The rain continued to pour over her as she turned onto a side street and none to soon, because a massive semi was roaring down the main street; with all the water flowing down the streets she was sure to have gotten soaked by.

The side road was mercifully quiet, a relief from the busy road. The ravine continued to her left, and small run-down houses, dark and dank, lined the far side of the road. Her own house was less than a block away.

She usually liked this quiet little street, so close to the amenities of the city, but with its weedy grassless lawns it was almost a suburb. Tonight though, with the rain pouring and the sky an ominous slate grey, being so abruptly alone after the hustle of the main road was unnerving. And then she wasn’t alone. The semi from the main street came growling around the corner, then slowed to a crawl.

Her aloneness was unexpectedly illuminated by the trucks bright lights and she resisted the urge to run like a deer caught in the headlights, for that’s what she was. She reassured herself she had nothing to fear. One of her neighbours was a trucker, and often parked his rig outside his house during a stopover.

As the rig slowed behind her, she felt it couldn’t be him. She couldn’t explain it; just a feeling of cold dread as the rig trailed slowly behind her. A neighbour shouldn’t invoke the feelings of panic that fluttered in her heart. Alice’s brain screamed, run, but she couldn’t make her feet move. She didn’t want to look like fool, running like a frightened kid, so she walked calmly as if nothing was amiss, attempting to keep her dignity. When the brakes squealed and the truck lumbered to a stop behind her, her heart leaped. Again she swallowed the instinct to run and continued to walk. The door of the cab opened.

The driver hopped out first. She immediately smelt the cloying stench of tobacco with a mixture of weed. Then the passenger opened his door and he walked towards her.

“Hey little miss.” The smell of alcohol and vomit rushing from his mouth as he spoke, “Do ya need a lift?” He chuckled softly to himself.

Alice turned slowly towards the two men. Swallowing stiffly replied, “No I just live down there. My husband is expecting me any minute.” Then she turned to walk away.

“Is that right?” the driver, leaning on the cab drawled. Alice closed her eyes and suppressed a sigh, it her neighbour, a man who would know that she lived alone; had no man in her life. She’d been mistaken, nothing felt safe anymore.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think you need a ride, you little witch. Isn’t that right?” he said to his compainion.

“Yeah, she’s the one who thinks she too good for ya’ll, doesn’t she?”

“That’s right, I think she needs a lesson.”

The rain fell heavy and dripped cold droplets down Alice's neck. Her heart pounded in her chest and for a brief moment considered running, screaming, anything, but the two fat truckers moved surprisingly fast and one grabbed her arms pinioning them to her sides, while the over covered her mouth with a crusty foul smelling shirt. They forced her towards the truck and Alice’s eye searched the houses across the street for signs of people at the windows, but there was nothing. The houses were dark. Empty. As they pushed her into the cab of the truck she wondered briefly why her dignity had been so important. “This is going to end badly”; She had one more logical thought before there was blackness.

************

The manse next to the church was always cold. Pastor Donovan pulled on another sweater as he continued to work on his sermon for next Sunday. He yawned deeply and took another swig of coffee laced with bourbon, willing himself to stay awake another hour. It was, after all, only 7:30 in the evening, but he was exhausted. It had been a trying day. All in the day’s work of a pastor, he often reminded himself.

He’d been woken early that morning with a phone call from the hospital. A quiet voice on the other end told him that Lorna Robinson had finally passed away. He’d been expecting the call, and had asked to be notified at once, but he hadn’t expected to be taken seriously and though the death of one of the most prominent and financially endowed widows of his church mattered, it didn’t matter that much at 5:30 in the morning. Grumbling to himself he got out of bed and forced himself to drive to the hospital to attempt to bring some form of peace to her children and grandchildren.

But there was no peace upon his arrival. A nurse guided him towards Lorna’s private room. “She went peacefully in her sleep,” she said in a soft voice. Donovan wondered if she was the same nurse who had called him, or if they were all trained to speak in soft relaxing tones.

Lorna was still lying in her palliative care bed, awaiting transfer to the morgue (they didn’t get up this early, it seemed) and looked like the most serene person in the room. Donovan said a small prayer as he entered, and then said a bigger one as he was assaulted with the bickering voices of Lorna’s multitude of adult grandchildren who were lamenting their cases as to why they, over everyone else deserved, required, or just desperately needed their recently deceased grandmother’s money. They were so busy fighting amongst themselves that no one said hello to Donovan.

“Disgusting”, he said quietly under his breath and went to Lorna’s bedside where he silently prayed while the bickering continued around him. “My sweet friend, may you finally rest easy, away from all these leeches, rest in peace friend, I certainly won’t for a time. And you know why darling girl.” He couldn’t help but grin a little. Lorna herself called her grandchildren ‘leeches’. It was for this very despicable reason that she had changed her will a month ago. Only Donovan and Lorna’s lawyer knew of the changes. Donovan was correct. He knew life wouldn’t be peaceful for himself once Lorna’s Grandchildren learned that she had left all her money to the church.

“Let that teach them to be ungrateful leeches,” she’d said as she’d signed the paper, her hand shaking from the effort, while Donovan looked on as a witness. “Now I know my money will go to something decent.”

Eventually Donovan had enough of listening to his friend’s grandchildren’s’ fighting and he left the hospital. They had barely noted his presence anyway. He returned to the manse and was considering a morning nap, when the phone rang. It was Donna Philips, a member of the church. She was frantic and crying so hard that Donovan had a hard time understanding what she was saying. Finally he was able to make out something about Donna’s daughter, the Channel 8 News and how cold it had been last night.

He turned on the TV and flicked it to the local channel. After a few moments of watching his legs turned weak and he collapsed into a chair and dropped the phone. It hung itself up in the fall. A picture of Donna’s daughter flashed across the screen; then the TV changed to a scene of a bramble filled ravine where rescue workers and paramedics swarmed about. There were ambulances and fire truck with their lights flashing in the background.

The reporter, a woman with perfect blonde hair, stood in the foreground, she held a mic in a leather-gloved hand and an umbrella with the other. She was speaking, “…the young women’s body was found in this ravine only a block from her home. Reports indicate that she was on her way home from work, when she was assaulted and left for dead in this ditch. Authorities state that she was most likely alive when she was abandoned, but with last nights rain and the low temperatures it was impossible for the half naked woman to survive.”

The TV screen moved back to the newsroom. “Do the authorities know why this woman might have been a target?”

“Yes, they think that it may have been someone she knew. She was known to have some diverse beliefs and her neighbours say that she believed in the devil and worshipped him.

“The devil, Linda?” the news anchor asked incredulously.

“Yes. We must remember Kevin that this neighbourhood, though low income and perhaps a bit neglected by the city, has strong Christian roots. The woman, whose name I’ve been told was Alice Philips, was involved with the Cult of Wicca. A type of witchcraft, I believe, and in this neighbourhood that’s considered to be devil worship.”

“So this attack could be religiously motivated?”

“Yes. We have seen that religiously motivated attacks have been on the rise in this city. It is fair to say that this is another; especially when you consider the profane way in which her body was left and the markings cut into her body.”

“Pardon me Linda? Markings? I must, at this point, remind viewers that some of the following images maybe disturbing.”

“I have it from a reliable source, Kevin, that Alice's body was left near naked in a small grove among the brambles. She had a number of crosses and other possibly religious symbols cut into her skin. The assailants also wrote on her body with markers. The nature of those writings are, well I can’t share them on TV Kevin.”
Donovan watched some brief half formed images flash across the screen. He felt physically ill. He had known Alice, before she’d left the church. Her mother sang in the choir, they’d been going to St. Stephens for years. It had saddened and confused him to see such a good girl stray so far from the church with her strange and frightening beliefs.

Alice's interest in the occult had also frightened Donna, who had come to Donovan many times to talk about her concerns for her daughter.

And now, there she was, reduced to ‘the body’, a victim of some horrid hate crime or perhaps dark ritual gotten out of hand. Her death was a violent, fearful thing made sensational for the TV news. Donovan flicked the TV off and sat, his breathing heavy and hard for a moment. Then the phone rang again.

He picked it up in a daze, listened for a moment, “Yes, Alice did go to our church.” Pause. “No, she stopped attending a few years ago.” Pause. “No, I wouldn’t like to comment for the evening news. Goodbye,” and he hung up.

He spent the rest of the day in a kind of stupor. He knew he should call back Donna and perhaps even go to her house. But he found himself resisting. He wanted to distance himself from this family and their grief. He struggled with feeling sadness for the family and revulsion from the thought “She deserved what she got.”

His thoughts made him feel ill, but the more he tried to push it from his head, the more he thought about it. Alice had left the church and chosen a dark and evil path. Her death didn’t bring him sadness, but a sort of relief that one more of those morally corrupt people were gone. He knew in his heart that these thoughts were uncharitable and had anyone asked he would say she, like all of God’s creatures, deserved respect and Jesus’ love. But, he wondered, was she still one of God’s creatures? She had turned her back on Him. Maybe that’s why this happened to her.

It was all too confusing. He poured himself a drink of bourbon and tried to distract his thoughts with next week’s sermon. He couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t focus, so he rose from his chair and made some coffee, lacing it liberally with bourbon before resuming his work.

The coldness of the manse seeped into his body and even after pulling on another sweater, and reheating his coffee, he still couldn’t get warm. Shivering he gave up on his sermon and went to bed. He drifted in and out of a half-sleep, half-dream state his mind replaying the scenes he’s witnessed that day. It was all too much and he suddenly felt very overwhelmed and sick. He rushed to the bathroom to vomit, but missed. Vomit splashed onto the floor, he barely noticed as he aimed his next purge towards the toilet.

The pastor knelt there a long time alternately willing himself to stop throwing up and wishing he could complete the purge and crawl back to bed. He almost had his gore under control when errant thought entered his brain, Donna will want me to do the funeral. The repugnance of that made him lose all composure and he vomited again and again until only dry heaves were left, but still his stomach wouldn’t settle.

He lay on the cold tile well into the night. The chill soothed him and he pressed his cheek into it like it was a soft pillow. Eventually exhaustion and the reek of vomit, made him struggle to stand up. His only desire was for his warm bed, he thought no more of Alice or her gruesome death. He thought only of himself as he moved towards his bed and at the same time pulled his vomit soaked shirt from his body. He walked across the bathroom floor, half in and half out of his shirt, and then his toes squished into the vomit all over the bathroom floor.

“Oh God,” he gasped as his foot slipped out from under him. This is going to end badly, he thought as his temple crashed into the corner of the counter. His body hit the floor heavily before there was blackness.

************

Someone was screaming. Someone, somewhere in the blackness, was screaming, though whether it was screams of joy or screams of terror he couldn’t be sure. Donovan slowly opened his eyes. He wasn’t in his bathroom on the floor as he expected. He wasn’t anywhere that he recognized at all, and all the time this screaming, somewhere in the background. Maybe it wasn’t even real, but all in his head. Maybe it was him, he suddenly thought. He attempted to move but his body ached in protest, so it could be him screaming. But why, and where was he?

As he lay there, the screaming stopped. In fact, he realized as the strange fogginess slowly drained from his brain, it wasn’t screaming at all, it never had been. It was strange chanting and wailing, like he’d heard nomad women doing once on TV. The undulating of their voices contained no words, at least no words in a language he could understand, but contained a resonance that vibrated deep in to his bones. It did feel like his bones were singing along with these voices, but why? Why were they chanting in the first place? He couldn’t get past this seemingly all-important question. He couldn’t move on until he found an answer.

He tried again to sit up. This time he managed it, but his head throbbed and his limbs shook with the effort. It was going to be awhile before he could stand. He looked around and saw that he was in an utterly unrecognizable place; he couldn’t even describe what it looked like. His first impression was that he was in a cave, but as his eyes focused on the walls they changed, from rocky granite to stones, hewn, cut and mortared together. It looked like a cathedral. But soon after that the walls changed to wooden beams, then to trees themselves. Nothing stayed the same in this place.

Donovan spent a long time just watching the sky above him change from ominous gray rain clouds, to the high vaulted ceiling of a great church, then to an open starry night time sky, and then a bright blue sky where swallows wheeled and soared on an unfelt breeze. He didn’t understand it, but was starting to not really care.
After a time he realized that the screaming or chanting had stopped and he had stopped caring where he was or how he got there. He felt almost completely at peace, except that his head continued to hurt. He reached up and touched his temple. It was wet and sticky. Pulling his hand away he saw that it was blood. Then it all came rushing back to him, the drinking, the sickness, the vomiting, the falling.

“Oh God,” he groaned. “Am I dead? Is this heaven?”

“It sure looks that way,” a voice said to his right. Startled, he looked and there stood Lorna.

“Lorna? Is that you? What the heck is going on here?”

“Is that anyway for a pastor to speak?” she grinned. “Now come on dear, you know it’s me. I know this must seem very strange, but you’ll get used to it. It’s actually kind of nice. Did you see my leeches after I died, Father Donovan?”

“My apologies Lorna, I didn’t mean to—”

“Oh shush. Everyone gets a little testy when they first arrive it’s natural, especially when they’re not expecting too. And I hear that you were not expected. Now tell me about my lovely leeches, did you see their faces when they read the will? Oh I would have liked to have seen that.”

“I never got the chance. I was at the hospital the morning you died, then I came home and—and now I’m here.”

“Oh dear that was fast. No wonder you’re so confused. Come on, why don’t you see if those legs work and I’ll show you around.”

Donovan looked at his legs. He willed them to move, but they didn’t respond, not at first. Soon, with a little help from Lorna who was remarkably strong for an 89-year-old lady, he was able to stand and take a few tentative steps.

“Is this heaven?” he asked Lorna.

“Not exactly, not yet. This is sort of a no mans land. A place to get your bearings before moving on, as they say.”

“Like purgatory?”

“They don’t like that word so much around here, but if it helps, yes.”

“Where do we go? Are there gates, a big book of my sins and virtues somewhere?” He seemed almost eager.

Lorna laughed, and then said, “Oh dear, you were serious. No I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. Come, it’s better just to see.”

Lorna began to walk away and Donovan quickly followed. His legs were working quite well now and even the pain in his head had diminished. As they walked, with no destination that Donovan could perceive, he began to notice other people. They were all engaged in some type of activity. No one looked as lost or displaced as he felt. In fact they all seemed perfectly comfortable in what they were doing and paid no attention to him as he and Lorna walked along.

At first it was just so odd seeing people, that he paid little attention to what they were doing or who they were. But as he walked with Lorna he began to notice differences. They were little at first, and he thought perhaps that he was just seeing things, but the longer they walked the more he perceived. One group stood out more than the rest. They wore saffron coloured robes and sandals on their feet. They all sat silently in a circle, unmoving, as if they were meditating. Next to them another group of men knelt on the ground. They were all facing the same direction and had their heads bent in fervent prayers. They raised their heads in unison chanting in a language he didn’t know.

“Stop staring, it’s rude.” Lorna said.

“But, those are—and they are—” he pointed to each group in turn.

“Yes those men are Buddhists, and they are Muslims, they’re all praying. Though how they can tell which direction faces Mecca around here is anyone’s guess.” Then, ignoring Donovan’s shocked face, Lorna leaned in and whispered with a conspiratorial tone, “Maybe they have some inside information about that, eh?” and she laughed at her own joke.

“What? What do you mean? What is this place? I thought you said this was no-mans land? But I just saw—I thought—”

“Can’t say it, can you?” Lorna ask exasperated.

“Can’t say what?”

“Can’t say that every fibre of your being believes that those men over there should be in some violent brimstone stenched hell, while you, with your good Christian upbringing should have a harp, a pair of wings and be sitting on His right hand, eh?” Donovan’s face was blank and he said nothing.

“And now you’re wondering, if that’s true, and I’m in the same place as them over there, than maybe you’re in hell? You’re wondering, maybe I screwed up, wasn’t good enough and I ended up underneath. And now you’re wondering where the appeals office is. Am I right?”

Again Donovan just stared at her. “It doesn’t work like that. I was just as shocked when I learned, too. But it’s the truth. There’s no book of sins. No rules of judgment. Nothing like that.”

“But, then how are the choices made? Who decides?”

“Decides what? There’s no choice. No heaven or hell. There’s just—” and Lorna paused. Perhaps she was lost for words; perhaps she realized that Donovan just wasn’t ready to hear the word she was going to say.

“That makes it too easy.” He said, deflated and suddenly very scared. He couldn’t explain the fear he felt. Emptiness filled his soul and it frightened him. If there wasn’t a heaven, if there wasn’t a hell, then what would he do now? He’d expected something more. His whole life, every choice he’d made had been based on this final outcome. Hell terrified him. He’d strived his whole life to be a good person, to do the right thing so he wouldn’t go to hell. And now… and now there was no heaven, no reward and Lorna was telling him there was no punishment. This terrified him all the more.

“I,” he turned to Lorna, his face pale and cold. “I—I think I’m going to be sick.” And he crumpled to the ground.

“That’s the nice thing about this place. No more vomiting.” Lorna said with a slight smile. But she knelt down next to the pastor and stroked his back until the colour returned to his cheeks.

“That makes is too easy,” He mumbled again.

“This certainly doesn’t look easy.” Lorna replied in her usual tone.

Donovan looked at her and grinned. “I suppose so.” He was about to say something else when a person he recognized caught his eye. “Alice,” he said and stood up.

Sitting hunched against a wall, or a tree, was Alice. Donovan recognized her immediately. She sat alone, head down and the people walking by avoided looking at her.

Donovan walked to her and crouched down next to her. “Alice? Alice do you remember me? I was the pastor at your parents church, St Stephens.”

Alice looked up. The marks from her death were still visible. Donovan tried to keep his expression neutral but it was impossible. His reaction to Alice clearly showed how brutal her death had been.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped.

“I had an accident.” Donovan replied without thinking.

“No I mean here. What are you doing here? I though you people had your own place.”

“Our what?”

“A place for all the perfect ones. A place where you could all be together and leave the freaks and sinners alone,” she said with a sneer.

“I was told it didn’t work like that.”

“Go away.” She said and her head dropped back down. Her hair fell forward covering most of her wounds.

Donovan stood and turned to where Lorna was waiting, “She died horribly, Father, the adjustment may take longer.” She explained

“But what about what she was?” Donovan asked.

“And what was she?”

“Well, she was a sinner. She turned her back from God. Isn’t there—isn’t there any reprisals for that?”

“No.” Lorna said.

“That’s it then?” Donovan. “That’s all there is? Her and I in the same place? None of it mattered? People back there can worship whom they please, do as the please, sin and there’s nothing, no consequences afterwards?”

Lorna frowned and looked at Alice and sighed. “Of course there are consequences. She’ll always look like that. She’ll carry those wounds for eternity. Even when they heal on her face and body she’ll carry their imprint in her soul forever. You may not believe it, but it wasn’t her fault what happened to her. But she’ll carry the scars anyways. That doesn’t seem fair to me.”

“But what about in life? I worked so hard. I believed in salvation. I helped people achieve that. Even you.”

“And you don’t think Alice achieved salvation?”

“She turned her back on the church. She gave up that right.”

“You know Father, for a pastor, you’re not very bright. I’ll give you that this is all new, and a rather shocking turn of events for you, so I’ll explain. Salvation isn’t a right. It’s a gift. God doesn’t judge by what or how you worship, just that you do, whatever form that may take. Salvation is the gift of faith. Look around you. Everyone here had enormous amounts of faith. They carried it like a bag that never got too heavy. It was a joy to be burdened with. And everyone here carried it willingly and with happiness.”

“Faith, Donovan, that’s what separates people. And sometimes faith is shown in ways we may think strange or even wrong. People find faith in all manner of ways. But that’s not our place to judge, is it Father? If the Almighty has faith that Alice belongs here, shouldn’t we trust that? Her faith was strong. Right up until the end. Even after everything those men did too her, her faith remained strong. Maybe she cried out using a different name than we might have in her situation. But she was heard just the same. God always listens Donovan. He doesn’t care if we use a different language or a different name. God heard Alice's pain and heard her cries for help and brought her the comfort she seeked.”

Donovan turned back to Alice. She remained huddled on the floor, her back up against the tree or wall, her hair hanging down in front of her face.

“She’s suffered enough, don’t add your condemnation too it, Father.”

Donovan looked around. It was so quiet, so still, as if the world had caught it’s breath, waiting for him to accept everything Lorna said. It angered him. Everything about Alice enraged him, her stillness, and her silence, her being here at all. She took from him the glory that should rightfully be his and his alone. Hadn’t he been a good man? Hadn’t he lived by the commandments of his God everyday? Hadn’t he repented every time he broke His laws?

“Why does she sit so still?” he cried, furious by her complacency. “Why isn’t she begging for forgiveness? Why isn’t she on her knees pleading? How can she be so calm?” Alice didn’t move.

Lorna slowly put her arm around Donovan’s shoulders and tried to lead him away. How could she explain it to a man so closed? Why couldn’t he see? She thought to herself. Better just to walk away, she decided as she led Donovan from the grove of trees.

To Donovan it seemed as though the world had gone unexpectedly black, and he was blind. His temple throbbed with pain and he no longer felt the comfort of Lorna’s arm around him. He dropped to his knees, clutched his hand to his forehead and screamed. The pain was so great that is nauseated him. He heaved, and then heaved again his empty stomach provided no relief. He heaved until sweat beaded on his face and hands. He lay on the floor willing himself to be truly dead, refusing to believe that this was it. Lorna stood over him and thought quietly, This is going to end badly.

************

Time passed in the odd undulating waves that were the only excuse for time in the world where Donovan now lay. Trees shifted to bricks, then to pillars and back again, while he lay on the floor. Lorna disappeared, but Alice remained, still and silent and for that reason alone Donovan refused to move from his prostrate place on the ground.

Eventually even Alice faded away among the wavering trees and Donovan thought he was alone. To be sure, he lay there a while longer with his eyes squeezed shut. He willed this world to be the Heaven he had always believed in. Finally he opened his eyes and sat up. Looking around he saw that he was in the same place he’d always been, only now it was different. There was no waiting, no stillness of anticipation. The world had moved on and he was alone, abandoned.

Standing, he unconsciously brushed at his pants, expecting to sweep off accumulated dirt and dust from his long interlude on the ground. There was no dust, but he didn’t notice. Instead he watched the trees performing their endless dance and the swallows wheeling overhead.

After a while he began walking, aimlessly at first, but then with more purpose. Perhaps if he walked far enough he would find the heaven he seeked. When walking brought him nowhere, he thought perhaps running would take him where he needed to go. So he ran. He ran for hours, perhaps even days, time meant nothing in this place, but it never changed. It was never any different and he never found the gates that would lead him to his salvation.

************

He hurried passed people he had known once: Lorna, sitting with the Saffron Robed men; Alice, scarred, still sitting against a tree, but smiling. He paid them no heed and continued his search. He continued to run, continued to look for his God, and the longer he searched, the more forsaken and abandoned he felt. He never tired, never got hungry or thirsty, nor did he think of these mundane matters.

God was out there waiting for him to find Him, and he must. He had too his salvation depended on it. Surely God knew that and was waiting, just around the corner, just around that one, or maybe the next one. Always he was positive God would be there waiting with open arms, but always he was left disheartened. There was nothing around the corner, no one there to greet him and welcome him into heaven. It was always the same places he had seen and rushed past before.

God wasn’t there. God couldn’t be found.

Crying Donovan fell to his knees. There is no God, he cried. He was alone and he would never know the freedom of finding Him.

He wept.

************

“I can help you,” a voice said. “You will never find what you seek.”

Donovan was startled but didn’t move. “God has forsaken me,” Donovan replied without looking up.

“God does not forsake his children. He loves them forever.”

“How would you know, you turned your back on Him,” he said to the scarred girl who stood at his feet.

“I know how you would see it that way. But God doesn’t. My choices of worship were between myself and Him,” she replied.

“If you have all the answers, what must I do to find God? How do I get out of here, away…“ he stopped himself.

“You mean away from me? You don’t,” she said. “God isn’t out there, over there somewhere,” she continued gesturing with her arm. “You don’t find him by running, surely you know that. How did you find God in life? Where was he when you needed Him then?”

Alice walked away. And it was after she was gone that Donovan realized that her wounds were healed. They were still there, scars and shadows on her skin marking her as one tested, and redeemed? She was beautiful again. He reached up too touch his temple. His fingers came away sticky with blood. His head throbbed. How could that be? Alice healed and his wounds remained? It didn’t make sense, none of it, and he felt the rage building in him again. The images of Lorna sitting with the saffron robed men roared though his head; Alice healed and smiling, the trees, the temples, the cathedrals that were all the same, it was all too much and he let himself fall back to the ground.

Alice's words, “God isn’t out there… God never forsakes his children…” flowed though his head. What did she know? Where did I find God in Life? What did she know about his relationship with God? She didn’t understand that he felt God deep in his soul, felt it like a comforting warmth that came both from inside and all around him at the same time. She would never know that sort of peace. The grace of knowing God was with you, in you, always.

All at once the world stopped. The trees froze; the birds in the sky became stones and dropped to the ground. Nothing moved, nothing changed and for a moment Donovan felt nothing, there was nothing to be felt. A void surrounded him and gnawed at his soul leaving it bare. It frightened him, but being back where he had been frightened more.

There was stillness, a stillness that reminded him of Alice when he first arrived. God. God! he cried in his heart. And God was there. God was with him filling the darkness. God had not deserted him. What had been outside him now lay within: God, Alice, Lorna, the trees and Cathedrals. The swallows in the bright blue sky were deep inside and surrounding him. The trees began their dance once again. The stillness of Alice became his, as he lay encompassed in the arms of his Lord.

This stillness of Alice was God.

Overhead the swallows soared.