The 24th Letter

SIXTEEN

Father John Callahan stood in the sanctuary of St. Francis Church and lit seven candles. Lightning, from a storm blowing off the Atlantic coast, illuminated the sanctuary’s massive stained-glass windows. The priest stepped toward a marble statue of the Virgin Mary, made the sign of the cross, and whispered a prayer. He reached inside his coat pocket and retrieved the letter. He wanted to read Sam Spelling’s letter one more time before Sean O’Brien arrived.

As he finished reading, Callahan stood next to the pulpit and folded the letter once in the center of the paper. He opened the large Bible that sat on the podium, and he carefully placed the letter in the first chapter of Revelation, slowly closing the Bible.

Lightning struck close to the church, the sound of thunder exploding and rumbling like echoes bouncing off canyon walls in the night. The lights in the church flickered and faded out. Father Callahan found a lighter, lit a candle, and picked up the church phone. No dial tone. He lit more candles. He plugged his cell phone in the charger just as he heard a noise. He looked up to see the back door to the sanctuary open, the wind blowing rain into the dark alcove.

“Thought I locked that,” he said, walking toward the rear of the church to close the door, the chill of wind and the smell of rain meeting him.

Lightning popped and the wind blew rainwater into the hall. Father Callahan glanced in the direction of the alcove to see a man step out from the shadows, the burning candles tossing a soft light on the left side of his face.

“Who enters the house of our Lord?” Father Callahan asked.

The man was silent.

Father Callahan assumed the bearded stranger, who wore a hat pulled down low, was homeless, someone needing a dry place until the storm passed. He had always extended a helping hand to the homeless. But as he walked toward the new arrival, he could tell the man was not a homeless person.

He was a priest.

“Welcome,” Father Callahan said. “Glad you could duck out of the rain on a night like this. Just took me ol’ nerves back a notch. Most folks come in the front door.”

The man said nothing.

Sean O’Brien looked at the GPS navigation map on the screen in his Jeep. He signaled, pulled off the highway, and drove on the right shoulder. Drivers hit their car horns. One man in a pickup truck gave O’Brien the finger as he sped past the truck.

O’Brien pulled completely off the shoulder, driving through a pine thicket, the limbs slapping at his window, birds scattering. He looked at the navigation map, cutting the wheel to the right and following under the clearing of a high-tension power line for less than a half-mile, and then he drove down a slight embankment that connected to a paved road, SR 46. He tried the priest’s cell again. No answer.