebecca at all, but it was the only thing she could think of that she could do.

The kid’s face broke into a cautious smile, and she pulled a fat purple marker from her pocket, holding it out to Frankie. Frankie took it and bent over the cast, wondering what to write. Her name? A picture? The number for a helpline? None would help this kid at all, and that was what gnawed at her as the marker grew sweaty in her fingers- the overwhelming impotence of it, of her, towards someone that somebody should be taking care of. It burned in her gut and made her feel sick and powerless. She wanted to yell at someone, or kick something over, or do something. The irony of sitting in a church wondering why nobody was helping was not lost on her.

Eventually, she wrote “get well soon!” and added a smiley face to the end of the sentence in loopy cursive before patting the arm awkwardly and capping the marker. Rebecca pulled her arm back and examined it, a tiny smile cracking her solemn expression. Frankie smiled back at her. Her chest hurt.

“I have to go home now,” Rebecca announced, scrambling off the pew and trotting towards the back of the church. Frankie twisted in her seat to watch her go. The woman who had been standing at the church doors talking to Father Derning held a hand out to her, and Rebecca grabbed it, tucking her head under the woman- her mother’s, Frankie assumed. Father Derning smiled, patted her shoulder, and watched them leave before making his way to where Frankie sat on the pew.

“Miss Paige,” he said, drawing level with her. “I hope you’re feeling better this morning?”

“Yeah,” Frankie shifted uncomfortably on the pew. “That girl who just left- she’s a-” She couldn’t remember the right word. “-member? Of your church?”

He paused before answering. “Rebecca? Yes, she and her mother are parishioners here. I was the one who baptized her. Why do you ask?”

Frankie narrowed her eyes at him. “She’s hurt.”

There was another pause. Maybe she imagined it, but Frankie thought she saw a muscle in his cheek twitch. “Yes, she is.”

“Who hurt her?”

Father Derning let out a deep sigh and leaned against the pew. Under any other circumstances, Frankie would have felt sorry for him. He looked so drained. “She and her mother both told me that she fell off her bicycle. I don’t have any . . . reason to disbelieve them.”

She didn’t miss the hitch in his voice. “Any reason?”

He was avoiding her gaze, staring instead at the crucifix hanging over the altar. “I’ve never know either of them to be untrustworthy.”

Frankie pushed herself up off the pew, holding herself steady with one hand. “Well not that it’s any of my business, Father, but you might want to rethink that. She’s-” She stopped.

“She’s what?”

Frankie raised her head and met his gaze. “I think she’s lying.”

Father Derning sighed again, smoothing his hands down the front of his cassock. “She may be. She may not be. But my job as their priest is to offer counsel and comfort when it is asked for. I can’t give them something they don’t want.”

Frankie let her shoulders drop. “But I never asked for your help. I mean, I’m grateful, but I didn’t ask. If you only help people who ask for it, you could have left me on the sidewalk.” She pursed her mouth. “Why didn’t you?”

“Ah,” Father Derning said, smiling slightly. Frankie didn’t have the slightest idea what was so funny. “I crossed the street when I heard the commotion, and when your friends informed me of the extent of your injuries, I thought I might be able to help you. They’re . . .” He paused. “Significant.”

“Significant.” she repeated.

He rubbed a hand over his forehead, but the slight smile remained. “I’m not really qualified to explain. When you were brought back here, you were talking to yourself- do you remember any of it?”

Frankie shook her head slowly. Bits and pieces of the night before stood out in her memory- the faces leaning over her, the sensation of something slicing into her forehead, the people shouting around her- but she couldn’t remember saying anything. She didn’t even remember being carried in.

“You spoke a language I didn’t recognize,” he said gently, “though I have an- idea of what it might be. When you spoke in English, it was to tell me that you weren’t a king and that ‘they’ were wrong. Do you know who you were referring to?”

Frankie shook her head again, feeling even more disoriented than before. “I’m not- that doesn’t make any sense. No one’s ever called me a king.” She reached up to touch the cuts on her forehead again, hissing lightly as they stung. “What language do you think I was speaking in?”

He hesitated. “I think it would be best if I let my friend explain that. It’s really not my field, and I think my explanations will only confuse you more.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Who’s your friend?”

“Another priest,” he said, “who specializes in . . . cases like yours’. I called him last night when you came in, and he should be here in-” He checked his watch. “-two hours, at most. You’re welcome to stay here until then, if you like- we haven’t got much in the way of food, but there is a diner across the street. I believe they’re still serving breakfast.”

Frankie considered this, watching Father Derning out of the corner of her eye. On the one hand, she didn’t know this guy, didn’t know his friend, and didn’t know what they wanted to do with her- if anything. For all she knew, they thought she was possessed by a demon and were planning to bust out an Exorcist reenactment on her. She really didn’t want to end up tied to a bed while someone threw water and shouted that the power of Christ compelled her, and for all she knew, the unnamed “friend” was on his way with ropes and gags in the trunk of his car. On the other, what other options did she have? The hospital couldn’t, or wouldn’t help her; if she went back, they’d just accuse her of hurting herself again. Donna and Patty couldn’t help. Her mother was a continent away. She didn’t have anyone else. And Father Derning had said “cases like yours’” as if it was something he recognized, something he knew how to deal with. The phrasing made her bristle- she wasn’t a case, like a lab rat being poked with needles- but at the same time, it was true. And if these guys really did know what was wrong with her, maybe she had a shot of getting over it and having her life back.

“What do they have at the diner?” she said.

What they had at the diner, it turned out, were bacon, eggs, and pancakes, and they were happy to stuff her with everything on the menu. Frankie, who hadn’t eaten since three o’clock the previous afternoon, ate all of it. When she was done, she scraped her chair back, tipped the waitress generously, and walked down the street, hands in her pockets. Now that her stomach wasn’t growling,she could feel it tightening into knots as she approached the church doors. It had been an hour- probably Father Derning’s “friend” was there by now, and she had no idea what to expect. What kind of “specializing” did this priest do? What kind of priest had specializations, anyway? Did he travel around looking for cases (God, she hated that word) or spend his time at a church like a normal priest? Most importantly, what did he think was wrong with her?

When she pushed the church door open, it had emptied out almost entirely. There were only two people inside- Father Derning, and another man who was standing at the altar talking to him in a low voice. That must be the other priest. Frankie swallowed hard, clenched her fist inside her jacket pocket, and approached. “Hi, Father?”

He turned to look at her, and Frankie tilted her head, appraising. He was younger than she’d expected- stupid, probably, but she’d always pictured priests on the whole as grandfatherly old guys. This one couldn’t have been older than thirty-five, maybe fourty if she pushed it. His hair was dark and only faintly dusted with grey, his eyes were dark as well, and piercing, and his face was the kind her mom would have called “strong-” handsome by some definitions, only striking by others. Frankie’s opinion was the former.

Her first thought was wait, this guy’s the expert? Her second was oh wow, he’s really hot, followed by if I believed in God, I’d be in so much trouble right now.

“Miss Paige,” he said politely, extending a hand. She accepted it, still looking him over. “You can call me Frankie if you want. The only people who ever called me Miss were my high school teachers.”

He smiled a bit at that, and fuck, this was not the kind of complication she’d been expecting. “Duly noted. You can call me Andrew, if you like.”

She resisted the urge to shift from foot to foot. “It suits you better than ‘father’.” He raised his eyebrows slightly, and she felt herself turning red. “I mean, no offence, but you look more like a guy I could date-” Shit. “I mean-”

“It’s all right,’ he said, a smile still hovering around his mouth. “You just made my day, actually.”

Behind him. Father Derning coughed, and Frankie wondered if he wasn’t starting to regret bringing her in. “I think it would be best if Miss Paige- Frankie- explained the situation herself. You can use my office, if you’d like.”

Andrew nodded. “If it’s all right with you?”

“Sure,” Frankie said, and followed Father Derning back to the room where she’d spent the night. The cot she’d slept on had vanished, and was replaced with a swivel chair, which she sat down. Andrew pulled up another one and sat across from her. She was glad neither of them was sitting behind the desk- just being in the office made her think of getting called in to see the principal.

Andrew took a notepad out of his pocket and balanced it on his knee. “How much as Father Derning told you about what it is that I do?”

“Nothing,” she admitted. “He just said that you looked at “cases” like mine and that you could explain it better than he could.” He was writing something on the notepad, but she couldn’t read it from where she was sitting. “So, what is it that you do?”

He looked up. “I work for the Vatican. Well- most priests do, but the division I belong to isn’t technically the ministry. It’s called the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, and our role is to investigate reported miracles.”

“Miracles.” she repeated. “Father Derning did tell you what’s happening to me, right?”

He stopped writing for a moment. “He said you were manifesting sudden wounds on your wrists and forehead that you couldn’t explain. Is that right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, it is. But I wouldn’t call that a miracle.”

He perked up, like he’d been waiting to offer an explanation. “Miracles as they’re currently defined in the public discourse actually bears very little resemblance to the true definition of the word. When most people hear the word, they assume it carried positive connotations- like a terminal illness being suddenly cured, or a lost item being returned. In the eyes of the Church, a miracle is simply something that cannot be explained, and most likely stems from an act of God.”

Frankie raised her eyebrows. “And God is slicing me up because . . .”

He set the notepad aside and leaned forward, eyes alight with what looked like curiosity. “Frankie, are you familiar at all with the concept of stigmata?”

She shook her head. “Never heard of it.”

“Ah.” He sat back in his chair slightly and scratched something on the notepad. “In the Church- well in several branches of Christianity, but originating with the Catholic Church- a stigmatic is one who exhibits on their body the wounds Christ received at the time of his death. The symptoms you’ve shown so far- the wrists and the forehead?” She nodded. “The wrist wounds correspond to the nails used to hold him to the cross, and the forehead wounds were made when a crown of thorns was placed on Jesus’ head. That would fit in with your existing symptoms, wouldn’t it?”

Frankie nodded slowly, thinking back to the crucifix hanging in the church. Blood on her forehead and blood on her wrists; it matched the painting on the crucifix. Why was the church so obsessed with blood, anyway? Why couldn’t she have fallen into a church that was obsessed with cake or something?

A thought occurred to her, and she scooted over chair over to Father Derning’s desk. Andrew raised his eyebrows, but she ignored him, pulling the chair back into place. “You said stigmatics had the same wounds as Jesus, right?”

“That’s right.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “There are five wounds in total, though the most common one exhibited is injury to the hands. You’ve already experienced those, obviously.”

“No I haven’t,” she said triumphantly, thrusting the crucifix at him. “Jesus had nails in his palms, not his wrists. And look at my wrists-” She held an arm out towards him. “I’ve got holes there, but not in my palms. So I haven’t got stigmata.”

Andrew set the notebook aside and bent over her arm. “May I?”

She nodded.

He lifted the bandage on the underside of her wrist, examining the wound closely. Frankie held out her other arm, this one palm-down, and raised her eyebrows at him. He looked up from her other wrist, then did a double-take. He gently put her wrist down and examined the other, lifting the bandage to check on the injury.

“It’s the same on both wrists,” she said as he let go of her arm and sat back in his chair. “So, what do you say? Am I stigmatic?”

“Well,” he said, retrieving his notepad, “your injuries are definitely idiosyncratic-”

“Sorry, English?”

“Unusual,” he clarified. “It’s true, most stigmatics manifest injuries in the palms of their hands, not their wrists- they mirror what they see in popular depictions of Christ. But scholars have discovered that Jesus’s wounds were more likely received through his wrists, not his hands. The weight of his body would have torn through the nails. Are you familiar at all with Christian iconography?”

Frankie shook her head. “I don’t even go to church.”

He frowned. “But you are Christian? Catholic?”

She shook her head again. “I’m an atheist.” Caustically, she wondered if God was going to strike her down on the spot just for mouthing off in his house. “So why do people like me get stigmata? Is it because we pissed off someone upstairs?”

Andrew took his glasses off and rubbed a hand over his mouth, forehead creasing. “I’m not sure if I can help you.”

It was unfair of her, but the first thing she felt was a flare of hot anger. “Because it’s not stigmata?”

“Because I honestly don’t know,” She raised her eyebrows and he explained, “Almost all stigmatics- certainly the cases I’m familiar with- manifest the wounds out of a deep love for Christ and His sufferings. They feel His pain so deeply that it becomes a part of their body. For an atheist to receive the wounds- it’s unheard-of.”

“Right,” she said, clenching her hands in her lap. “So is there some kind of Society For Stigmatic Atheists I can call to help me out? Because the other godless heathens I talked to weren’t much help.”

“Frankie-”

“No,” she interrupted, picking up steam. She was thinking of Rebecca, with her huge sad eyes, and Father Derning’s insistence that he couldn’t do anything for her. “What is it with you guys? You’re supposed to be all about helping people and God’s love, but you don’t actually do shit. And what about this, huh?” She brandished her wrist at him. “Is this what you call God? Putting fucking holes in people?” She stood up and grabbed her jacket, brushing against Andrew’s chair on the way to the door. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Frankie.”

She paused at the door, and took a deep breath through her nose, smelling incense smoke and wood. She didn’t turn around, but she could feel Andrew’s eyes on her back as her anger leached away. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fucking fair, and it made her want to scream and cry and flail the way she hadn’t since she was a little kid raging against something she couldn’t possible move. This was why didn’t believe in God in the first place, because she wasn’t interested in answering to anyone, and now she had to anyway, and it made her feel goddamned sick.

But that wasn’t technically his fault either.

“I’d like to help you,” he said.

“But you can’t,” she replied softly, still facing the door.

“No,” The chair creaked, and she wondered if he was getting up, but there were no footsteps- he’d just shifted. “The Church can’t- not officially, anyway. You aren’t a member, so you aren’t within our jurisdiction.”

He paused. “But?” Frankie said.

“But,” he repeated, “that doesn’t mean I can’t help you on an individual basis. I’ve studied other people who’ve manifested stigmata. I’m familiar with the way it functions. And I have friends within and without the Church who know the way stigmata functions. We can help you. The Church can’t.”

Frankie paused for a long moment before taking her hand away from the doorknob and turning around to face Andrew. He was still sitting in his chair, face studiously blank. “I’m not-” She stuffed her fists in her pockets. “I can’t pay you. And if you’re working outside the Church, they won’t either. You’ll lose your- salary, or whatever it is they give you.”

He hesitated. “That is true, yes.”

“Can I suggest something?” Without waiting for an answer, Frankie leaned against the back of her chair, propping her elbows against it. “Your boss or whoever sent you here, right? And they don’t know any of the stuff I’ve told you.”

He frowned, forehead creasing. “Yes, that’s right. But I’m not sure what you’re-”

“Let me finish,” she said, holding up a hand. “They sent you over to investigate because they figured there was an actual stigmatic running around instead of an atheist who’s just bleeding for no reason. So if you called them back and told them that there was actually something to investigate, they’d believe you, right?” She swallowed as she finished, watching him carefully. She didn’t see anything wrong with the plan, but given that this guy was a priest and she was basically telling him to lie to his boss (and his boss was . . . basically God) she could easily see him taking offense and leaving. Then again, if he did, she’d basically be in the same situation she was before he’d showed up.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and Frankie relaxed, letting her shoulders drop. “You’re right, they wouldn’t.”

“Exactly!” she said. “So you could tell them you had to stay and investigate- if you wanted to- and they’d let you stay here without cutting you off.” She held a hand out. “Shake on it?”

He stood out of the chair and caught her hand in his. “Gladly.”

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