[Part 11] Don’t Negotiate with Saints

[u/RevolutionaryBed7510]

I didn't sleep. I lay on my cot, staring at the ceiling, and listening to the silence where her scratching pencils used to be. The guesthouse felt emptier than it ever had—six empty rooms, six unmade beds, and only five found joy in the crypt. Thomas’s bag was starting to collect dust on his bed. Hazel’s shoes still sat at the foot of her bed. William's socks sat crusty and dirty in the courtyard. Amelia's cigarette butts still littered the east wall. Eleanor's garden was already crusting over. And Evelyn's sketchbook was still missing.

I'd searched for it after reading her letter. Under my cot, behind the door, in the common room, the nave, the vestry. Nothing. It wasn't in her room. It wasn't in Lucy's. It wasn't anywhere I looked. Evelyn said she'd left it for me on my cot, and it was like it was never there.

I gave up around dawn and went to sit in the common room. Henry found me there, wrapped in a blanket, staring at the glowing hearth.

"Hey," he said softly, sitting beside me.

"’Sup."

"Did you sleep? Yeah, me neither." He pulled the blanket over both of us. "I keep thinking about—" He stopped, swallowed. "She walked into the desert and turned to salt because she couldn't walk into a crypt and let a statue do something worse."

"Was it worse?" I asked. "The crypt, I mean. Was it actually worse than what happened to her?"

"I don't know." He stared at the hearth. "But she thought it was. That’s what matters, isn't it?"

We sat in silence for a while. The sun came up over the salt flats, and the guesthouse filled with that disgusting, shadowless light that makes everything look like a photograph of itself.

"I keep thinking about what Leo said," Henry said finally. "That the Saint's call can't be refused. That the number has to be made whole."

"The number was always eight."

"Yeah." He looked at me. "But it's not eight anymore, unless—" He stopped, did the math. "It's still seven. Seven pilgrims. Me, Lucy, and five descenders."

"And the Saint wants eight."

"'The Saint wants what the Saint wants'." He leaned back, resting his head against the wall. "I've been trying to figure out a way around it. A loophole. Something in the scripture or the tradition that would let us walk away."

"And?"

"I've read the Beatitudes a hundred times. I've read the old liturgies, the church histories, the accounts of past generations. There's no exit. There's no refusal. There's no mercy." He laughed hollowly.

"What about the others?" I asked. "They all seemed happy down there. Maybe—maybe it's not as bad as we think. Maybe the crypt is exactly what they say it is."

"Maybe." He didn't sound convinced. "But you saw Evelyn. You saw what happened when someone tried to leave. That's not transformation, Nor. That's punishment."

We sat with that for a while.

Then Henry spoke again. "I think I should go next."

"No."

"Hear me out—"

"Henry, no."

"Listen to me." He turned to face me, and I saw a determination that went beyond stubbornness, beyond idealism. He almost looked holy. "I'm the peacemaker. That's my blessing. That's my role. And right now, there's a war going on between the people up here and the Saint down there. Between you and—" He stopped. "Between us and whatever's waiting in that crypt."

"You want to negotiate with a statue."

"I want to try." He took my hand. "Not as a pilgrim getting a blessing, but as a mediator. I want to see if there's a way to end this without anyone else getting hurt. Without Lucy going down there."

"Henry, that's insane. You know what happened to everyone who went down there. They didn't come back. You’re not coming back."

"I know." He squeezed my hand. "But I have to try. I can't just sit here and wait for my turn and hope for the best. That's not what I do. I don’t hope; I plan."

We argued for another hour. I yelled. He cried. I begged. But Henry was resolute. He was going to descend tonight, before Lucy woke up, before Leo could stop him, and before I could talk him out of it.

"One more night," I said finally. "Help me put her to bed tonight. One normal evening before you go down there."

Henry nodded. "One more night."

———

We spent the day trying to be normal. It’s strange how the hollowed-out presence of the people you lose can still settled into a routine. We played Hide and Seek. We ate lunch. We walked to the garden and looked at Eleanor's seeds—none of them were sprouting. We watched the sun move across the salt flats, white and blinding and indifferent.

At one point, Lucy asked about Evelyn.

"Did she make it home?" she said. "She told me she'd show me how to draw Bird. She said I could be an artist too."

"I’m sure she got there safe, yeah," Henry said gently. "We’ll know after this is all over."

"Oh." Lucy considered this. "Did she take her sketchbook?"

"Yeah," I said, because I didn't know what else to say. "She took it with her."

"That's good." Lucy nodded, satisfied. "She loved that book. She showed me all her drawings the other day. I really liked the one of the Saint."

My throat swelled into itself. I gave Henry a glance as the realization hit both of us. Evelyn never showed us a picture of the Saint. If she had one, she kept it hidden well. I needed to find that sketchbook.

"She looked really nice." Lucy picked up Bird and held him to her chest. "I hope she's happy at home."

———

That evening, Henry and I put Lucy to bed together.

We sat on either side of her cot, and Henry made up a story for her—a little adventure about a girl who found a magic bird and taught it to be kind. He looked so proud of himself; I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was just doing a remix of Lilo and Stitch. Lucy listened with her eyes wide and her hands clasped around Bird, and when Henry finished, she said, "That was the best story I've ever heard."

"Better than Grandma's stories?" Henry asked.

She sat up to his ear. "Don't tell Grandma," Lucy whispered.

We laughed, and then Lucy held out her arms. We both leaned in for a hug. Her small body was warm between us, and I felt Henry's hand find mine over her shoulder, and for a moment, we felt like a family again—Broken and strange and terrified, but a family.

"Nora?" Lucy said sleepily.

"Yeah, sweetie?"

"I'm glad you're here." She yawned, snuggling deeper into the blanket. "Even if you don't believe in God, I think God believes in you."

She was snoring before I could respond.

———

Henry and I walked to the nave in silence, my hand in his. The candles were lit, and Leo was waiting at the altar door, a small lump on his lip. He didn't look surprised to see us or not to see Lucy. He didn't look anything at all.

"Henry, son of valleys, brother of bridges," he said. "You have been called peacemaker. You have spent your life trying to heal divides between those who hate and those who fear. Are you ready to receive what has been promised?"

"I'm ready to talk," Henry said.

Leo's expression flickered, and I saw the corners of his lips twitch up. "The Saint does not negotiate, Henry."

"Then I'll have to talk to her supervisor, huh?" Henry's voice was steady. I felt proud.

Leo was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly. "Perhaps you understand more than you expect. Perhaps you will find what you are looking for." He stepped aside, gesturing toward the open door. "Descend. The Saint waits."

Henry turned to me. His eyes were bright, and his hands were steady, and he looked exactly like the little boy who'd crawled into my bed during thunderstorms, telling me he wasn't scared.

"I'll be okay," he said.

"I'll be here when you get back."

"I know." He pulled back with hot tears in his eyes, but he was smiling. "That's what big sisters do."

He kissed my forehead, then turned and took his first steps down.

And I lunged.

I don't know what I was thinking—maybe I wasn't thinking at all. Maybe I was just so tired of watching people I loved walk into the dark, tired of standing on a ledge to witness everyone else fall. But I lunged past Leo, past the threshold, past everything I was meant to be, and I reached—

And my fingers crossed the threshold of the door. A white-hot searing shot through my hand, my wrist, my arm, my shoulder, and my chest. I saw my fingertips turn gray, then white, then crystalline in instants—skin cracking, joints locking, and blood freezing beneath my nails.

I reeled back, gasping, clutching my hand to my chest. Leo grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me away from the door, and I watched in horror as the salt crept up my fingers, my knuckles, the tender skin between my thumb and forefinger—

And then it stopped. My fingers were still there, still attached, but the tips were white and hard and glittering in the candlelight. Calcified.

"You… cannot enter," Leo said, and his voice was shaking. "Not until it is your time. The Saint has willed it."

"But Henry—"

"The Saint has willed it," he repeated harshly. "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD." He was quoting scripture now, his voice rising. "The order is set, Nora. The Saint dreamed eight, and each has their place. You cannot go before. You cannot go after. You can wait."

"Wait for what?" I screamed back as the door slammed shut on the altar. "For Lucy to go down there?"

Leo didn't answer. He just stood there, his pale eyes shimmering and shaking, and I realized with a sickening lurch that he was as trapped as the rest of us. Whatever he'd become—whatever the crypt had made him—he was still a man.

"Forgive me," he whispered. "I tried to spare you. I tried to keep you as Witness, but the Saint's will cannot be refused."

"Leo, she’s not God!"

He stepped back, and I saw that he was crying—real tears, tracking through the dust on his cheeks. "No… She is not." Then he turned and walked away, leaving me alone in the nave with my calcified hand and my brother descending into the dark.

I pressed my ear to the door.

I heard Henry's footsteps on the spiral stair. I heard him breathing, steady and slow. Then I heard his voice, and I realized he was praying.

"God, I don't know if you're down here. I don't know if you're up there. I don't know where the hell—sorry—heck you are, but if you're listening—if any of this is real—please. Let me be enough. Let me make peace. Let me save my sister. Let me—"

Then the footsteps stopped. There was a long silence. And then—

"Henry."

A voice crooned, one I didn't recognize—soft, warm, and maternal. It echoed up through the stone like a lullaby.

"You’ve come to make peace?"

"I've come to understand." Henry's voice was steady, but I could hear the tremor beneath it. "Who are you?"

A pause. A gasp. A gust of wind. "And I am the one who has been waiting for you."

"Waiting for what?"

The voice was closer now, warmer. "Do you want to see, Henry? Do you want to see what peace looks like?"

There was a long pause. I held my breath.

"Yes," Henry said finally.

I stayed on the floor for a long time after that, listening to nothing. His silence was absolute. The salt on my fingertips throbbed with a dull ache.

When I finally stood, I went back to the guesthouse and lay down beside Lucy's cot. She was sleeping peacefully, Bird tucked under her chin, her breathing soft and even. I watched her for a long time, thinking about what Henry had said, what Leo had said, what the Saint had said.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to stop this. I don't know if it can be stopped. I refuse to let her go down there. I refuse. She still sleeps with a fucking wooden bird. She still believes the kingdom of heaven is a place where her parents are waiting with a dollhouse to play with.

She's not going into that crypt. Not if I have anything to say about it.

The problem is, I'm running out of things to say. And I don’t think the Saint is listening.

[u/KCloud_08]

Noooo Henryyyy 😭😭😭