The words of the dead and dying

The words of the dead and dying are prophetic, carrying weight far beyond the promises or threats of the living.  For a living girl, to say that she would wait forever for her lover to return was a simple thing.  A mere promise, even if she meant it with all her heart.  The priest sighed, then, as he entered the house of the dying girl.  Some fever had struck her, along with a pain in her stomach that would not fade—it could be no babe, unless she had been as blessed as the Virgin Mary, and she had carried this pain for nearly a year now—and now she was ready to leave this world behind.

He had been tending to her for most of the previous year, but he had been a frequent visitor for some time before.  Her dearest love had left her behind for a war in France across the sea almost ten years before, and though he had written her letters, the girl could not read.  The priest could, though in this case he wished he could not.  But it was his God-sworn duty to tend to his flock, and he would do so until the day the Almighty Father recalled him to His side.

She lifted her voice weakly when he knocked.  “Enter, Father O'Donnell,” she called, and he did so, blessing her quietly as he did.  She smiled to see him, unable to sit up from her bed.  In previous months he had brought food, but not so very long ago, she had asked him to stop—she knew the call of the Heavenly Father when she heard it.

“There was another letter, my child,” he told her quietly.  There was no point in delaying it now, not with the girl on the edge of her grave.

She laughed softly, then coughed and clutched her belly, then wheezed until she caught her breath.  “Is it different, Father?” she asked, voice just above a whisper.

The priest sighed.  “No, my child.”

She lay back in her bed and stared up at the rude wooden beams above her head.  Her father had set those beams himself, the priest remembered.  A fine strong man, though a fever had taken him in the end too.  “Is she a beauty like the others?” there was resignation in her voice.

“She has hair like fire, and a temper to match, he says,” the priest told her, wishing it was not a sin to lie.

“Green eyes?”

“Brown.”  It would have been cruel for her dearest love's newest conquest to have had the same eyes as the dying girl, the priest had decided.  Particularly since the boy said it was those eyes that drew him.

There was a long silence, neither of them tense.  “Father...tell him when he comes back.  Tell him that...I will sleep in peace.  Until he comes to me.”

Father O'Donnell promised her that he would.  There was no other answer, no proper answer one could give to the dying.  Even if one did not know what their words meant.  Especially if one was a priest.

Here lies Faith McKensey
Born 1668 - Died 1690
I shall sleep in peace
Until you come to me

The boy returned some five years after the war had ended.  He was a grizzled, embittered veteran now, thinking mostly of women and drink.  He stomped into the inn of the village where he had been born and raised, glaring at anyone who looked at him oddly.  Only seven years ago, he had been a youth like most of the villagers—short on coin and long on tales of adventure and heroism.  Now he had more coin than he seemed to know what to do with and no tales to tell, embellished or otherwise.  The villagers left him be after a few tries and multiple glares.  Perhaps a few drinks would loosen his tongue, they hoped.

When they did not, and he simply stomped back out of the inn in the same sullen silence in which he had entered, they shrugged and decided that they would have the story out of him later.  He would be staying.  His parents yet lived and they needed their son's hand back on the farm, after all.  Maybe the the war had taken the bright youth they had known, but it did not change his family's or the village's needs.

They were somewhat surprised that he went immediately to the simple church where Father O'Donnell held his services, but perhaps he simply needed someone to help him pray for his soul.  The old Father could take care of it, surely.  He could take care of anything, even the arrival of the new Protestant preacher—whom he had installed in his own house, saying the church was home enough for him, until such time as the villagers could spare the time to build them a proper place of worship.  One old soldier would be no challenge for him.

The boy stayed behind the holy water bowls for several minutes, suddenly transported back seven years.  He had promised to wed Faith under that archway.  He had given her a daisy ring for her hair for their engagement.  There was their favorite pew, where they had knelt and held hands together during service, exchanging secret smiles.  At last he knelt and crossed himself with the water, then strode grimly to the altar, clear now the morning Mass was over.  He knelt before it and crossed himself, then picked a bench at some other pew to pray until Father O'Donnell came for him.  He had a knack for knowing when people needed his guidance.

He still did, for he arrived what seemed only a moment later, kneeling beside the grizzled soldier, praying as well.  They were silent together, for the soldier would talk when he felt like it, and the priest knew this.

He only spoke one word, though:  “Faith?”  The name carried everything.

The priest sighed.  “I am sorry, my son.  She is with God now.  She has been for six years.”

The soldier's shoulders slumped, his head bowed to his clasped hands, his eyes became wet with tears he had not known he still had.  Even had he returned home at the very end of the war, he would have been too late.  Still he cursed his decision to remain with the French to make more coin to pay for pretty gifts he'd thought she would like—for of course she would be alive when he returned!

But his voice stayed steady as it had through all the fighting he had seen and done.  “My letters?”

“I read them to her,” the priest told him.  He wished once again he could have lied.  But leaving out her sorrow and pain on hearing them wasn't completely a lie...was it?

The soldier's lips twitched.  “May I visit?”

The priest nodded.  “You may.”  He edged out of the pew, then bowed to the altar and crossed himself.  The soldier followed him out, but the priest put a hand on his chest and frowned, until he remembered he was also supposed to bow and cross himself.  How could he have forgotten that simple act?

The village graveyard was small, but well-tended.  Faith's grave was among the newest, but there were several markers after hers—the Duffys' stillborn children, and the Flynns' youngest son who'd drowned after falling from a rotten log, then an empty grave for the Gallaghers' vanished daughter.  The soldier gave these a glance and looked to the priest to be upset that so many of the markers before and after Faith's were children, even though he said nothing.

He knelt before her grave, saying a prayer in their native Gaelic for her soul.  He took out the pouch full of money he'd meant to spend on gifts for her, then emptied it on her grave.  The priest blinked, never having seen so much Spanish gold before, but kept his silence.

“I wish I could have come sooner, Faith,” the old soldier whispered at last, after laying the pouch before her gravestone as well.  Tears slipped down his cheeks, but he did not sob.

I wish you had come sooner too, an unearthly voice murmured, just loud enough for both priest and soldier to hear.

“F-Faith?” the soldier asked, eyes drying with hope.  She appeared over her marker as a white ghost, smiling as gently as she had when the fever had taken her at last.

The priest did not have to explain the soldier's death to the village, for they had all heard his screams.  Nor did they need to have a funeral for him, for naught was left but his clothing.