Legacy of a Dreamer (10 page)

“This is horrible . . .”

She felt her eyes water as each little baby was lifted into a pair of gentle arms, leaving their beds abandoned. She couldn’t help but be disturbed by the scene. Those cribs should offer them comfort, not be a source of their fear.

“This is what we fight for,” Nick said.

“This?” she said, gesturing wide.

“Yes, this. Do you know what you are? What you mean, not just to each and every warrior, but to human kind?”

She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“No, I don’t have a damn clue because you won’t tell me anything!”

A door squeaked as it opened on the opposite end of the room. A priest walked over to one of the nuns, his expression a mix of exhaustion and concern. The nun gestured toward the girl, still crying on her bed.

The priest’s face softened as he saw her sitting there trembling, and made his way over to her, then whispered something into her ear. She lifted her head, her tear-soaked face reflecting her desperation. She nodded in response, and then followed him toward a far corner of the room, where two chairs sat side-by-side.

“What is he doing with her?” Chantal whispered to Nick.

“He is hearing her confession.”

 
“Does that help?”

“Yes.” His answer came quick and without inflection. “Speaking her sins out loud is somewhat cathartic.”

“Her sins? How could she have any? She’s just a child.”

He glared at her with a fierce expression.

“And the things in your dreams, do they leave you feeling the taint of evil and sin when you wake up?”

Chantal was stunned. If she was being honest, she’d never dwelled on her dreams in the past. She hadn’t tried to understand the wayward, sometimes violent images, chalking them up as the overactive imagination of a traumatized girl.

“I don’t remember much about them when I wake up,” Chantal said, feeling horrible all of a sudden. “The details are always a little hazy, but I feel uneasy when I wake up.” She glanced toward the screaming babies, and then back to the priest and girl huddled in the corner. What these girls must go through every night to leave them in such a state . . . it was incomprehensible. Why did they seem so upset by their dreams? What made her visions less vivid than the others?

“Is there a bathroom here?” Chantal whispered, feeling sick all of a sudden. Nick pointed across the room.

She passed a pair of tired nuns, their arms filled with fussy babies, their faces portraying their concern and exhaustion. Each selfless woman gave her a drowsy smile as she passed, but she couldn’t return it.

A shrill cry pulled her attention away, and she turned to see yet another infant girl, waking from a dead sleep to a gut-wrenching scream. Her tiny mouth gaped open, her eyes widened as tears poured from her eyes.

Chantal looked around her, panic clawing at her throat. No one came to comfort her because everyone else already had more than they could handle. Making a quick decision, she went and scooped the baby up into her arms, then rocked her, humming a song her mother used to sing to her when she awakened from one of her nightmares. Not that horrible rendition from her dreams. The one she sang had to do with hope and love, of endless peace and harmony.

As she sang, the baby’s cries ebbed. Chantal smiled when the baby’s huge brown eyes stared up at her. She stroked the soft skin of the girl’s cheek, comforting her, letting her know that she wasn’t alone.

None of them were anymore.

Her eyes started to close, the tension leaving her tiny features. Chantal felt the stiffness leave her small body as she drifted off into a peaceful sleep. Chantal placed a soft kiss on her forehead, wishing she could keep the demons away from her dreams. “It’s you,” she heard a small voice say in awe, and she looked over to see the little girl staring up at her with puffy eyes.

“My name is Chantal,” she whispered, keeping her voice low.

“I know,” the little girl said, smiling for the first time. She was beautiful, her grin lighting up her entire face. “I know who you are. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“For me?” Chantal asked, confused.

“Yes. You are the one who will save me from the bad one,” she said. Her tone held such assurance that it made Chantal’s breath catch in her throat.

“I don’t know who the bad one is, sweetie.”
 

The little girl wrapped her arms around Chantal’s waist, squeezing her in a fierce hug.

“You will,” she said and sighed, resting her cheek against Chantal’s abdomen. “It won’t be long now. He’s coming for you, too.”

“I’m sorry. We don’t have much, but maybe this will fit you.” A soft-spoken nun handed Chantal a bundle of clothing that had been dropped off to the church in a collection for the homeless.

   
“They’re fine, thank you,” she said, flat and unfeeling as she mindlessly took the clothing, her thoughts occupied with the horrific cries of the innocent little girls, although they had all fallen into a peaceful sleep several moments ago.

Mathias watched her as she turned toward the bathroom, her face devoid of expression or emotion. He knew she’d been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours, and asking for more trust wasn’t fair.

But, she had to trust him and his warrior kin. It was his duty to protect her whether she wanted it or not. He could only hope she could continue showing the strength and courage he’d witnessed. Her life would never be the same after tonight. They both knew it.
 

“She seems strong,” he heard a deep voice mutter, and he turned to see the priest staring toward where Chantal had disappeared.

“She is. More than she gives herself credit for.”

“Her presence seems to have calmed the children. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them rest so well,” the priest said and he looked at the sleeping babies. Mathias glanced at the cribs briefly, his attention riveted on the bathroom door, just in case.

“Have you told her?” the priest wondered, turning a questioning gaze to him. Mathias shook his head in response, not meeting the priest’s inquisitive eye. The older looking man laughed humorlessly. “Why is it that none of you can bring yourself to tell these females who they are?”

“Not sure. I guess we’ve seen enough of the darkness this world is surrounded by, declaring a woman doomed to lead a life hunted by evil is something none of us are thrilled to do.”

“So you think it is better coming from a man of God? Makes the blow easier to take?” The priest’s words laced with obvious disapproval. Mathias leveled him with a wry glare.

“Hey, you signed up for this life. We didn’t.”

The priest laughed. “That I did, that I did . . .”

With a soft click, the door to the small bathroom opened. Chantal walked out, her face flushed and smelling of fresh soap. Her dark hair hung in damp strands around her shoulders. She had dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans that clung to her tiny hips. She wore a plain black tank top and held a gray hooded sweatshirt over her shoulder. In a soft-spoken exchange with a nun, she took an offered pair of clean socks and dusty Converse.

Mathias studied her. She seemed so small and exhausted, though held her head high, ready to take on the world. In the years he’d stood guard over her, he’d watched her transform from a quiet, apprehensive girl into a woman who knew how to handle herself if she had to. Chantal had been plagued at night by an unseen enemy, left with baffling memories of her past that did nothing but confuse her further. Her confidence and independence grew out of sheer tenacity as she dealt with her housemother. When lesser women would become introverted, clamming up into a shell of self-preservation, Chantal excelled.

He hated that she would come to realize everything she thought she knew was a lie.

“You care for her,” the priest observed.

Mathias didn’t answer, afraid of the truth. He knew he did care for her more than he should, but admitting it out loud would be a confirmation making him accountable, no longer giving him the option of denial.

“Warrior . . .” the priest probed, making Mathias feel very uncomfortable.

“I’m not your parishioner, old man,” Mathias snarled through gritted teeth. “Do not try to hear my confession.”

His features hardened when Chantal crossed the room, her newly acquired shoes secured onto her feet. As she walked down the center of the room, her vivid eyes searched along the sleeping babies tucked away back into their cribs.

She wrung her hands together in a nervous gesture, approaching the little bed that held the tiny girl named Lydia. The small one watched Chantal with a beatific smile, holding a chubby hand out to her.

“I didn’t want to sleep without you,” Lydia told her as if they’d been friends her whole life. Yet, there the woman sat upon the little girl’s bed with the child’s head in her lap, stroking her hair while she drifted off to sleep.

“It seems so unfair . . .” The words were out of Mathias’s mouth before he could stop them.

“That you care for her, or that she is to suffer what’s to come?” The priest’s question made him aware of his error, both in statement and in action. Shaking his head, he turned to the priest with a half-formed grin.

“Let’s go, old one. It’s time to tell her.”

::§::

Chantal hummed a soft melody while combing through Lydia’s hair. The girl seemed so innocent, so sweet considering all she’d seen, and Chantal wished she could understand why they both dreamed like they did.

If she could take their pain she would. In a heartbeat, she’d bear that burden, but she still didn’t know the cause of it all. She had set her mind to finding out, however. While she cleaned the grime of the alley away in the small shower, she had time to clear her head and think.
 
Chantal would get the answers promised her by Nick from the priest. No more protecting until she understood what he was protecting her from.

“Chantal . . .”

Nick was approaching, resolution on his features. Trailing behind him was the priest who’d taken Lydia’s confession. He smiled at her, kindness in his warm face.

“Hello, there,” the priest said, pulling up a chair beside the bed and taking a seat. “My name is Father Ralph. Mathias has told me a lot about you.”

“That’s funny. He hasn’t told me anything.”

Mathias tensed.

“I’m sure you’re confused, my dear. Many things have happened that can’t quite be explained.”

Chantal shifted, averting her eyes from the priest and readjusting Lydia’s head on her lap. She felt bad for jumping on him the way she did. Her naiveté wasn’t his fault.

How could Nick have let her walk into this room without giving her the slightest hint of what she’d see? What if she hadn’t been able to handle it? She felt blindsided with nothing but secrets and deception between them. It ended tonight.

“Tell me.”

She made the demand simple and direct. She watched him give her a tentative smile, but did not return it. Answers would happen now. Kindness came later, she thought.
 

“You are not quite human, Chantal,” the priest said, his tone serious. Gone was the kindness from before, and even though she felt like her heart was about to stop, she appreciated him getting to the point.

“Explain, please.”

“You are like Mathias, my dear. Your father is one of the Fallen Contrites.”

She stared at the man for several moments, his brusque statement not computing in her mind. She was . . . what?

“That’s impossible. I don’t have gray skin . . .” she said, blinking several times. “My father’s an architect . . . he used to design buildings in the city.”

“No. That is not the truth.”

“What do you mean, ‘That’s not the truth?’ I remember him leaving for the city every week. I remember exactly what he looked like . . .”

But as she said the words, her childhood memories seemed more distant to her than before, more cloudy, like they were shadowed by a hazy fog. She couldn’t clearly remember what he looked like. She couldn’t make out the specifics of her brief life with him, just the stark memory of raised voices in the dead of night remaining sharp and distinct.

“This is crazy,” Chantal said, waving her hands back and forth. Her movements jostled the little girl on her lap, but she quickly went back to sleep. She turned a heated glare in Nick’s direction. “You couldn’t have told me about any of this? Did you think it’d be cool to leave me vulnerable all this time?”

“It wasn’t my place,” Mathias said.

“It’s his place?” she whispered, pointing toward the patient Father Ralph.

“This is not the first time he’s had to do this,” Mathias explained. She took a deep breath, bracing herself to hear the rest. “You waited until now? Why now?” Before he could answer, she turned toward the priest without allowing him to say anything else in his defense. “Just tell me . . . all of it.”

Father Ralph pulled his chair a little closer to her bedside, adopting that compassionate look she’d seen countless times from social workers. She hated that expression, couldn’t stand how it made her feel vulnerable and pitied at the same time. She bit her tongue, though, wanting to hear what he had to say.