🖤All Things Sacred and Profane- Chapter 4 Preview 🖤
From the outside the little book looks so like the leather bound bibles lining the church pews, that you initially mistake it for just that. With all due reverence you pick it up in gentle hands, turning it over just to feel the binding glide beneath your palms. It’s only then that you notice there’s no cross, no Holy Bible emblazoned on the cover. In the bottom right hand corner, burned into the umber leather and stamped with gold foil are the initials R.P.B
You glance to the door, then down at your hands. You’ve time enough to peek.
You can’t figure out how an R could turn into “Bo”, but flicking it open to the first page, you immediately recognize the handwriting as his. You turn to where a red ribbon marks the page with the latest entry. It’s dated three days ago. The morning he jilted you after the storm.
~~~
I am bound by faith and decency to guide this girl along the path of salvation, but everything inside me longs with unspeakable ferocity to do the contrary. When I look at her, my whole body aches with the desire to undo her—twist her into something perfectly and utterly depraved. These thoughts are enough to damn me, but what’s worse is that I have neither the strength nor intention to separate myself from this temptation. If the devil is after my immortal soul, it’s his. Just let me have her at least once in this life.
~~~
“He keeps a diary?” you whisper to yourself.
Why the fuck is that your first thought when the contents are so shocking?
Father Burnham keeps a diary and it is filled with all the thoughts that he cannot utter aloud, not even to the good lord in his infinite mercy. Those dark writhing thoughts without form ignite with clarity in his mind. With each stroke of his pen he puts a shape and a name to the destructive feelings.
Lamb.
Sweet lamb.
My lamb.
It’s you; scrawled all over each page. By the way he writes, it couldn’t be clearer: your presence on the paper is insufficient, you’re even etched inside his skin.
The sharp sound of porcelain breaking expels your heart from your chest and snaps your eyes to the doorway.
Bo stands statue-still, the mug of cocoa he made for you lay shattered at his feet.
He swallows so hard you can hear it. Expressionless he stares you down and says, “Bo is short for Robert, if you were wondering what the R is for.”
It’s not the explanation you were expecting, or the one you need. He doesn’t ask you how much you’ve read. He doesn’t address the problem of biblical proportions, swirling vortex-like around you.
“You should go home.” He says thickly. “I need you to g—”
“Father Burnham,—” you interrupt, “I have so much on my mind, and I can’t deal with it by myself anymore. I want to go to confession. Please, I can’t go on with my conscience this heavy.”
Hearing your petition, Father Burnham grinds his jaw, his features, previously steeled against the legion of conflicting emotions roiling inside him, shift that much closer to hunger.
“I can’t refuse the administration of a holy sacrament. Take your coat, it'll be freezing in the church.”
You wonder if your presence within their quarters at this time of night would really raise any alarms. Would you be able to save face should the senior priest stir? For a moment you can convince yourself that yes, you’re simply a layperson seeking guidance in an hour of need. But as you trail a hair's breadth behind father Burnham, you can’t deny the true nature of your spiritual crisis.
The rectory walls carry sound like all old houses do, jarringly and bone-hollow, making each forward step one closer to discovery.
ATSAP Chapter 4, Coming soon