19 — A Short View Back To The Past

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I was six.

I remember because it was the first time I had ever gone to the bathroom by myself.

I mean, not the first first time. Obviously. I wasn't a baby. But the first time I had done it in a church, during a service, without holding my mother's hand.

That was a big deal back then. That was practically a milestone.

"Papa! Mama! I already finished going to the toilet by myself!"

I had rehearsed the line in the bathroom. Three times. I had practiced my posture in the mirror — hands on hips, chin up, chest out. The posture of a girl who had just accomplished something. The posture of a girl who expected praise.

I was six.

I didn't know yet that the world didn't care about postures.

The church was called Lutetia Cathedral. Not the one in the capital — the smaller one, on the outskirts, where my father liked to attend because it was quiet. He said the services there were simpler. He said the pastor knew his name but didn't make a fuss about it. He said he could pray there without people watching him.

My father was the Prime Minister.

I didn't know what that meant when I was six. I just knew that people bowed to him, and that he hated it, and that he always bowed back, deeper, which made them uncomfortable. I knew that he read books late into the night, and that his study smelled like old paper and candle wax, and that he always let me sit on his lap while he worked, even when he was supposed to be busy.

I knew that he loved me.

That was the important part. That was the part I remembered.

The service had been going for about an hour. I had been fidgeting in the pew, swinging my legs, counting the colored squares the stained glass made on the floor. Red. Blue. Gold. There was a gold square right under my feet, and I had decided it was mine. I had decided that if I kept my feet inside the gold square, nothing bad would ever happen.

I was six.

I didn't know yet that bad things didn't care about squares.

My mother had leaned over and whispered that I could go to the bathroom if I needed to. She had said it like it was a test. Like she was trusting me with something important. I had nodded very seriously, the way children do when they want to be taken seriously, and I had slipped out of the pew and walked down the aisle with my hands clasped in front of me like a little lady.

I had been so proud.

I had taken my time in the bathroom. Washed my hands twice. Checked my hair in the small mirror above the sink. Practiced the line again.

"Papa! Mama! I already finished going to the toilet by myself!"

Perfect.

I had pushed open the door and stepped back into the sanctuary.

And that was when everything changed.

The first thing I noticed was the smell.

Not blood. I didn't know what blood smelled like yet. Not really. I had seen blood before — a scraped knee, a paper cut — but I had never smelled it. Not like that. Not in a room.

The smell was metal. Old metal. Like the inside of a coin that had been held in a fist for too long. Like the air after a lightning strike, when everything feels sharp and wrong.

The second thing I noticed was the silence.

Churches are never silent. Even when no one is talking, there's sound. The creak of the pews. The rustle of fabric. The distant cough of an old man in the back row. The pastor's voice, murmuring prayers.

But this silence was different. This silence was full. Full of something that had no name and no shape and no face. It pressed down on the whole room like a hand. It pressed down on me.

I stepped forward.

My feet made no sound.

The gold square was still there. Under my feet. Still mine. But the light coming through the stained glass had changed. The colors were wrong. The red was too red. The blue was too blue. The gold was almost white, and it hurt to look at.

I walked down the aisle.

I don't know why I walked. I should have run. I should have turned around and gone back to the bathroom and locked the door and waited. But I was six. I didn't know yet that there were things you were supposed to run from.

I walked.

The pews were empty.

Not empty like "the congregation has gone home." Empty like "the congregation has been removed." There were still hymnals on the seats. There were still coats draped over the backs of the pews. There was still a half-eaten piece of bread on the floor near the third row, next to a small brown leather bag with a brass clasp.

I knew that bag.

It was my father's travel bag. The one he took to work. The one with the broken strap. I had asked him once why he didn't fix it, and he had said it had character, and I had asked what character meant, and he had laughed.

The bag was lying on its side.

The clasp was still closed.

A bag that had been set down carefully would sit a certain way. A bag that had been dropped would sit another way. This bag sat in neither way. It sat as if someone had placed it there and then stopped existing.

There was blood on the pew above it. Not much. Just a few drops. Just enough to look like spilled juice until you looked closer.

I looked closer.

I don't remember screaming.

I think I might have. I think the sound might have been inside me, the whole time, and I just didn't know how to let it out yet. I think I was still holding it in. I think I was still waiting for my parents to come back and tell me it was a joke.

That was the thing about being six. You believed in jokes. You believed that adults would never do anything that wasn't a joke. You believed that if you waited long enough, someone would come around the corner and say surprise and everything would be fine.

I waited.

No one came.

The altar was empty. The candles were still burning. The pastor's podium was still standing. The great wooden cross behind it was still there, with the little figure of Sophia hanging from it, her arms outstretched, her face carved into something that was supposed to look like peace.

I had always liked that cross. I had always thought the figure looked kind.

That day, the figure looked like it was watching.

I don't know how long I stood there.

Long enough that the candles started to gutter. Long enough that the light through the windows shifted. Long enough that my feet started to hurt from standing in the same place.

And then I heard footsteps.

Not running. Not rushing. Just walking. Slow and steady, like someone taking an evening stroll through a garden. Like someone who had all the time in the world.

I turned.

She was standing at the end of the aisle.

She was tall. Taller than my mother. Taller than my father. Her hair was long and mint-aqua, and it caught the light in a way that made it look almost like water. She wore glasses — round, delicate, the kind my father wore when he read. Her robes were priestess robes, white and gold, the same robes the sisters wore on holy days.

Her eyes were mismatched.

One blue. One gold.

I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know that she was a demon, or that she had killed my parents, or that she was the most dangerous being in the Kingdom. I was six. I just saw a woman in priestess robes, and she was looking at me, and her face was gentle.

She smiled.

"Hello, little one."

Her voice was soft. Warm. The kind of voice that made you want to trust it.

I didn't answer.

She walked toward me. Slowly. Carefully. Like she was approaching a wounded animal. When she reached me, she knelt down, so that her face was level with mine.

I could see her eyes more clearly now. The blue one was kind. The gold one was not. The blue one was the kind of eye that might comfort a crying child. The gold one was the kind of eye that was watching. Measuring. Deciding.

"You're Sylvia," I said.

I don't know why I said that. I don't know where the name came from. Maybe from a book. Maybe from my father's study. Maybe from somewhere deeper, somewhere I didn't understand yet. But the words came out of my mouth like they had been waiting there, and the woman's smile widened.

"No," she said. "But she was me. A long time ago."

I didn't understand.

She reached out and touched my cheek. Her hand was warm. Warmer than it should have been. Warmer than a human hand had any right to be.

"You're so young," she said. "You don't know what happened here, do you?"

I shook my head.

"No," she said. "I didn't think you did."

She pulled me into a hug. Wrapped her arms around me. Held me against her robes. I could smell incense and something else, something metallic, something I would later learn to call blood.

"Your parents are in Heaven now," she said. "They've been forgiven. They're at peace."

I believed her.

For a moment, I believed her.

Because I was six, and a woman in priestess robes was holding me, and she smelled like incense, and she sounded so kind. And I wanted to believe. I wanted it so badly that I would have believed anything.

I closed my eyes.

And then I saw it.

The ribbon.

Her robes had shifted when she knelt down, just slightly, just enough. There was a ribbon tucked into the folds of her inner robe. It was white. It was stained. It was my mother's. I knew it was my mother's because I had seen it that morning, tied around her hair, and she had let me touch it, and she had said it was her favorite.

The woman was still holding me. Still stroking my hair. Still telling me everything was going to be fine.

I opened my eyes.

I looked up at her.

She looked down at me.

And she smiled.

The same smile. The same warmth. The same kindness. But now I could see it properly. Now I could see the way the warmth didn't reach the gold eye. Now I could see the way she was studying me, the way she was watching, the way she was already deciding what to do next.

The woman comforting me was the woman who had taken my parents.

I didn't scream.

I didn't run.

I didn't do anything.

I just stood there, in her arms, with my mother's ribbon pressed against my cheek, and I let her hold me.

Because I was six.

And I didn't know what else to do.

I don't remember how long she held me.

I don't remember how I got out of the church.

I don't remember who found me, or where I went, or what happened next.

The next thing I remember is the parlour. My aunt's parlour. Green walls. Stiff chairs. The clock on the mantelpiece, ticking too loudly, and me counting the ticks, over and over, because counting was easier than listening to the adults talk about what had happened.

They said words I didn't understand.

Extraction. Arrangement. The Demoness.

And once, quietly, from someone who thought I wasn't listening:

The Ancient Demon Priestess.

I hadn't known what it meant then.

I knew now.

I knew the woman who had held me.

I knew the woman who had killed my parents.

I knew the woman who had been teaching at Sophia Academy for ten years.

And I knew that I was going to find her.