Page 67 of Sin of the Saints

The elderly woman sitting next to him, on the other hand, is weeping bitterly, and I can feel her grief. Belle told me about her, their housekeeper, the maternal figure in Belle’s life. The only healthy mother figure in her life.

Her father chose an open casket. It’s a wise decision. Belle was stunningly beautiful in life, and in death she finally looks at peace, like she’d found the thing she’d been searching for and managed to part ways with what had haunted her in life. If only the same had been true for me, because Belle was the one haunting me; and not only will her death not leave me, it’s also left a heavier burden.

Was Belle free of her torment? Had God been waiting for her on the other side even though she’d resented Him in life?

I’d very much like to believe that, it could be comforting, but the truth is that this process of seeking out Belle’s faith led me to lose mine. In the end, the words she left behind are the scars I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life, and her death seals the fate of my faith.

When the priest begins speaking, I lower my gaze and open the notebook that had been left among her possessions, before they were taken out of the hospital. I couldn’t let her father or anyone else read the story she’d made up. After all, there was truth in it. It had been her escape. I could tell the difference between truth and fiction, some wouldn’t, and I’d be passing judgment on things that had only happened in her imagination, and mine.

I’m not completely innocent – I feel guilty. I was responsible for her deterioration. She’d been my responsibility and I’dallowed her to sink into her madness. You might say I even encouraged her to do so. I urged her to write even when her imagination sailed away into forbidden territory. I thought that if she came to know them she’d be free of them, purified of them, and that would lead her to the peace she sought. To forgiveness from the one she felt undeserving of. And not because she had no faith at her side, but because she truly and honestly believed He had banished her, that she was forever destined to be damned, transparent among his hypocritical followers.

I told her once that angels walk among us and demons exist within us, and she was the most shining testament to that. She was the first woman to open my eyes to everything I’d refused to see. She was an angel and a demon. Belle was everything to me.

I look around the church and am pleased the administrator isn’t among those present. It would have been a slap in the face if he of all people had attended. I notice Ellis’ golden hair. His face is downcast and agonized, and he presses his hands together, seemingly immersed in prayer.

I wonder who he’s praying for – Belle’s soul, or his own?

I return to her notebook and read her words, her pain, her truth, and I’m having trouble breathing. The word suddenly seems so dark now that she’s gone, and I don’t know where I’ll go from here. The road I’ve paved my whole life has vanished like it never existed. I acted in the name of the Church, I learned to help cast out the demons dwelling in the most lost souls, and I failed.

In her passing I’ve returned to my original state – blindness. And worst of all, I still haven’t solved what precisely led to her end. As if she hasn’t punished me enough, she’s now cursed me with lack-of-knowledge.

The bell chimes and echoes in the hall, and I raise my head so sharply it’s like the knocker has struck right in my heart. The church empties out and Belle’s coffin is gone, all that’s left arethe flames continuing to dance wildly, a very threatening look. I was immersed in reading and my thoughts, and didn’t notice what was happening around me. I stand, dazed, to watch the coffin be lowered into the earth, and a few pages fall out of the notebook.

I lift them and read the title with amazement, written in Belle’s handwriting:The Final Chapter.

Chapter Forty

The Final Chapter

Bellcolor

“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose death1.”

Idon’t know how good I’ll be at this, I’ve confessed in the past that I’m bad at endings, and I still stand behind that. But I’ll try anyway, because if life has taught me a thing or two it’s that they’re unpredictable, and you never know when your last day on earth will be. A person can get up in the morning, head out on a routine day and die for some completely random reason, no matter how many kind or evil acts are attributed to them. And I, who’ve tried to leave my life many times, have failed, and remain. I try to find logic in why that happened to me of all people. Maybe I can find it in this chapter.

Though I began my story with my failed attempt to die, my story actually began the day I realized the demon living under my bed, that people my age were afraid of, actually lived within me, and that the conversations I had with him weren’t just one-sided. When he’d address me, I had no choice but to answer him, or he’d stamp his feet so hard my entire being would shake.

It was all a matter of balance, as always, and I eventually discovered that balance is the one thing I never had. I innocently believed that if I gave him the offerings he demanded, he’d leave me be until the next time he decided to circle me, driven wild by the momentary power he’d achieved over me. I realized it was a necessary sacrifice to grant me a moment’s peace in exchange.

He demanded blood, and I had to shed blood for him until I became his captive. His ceaseless humming only let me be when the blade sliced my flesh, revealing the filth roiling within me, far beyond the fat tissue I had to split in order to reach it. Some might say it’s sick, and they’re right. That’s exactly what I am, a sick and fucked-up abomination.

I don’t remember the exact day I gave the demon his name – Libretto. One day he became my anchor in a world absent of logic. He was my imaginary freedom in my tangible prison.

Children would stare at me because I was different. My father had built up an image in his mind of a girl who couldn’t be further from who I was. Every authority figure in my life tried to fix me so I’d walk the path that had never been mine.

The only one who knew me was Libretto, and when he lived in me I had to live a double life. The one who smiled and tried to please the world, and the one digging deep under the blanket and flirting with the only one who killed and resurrected her at once. I saw him as a curse disguised as a blessing.

In time I learned to conceal Libretto well. Maybe it was his envy that I kept myself just for him, maybe it was the fear of his exposure. I only know that as I did so, I was losing myself; Overtime our relationship changed and he dared take more than he gave me, and I almost ran out of strength to give.

The more I was swallowed into the people around me, I quickly realized I wasn’t special. I learned that people are real experts at creating illusions. A demon lives in every person, dictating the course of their life. This private demon inserts doubt, evokes fear, plants traps on their host’s way to happiness, provides the concrete for building the walls every person raises around themselves. It’s what makes us all fucking hypocrites. The clear distinction between angels and demons began to blur as they all became potential enemies to me.

My downfall occurred when I learned my mother had taken her own life because of me. From the ashes a sense of guilt was born that ended up consuming me and empowering Libretto, until he went out of control. I knew I needed to put a stop to him. And because he existed within me and had become part of me, the only solution I could think of was to end myself.

The frustration at failing the task I’d given myself ignited anger in me, stoked further by not knowing where to direct it besides myself. I was angry at myself and everyone. I searched for someone to blame, believing someone had to answer for it.

And then I found God, or more accurately, the idea of divinity. I envied Him and His ability to erase and create whatever He pleased. And when Dr. Abano forced me to write, I realize the gift of creation isn’t just His. I discovered that Creation was within the power of my imagination.

And yet nothing comes for free, and the power of creation also contains within it the power of destruction. I gave Libretto life beyond me. He became an entity of his own, giving birth to demons more damned than I imagined I could bring into the world. He committed the sin of delusions of grandeur, just like me. I created a plot that ultimately took me over. Who dictated the rhythm of events? Was it I who wrote it, or it that motivatedme to act? The more drawn in I was, the harder it was to differentiate between delusion and sobriety.

---