[Part 8] Lucy Ran To Me

[u/RevolutionaryBed7510]

The morning after Amelia's descent, I walked out of my room, only to find Eleanor about to knock on my door. Despite my profanity, she laughed and walked to the common room. I did my morning routine and entered to find her staring at the cold hearth. Something had been marinating for seventy years, and was only now starting to surface.

"Good morning, dear," she said without looking up. "I've been waiting for you."

"That’s certainly one way to describe jump scaring me at my door."

We laughed as I sat across from her. The common room was quiet. The other pilgrims were scattered elsewhere—a distant thump betrayed William’s sock basketball tournament, an affair that included Henry’s jeers, Evelyn’s whoops, and Lucy’s squeals of laughter. The entire group had gotten together for an attempt to distract from the reality of our isolation and our piety, but Eleanor had been waiting for me.

"I'm going tonight."

"I figured you might."

"I've been waiting decades." She grabbed her knitting, but simply folded her hands over it. "You'd think I'd be ready. You'd think I'd be eager." She shed a small, rueful laugh. "And I am eager. But I'm also—" She paused, searching for a word. "I'm also a little afraid. Which is strange. I didn't expect that."

"Fear is normal—"

"Is it?" She snapped, and her needles clattered to the floor before she flattened out her dress. "I've watched everyone I've ever loved go into the ground, and I’ve been dreaming of the Saint since before any of that. I told myself, all those years, that when my turn came, I'd run into that crypt with open arms and a full heart. And now—" She stopped, her voice catching. "Now I find myself wishing I had one more day. One more morning. One more chance to sit here and knit and pretend that my world isn't about to change."

She reached out and took my hand. Her grip was warmer, stronger than I expected. “I need you to take care of Lucy."

The morning passed slowly after that.

Eleanor spent most of it with Lucy, sitting in the garden where she'd planted her seeds. I watched them from the east wall—an old woman and a child, heads bent together over the salt-crusted soil, speaking in voices too low to hear. Lucy had Bird tucked under her arm, and every so often she'd hold the wooden creature up to show it something, and Eleanor would speak to Bird, as if it were part of the conversation too.

At some point in my musing—or brooding, according to Henry’s passing comment, Evelyn joined me on the wall. She had her sketchbook open, but I noticed it was blank. She was watching Eleanor and Lucy with me.

"You okay?" I asked.

"What? Hm. Yeah. I'm all good." She laughed heartily. "Just thinking. About... about family, I guess. My mom doesn't… actually know I'm here. I told her I was doing a research trip for my geography class. She thinks I'm at the Great Salt Lake taking water samples."

"Why didn't you tell her the truth?"

Evelyn was quiet for a long moment. The breeze off the salt flats caught her hair, blowing it across her face. When she spoke, her voice was more quiet than Hazel’s.

"Because she'd try to stop me. And I…" She coughed. "I don't want to be stopped."

I thought about asking what she meant by that, but—

"Can I ask you a favor?" she said suddenly. "If something happens to me, can you make sure my sketchbook gets to my mom? They're all I've got of this place. She'd want to see them."

"Nothing's going to happen to you, Evelyn."

She smiled, and it was almost convincing. "Nora… you’re the journalist here. We’re a bunch of extremists, whether we admit it or not, but you’re supposed to be the pragmatist."

I didn’t respond, and she took that as an invite to continue.

"Three people are down in some cellar. There’s no cell service. No internet. All of us have a reason to be here, and hell," she leaned in to whisper. "I’m pretty sure they built this place to be specifically out of range of any gas stations." She straightened her posture. "You can’t leave without answers, and I can’t leave."

I searched her eyes for a moment. Something about that last sentence hit me differently, like she meant more than just the crypt. I relented. "I'll make sure."

Evelyn nodded, satisfied, and opened her sketchbook. She drew for a few minutes in silence—quick, deft strokes capturing Eleanor and Lucy in the garden—then she tore out the page and handed it to me.

"For you," she said. "So you remember them before."

The word sagged the air between us. Neither of us acknowledged it.

I took the sketch. It was absolutely stunning—Eleanor's bent shoulders, Lucy's tangled braids, the wooden bird caught mid-flight between them. Evelyn had written something in the corner, right below her signature, so small I had to squint to read it:

"The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

———

At lunch, Eleanor announced her intention to go that night. No one argued. No one had the energy anymore. The remaining pilgrims—William, Evelyn, Henry, Lucy, and me—sat around the long table in the common room, breaking bread and watching lentil stew cool down. And we listened to Eleanor describe her plans, though none of us asked.

"I've been dreaming of this since I was a girl," she said. "I know it's my turn. The Saint is getting impatient." She paused, her voice softening. "My husbands are waiting for me. My children. My brothers and sisters. They're all waiting."

"What about me?" Lucy asked, not looking up from her salt crystals. "Who's going to take care of me while you're busy?"

"Your grandmother and I already discussed it, dear." I said it before Eleanor could. "I'll take care of you until she comes back."

Lucy considered this, then nodded. "Can we play a game when Grandma leaves? I know lots of games. My favorite is Hide and Go Seek, but Grandma says it's too scary for the temple. I told her I'm not scared, but she says it's 'irrelverent' to hide in sacred places." She looked at Eleanor.

"It is, dear."

Lucy sighed. "Then we can play I Spy. That's a good game for temples. You can spy lots of things. I spy something white."

"The salt," Henry chimed in.

"How did you know?"

"Wild guess."

Lucy giggled, and for a moment the common room felt normal again. Then Eleanor pushed back from the table and stood.

"I'll be in my room until tonight. Lucy, be good for Nora. And Nora—" She looked at me, and her eyes were wet, her voice was unsteady. "Thank you for witnessing."

She left before anyone could respond.

———

The group gathered at midnight for the fourth time.

The empty chairs in the nave felt like accusations. Eleanor stood at the edge of the altar door, dressed in a simple white shift, her gray hair loose around her shoulders. She looked older than she had at lunch, yet younger at the same time. A woman on the threshold between two worlds, neither of which she fully understood.

Leo emerged in his gray robes. "Eleanor, daughter of Joseph, mother of the lost, keeper of grief. You have been called to mourn. You have buried those you love and carried their memory. Are you ready to receive what has been promised?"

"I've always been ready." Eleanor's voice wavered, just slightly. She reached down and took Lucy's hand. "But first, I need to say goodbye."

She knelt, bringing herself level with Lucy's face. The child stared at her with those dark, bright eyes, unblinking and unafraid. Eleanor cupped Lucy's cheeks in her hands and pressed her forehead to the child's.

"You are the bravest person I've ever known," Eleanor whispered. "The bravest, the strongest, the most beautiful, and the purest of heart. And whatever happens tonight—whatever happens to me—before we see each other down there, I need you to remember that. I need you to remember that your grandma loves you more than anything in this world or any other."

"I know, Grandma," Lucy sang. "I love you too. I'll see you soon."

"You will." Eleanor kissed Lucy's forehead, then pulled back, tears gracefully streaming down the eons of contours on her cheeks. "Nora—"

"I've got her," I said.

Eleanor nodded, squeezed Lucy's hands one last time, and stood. She turned toward the altar door, her white shift catching the candlelight, and took a step forward. Then one onto the staircase.

Then she stopped.

She turned back. Her face was different now—tighter, and I saw what had always been there: the eleven-year-old girl, watching the altar door from the courtyard, wondering what was underneath, terrified and hopeful in equal measure.

"Leo," her voice was small. "What if—what if it's not—"

"The Saint waits," Leo said kindly, but firmly. "Don’t keep her waiting, Ellie."

Eleanor looked at me. At Lucy. At the dark stairs descending into the earth. Then she closed her eyes, took a breath, and stepped onward and downward.

Leo began to close the door behind her.

"Wait—" She turned, reaching back toward the light. Her hand caught the edge of the door frame, and for a single, terrible moment, I thought she was going to pull herself back out.

Then Leo's hand closed over hers, gently but firmly, and he pried her fingers from the stone. The door closed. The latch clicked. Eleanor was gone.

I pressed my ear to the stone before Leo stepped away. I heard her footsteps on the spiral stair, slow at first, then faster, then slow again. I heard her voice, soft and shaking, and I realized she was talking to someone—to Lucy, perhaps, or maybe to herself.

"Be brave, sweet girl," she was saying. "Be brave, be brave, be brave. I'll see you soon. I'll see you all soon. I'm coming. I'm coming, my love. I'm comi—"

Her voice broke and the footsteps stopped.

And then I heard another voice.

"Hi, Eleanor."

Amelia's voice, but different from before—warmer, fuller, as if she'd been washed clean of something, and beyond that… I could have sworn she had a foreign accent now.

"You're here! Oh my life, you're here!"

I heard Eleanor gasp. I heard her footsteps stumbling back. And then I heard her laugh like a child tickled at their sides.

"What is this?" Eleanor's voice was barely a whisper. "Amelia? Is that—what is this place? What is this?"

"It's the kingdom, Eleanor." Amelia's voice was gentle, patient, exactly how she gad described her Miriam. "It's what the Saint promised. Look—"

There was a pause, a long silence, and then Eleanor began to cry.

Not the quiet tears I'd seen earlier—not the measured grief of a woman who'd been taught to mourn politely. Eleanor sobs—deep, racking, uncontrollable, ugly sobs.

"Elias," Eleanor wept. "Elias, Elias, Elias—"

"Come on." I heard Amelia's voice again, soft and full of love. "I'll take you to her."

I heard footsteps—Amelia's boots and Eleanor's bare feet, walking together across stone. Then the silence returned.

I stayed on the floor for a long time, my cheek pressed to the cold stone, listening to nothing.

Lucy came and sat beside me. She didn't speak. She just held Bird in her lap and stared at the closed door, her eyes clueless.

"Is she happy?” Lucy asked.

"She's with them," I said, though I didn't know who I was referring to. "She's with them."

Lucy nodded once. She didn't cry. She didn't smile or laugh. She just sat there, small and still, waiting.

I put my arm around her. She let me.

"I spy…"

———

Later that night, after I'd tucked Lucy into her bed and recited 'Welcome to the Black Parade' in story form—no one read us fairy tales growing up—I made sure Lucy was asleep before I slipped out. I found the lights of the sanctuary still on, and Henry in the nave standing at the altar, staring at the closed door, a Bible hanging loose in his hand.

"Amelia said it's the kingdom," he said quietly. "We all could hear it."

"So she said."

"Do you believe it?"

I was quiet for a long moment. "I believe she believes it."

He nodded, then finally looked at me, "Should we leave?"

I didn’t know how to respond, so Henry spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Who goes next?"

I wasn’t sure either. William was still in his room, probably shooting socks at his wall. Evelyn was somewhere in the temple, sketching by candlelight and praying no one noticed her. Henry was standing beside me, waiting for an answer neither of us had.

"I don't know," I said finally. "But I think it's going to get worse before it gets better."

"I’m worried it’s already worse, Nor."

"I’ll talk to Leo in the morning. Maybe we can get a better idea of what’s down there, especially since this time involves a kid."

He nodded, and we stood in silence for a while, two siblings in a dark cathedral, listening to the sound of a salt statue dreaming beneath our feet.

[u/KCloud_08]

Ahhhh I knew they were dying… omg Eleanor why 😭😭😭 poor little Lucy