The Origins of Miller's Crossing by David Clark

Author:David Clark [Clark, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-17T22:00:00+00:00

18

When William returned back to his and Ainslee’s residence in the Vatican, he found it empty, which suited him fine. He was sure she would have a ton of questions about his first day of “training” and at the moment, he was more exhausted than any day out in the pasture had ever made him. His body wasn’t tired, though, it was his mind. The result of six straight hours, scouring book after book, most of it in Latin, which required Cristobal to explain it to him. Most William understood right away, but some of the finer points required additional explanation.

Their studies covered the theories of life and death, combined with documented studies of spirits and groups of spirits that priests, and others like William, had encountered. Each study appeared to take what they’d observed and tried to fit it into their current view. At first this was a shock to William. They, those he thought were experts, didn’t have a true understanding of what they were doing. This was all just guessing, based on their current beliefs and what they had observed. What was comforting was how candid Cristobal was about it all. William had expected a member of the church to be locked and rigid about their beliefs and how things were, but he was far from it. He was almost logical and scientific in his approach. He took the time to show him the times they’d had to rethink their understanding, to emphasize that it was an ever-evolving topic. Where a high level of uncertainty existed, he pointed it out.

He walked William through the study of Friar Benedictor, a Franciscan monk that, like William, could see them. The friar had had unusual and fortunate encounters with a repeating visitor. After he encountered and contacted the same spirit, in the same spot on the grounds of the monastery, for the third time, he decided to test a theory. Each time he saw the spirit, it roamed up to the courtyard wall and turned, only to encounter the wall on the other side and then turned again. It would repeat this, over and over. Being that the monastery was holy grounds, he hypothesized that spirits are sensitive to holy objects and people. He placed objects in the courtyard, both blessed and not, as his test and control variables. Two nights later, his test subject arrived, and he watched. As always, it wandered around between the walls, but never attempted to avoid any of the objects he had placed around the courtyard, whether they were blessed or not. Concerned his test subject may not be aware of anything but the walls, the friar walked into the courtyard, toward the spirit. When he was close enough, the spirit retreated away from him, several feet. He repeated this several more times, backing the spirit into a corner of the courtyard, against the wall. The friar reached out with his hand and touched it once again, and the spirit disappeared through the very wall he believed had trapped it in the courtyard.

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