Stoker's Manuscript by Prouty Royce

Author:Prouty, Royce [Prouty, Royce]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-06-13T04:00:00+00:00

One finds shelter in the cloistered world of the cloth. The priest gives his life over to his parishioners’ welfare in hopes that his efforts point them and him toward eternal peace. He has faith that the other side of the great curtain holds not only just judgment, but also something that will reward those who have shed earthly pursuits and suppressed their natural desires, in essence serving mankind at life’s buffet table while starving themselves. Underwriting such convictions is the assumption that God is always there, always watching.

Sustenance for the servers comes from daily routine, for as the Don used to say, “The grateful heart, sure of its fate, invites contentment.” She stressed that with material pursuit comes restless discontent, and when one relegates God to part-time, one invites calamity. Such is the difference between those who serve and those seated at the table.

It is perhaps human nature—designed and given by God, mind you—that enables us to believe that if we do our best, project good thoughts, and pursue only that which God approves, then His protective grasp will keep us safe, so long as God is the overseer.

But God was not out there in that forest. No, like the other side of the Acheron, it was a place where the dark one rules and God’s hands do not shape events. Oh, what a skein of events had I spun to invite such calamity into my life.

Trying to stumble my way back to this side of sanity, I bent to wash in the Dreptu River, but could only clean my exterior. Slowly I came to realize that my stained clothes would announce a murderer’s arrival back in civilization, so at daybreak I walked out of the woods and, recalling Sonia’s last message to return to her, approached her house. I knocked softly, and she opened the door with neither surprise nor hesitation. She was already dressed for the day.

I greeted her in the formal way. “ mâna.”

“ rog.” Please. She walked me to the back of the house to the bathing tub and patted a small stack of towels. She left me a change of clothing and pointed to a basket on the floor and said, “Clothes.” The clothes fit, just as the others had, and I joined Sonia in her living room.

Her front door was closed. Where Eastern Orthodox Christianity reigns, so does the Middle Ages superstition that evil spirits ride the breezes. Those prone to such fear live behind closed doors, even in summer’s heat. But Orthodoxy allows no closed-door privacy between unmarrieds, so I stood before the door.

“Would you like the front door open?” I asked, unsure of which would be best.

“No. We speak with no audience,” she said aloud.

I sat on a wooden bench across a table from her where a Bible separated the space between us, the English King James Version.

“You have questions,” she said. I must have looked surprised. “Many years ago, I speak your tongue. Go ahead, ask your questions.”

“Îmi pare .”

“Apologize not to me.

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