DWP - the ghosts of St. George's Cathedral

We have come for you, Gracie.

We have come for you.

Gracie!

Gracie! Come with us!

Come!

The voices still ring in her ears from her dream last night. She feels a tinge of cold air blowing from behind and for a moment she shivers. The damp April air envelopes the whole church and she starts to feel pain in her joints. That and the three flights of stairs would do that to one’s sixty something body. But she wanted to come here, this place where she had spent most of her youth as an orphan. This church was her sanctuary from the cruelty of the outside world. This was where she found solace when the beating and the abuse at her uncle's home and the labourious work at the factory had become too much for her.

Gracie looks down at the rows of empty pews, the five tiered candleholders before the icons on either side of the church near the transepts, the large cross suspended from the ceiling that, in the darkness of mornings like this, gives the perception it floats. Has it been almost fifty years? The stained glass windows depicting various stations of the cross or scenes from the Bible are still the same. Behind her in the balcony, the old ivory organ, no longer in use, seems to emit small voices. She turns around and for a moment it seems she is looking at all of them, the other children, dressed in their blue gowns with large white doily collars, holding their hymn books. At the opposite end of the balcony, she pictures Delores Cashman sitting on the floor. Delores. Pretty, vibrant Delores. How awful that she died that long ago summer inside this very church, in this balcony. She was only twelve years old.

"Gracie, help me," Delores mouths as she lifts her head, her beautiful face drenched in tears. Delores stretches her arms towards Gracie, her hands soaked in blood, and more blood oozing out of her abdomen.

Gracie shakes her head and blinks her eyes. She has come to visit St. George's Cathedral and the ghosts have also come.