Sneaking in
The insides of the cathedral were cold and ghostly, the only light in sight being from the candles at the altars. The ceiling was lost in the darkness, and their footsteps echoed all around making it look as if there were a hundred of them. Dalia led him to the main altar.
-I like coming here when there’s no one around. It makes me feel as if I were the last person on earth. – she murmured.
Robert felt all his skin raising in goosebumps, there was something that gave him the chills in that building. Maybe it was the light dancing on the faces of the painted idols that made them look alive, maybe it was the cold or maybe it was that smell, a mixture of incense, old stone, and humidity.
-How did you get the key to get in?- he asked her.
-That’s a secret, you’re still not allowed to know it.- she answered tilting her head.
Suddenly he felt a cold current of air behind him as if someone had opened a door. He turned around, but the only thing he could see were the thousands of flames from the candles, throwing flickering lights. It made him feel uneasy.
-I want to leave.- he sounded scared.
-C’mon, don’t be such a chicken! You should see something else.
She took him to a lateral and, through a flight of spiral stairs, to a balcony that opened all around the cathedral. From there he could almost see the shapes of the ceiling, and also most of the cathedral. Seeing it all so empty only made him feel more uncomfortable.
-Don’t you love it?-she told him, excited. –Imagine back then when people would come day and night to pray.
He still couldn’t understand what did she see in all of it. He liked loneliness, but that wasn’t loneliness that was just emptiness, a vast and unbearable emptiness.
-C’mon I want to leave.- he insisted.
-Shhh! There’s someone in here, can’t you hear it? Get down!- she said under her breath.
It was true, there was someone in the nave. First, they heard a pair of footsteps approaching the main altar, and then they could see, through the holes of the cravings, how someone knelt by the first bench as in prayer. After a few minutes, a man dressed in priest’s robes approached the kneeling person and told them something. The kneeling person arose and took off their coat, then they could see it was a middle-aged woman with thick brown hair that tumbled down her back.
-Any news?-asked the priest.
-She’s working on it, she really is.- replied the woman.
-Good, but tell her that we’re expecting some progress soon, she knows what’s at stake.
-I will tell her, father.
-Good, go in peace.- and he disappeared through a door at the right side of the church.
The woman stayed for a few more minutes staring at the altar as if looking for answers, and then she left. Dalia and Robert waited for at least half an hour before daring to move again. Once they were outside the cathedral Robert started breathing easily again.
-Have ever you seen these people before?- he asked trembling.
-No, it’s the first time.- Dalia admitted shaking her head.
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