The Saint

A Story by DeusExMachina

This one isn't my favourite. Don't know why. See what you think of it, you may disagree!

THE SAINT

A Tale by Zach S. Rumfitt

THE Saint was entombed after her death. They carried her, through the halls of the Fortress, to the centre and into the great grey block that marked her place. They carved a statue, and set it standing over the body. It was created from pure gold.

It had been a glorious end to such a noble life, upon the battlefields of Ronn vanquishing the Kellermen of the west. It was said that at the moment of her death every loyal woman burst into tears, and that the sky turned red with sorrow.

That’s what the audio-guide says to me, its silky female voice explaining in overlong and boring detail about the western Kellermen and the battle of Ronn. We shouldn’t be spending today like this, in a gloomy old castle. It is my birthday, after all.

Dad and Jo have moved on, off into more grey stone rooms haunted by non-existent ghosts. Someone moves up next to me, and they make some remark about this stupid Saint woman. I can’t hear them over the audio-guide. Pulling the headphones off my head, I apologise for the fact I didn’t hear her. I see her face. She’s pretty fit, with nice blonde hair and dark eyes. Good body, too.

‘That’s alright’, she says in a voice without any kind of accent I can think of, ‘It was just a silly little remark. What’s your name?’ For a brief moment I struggle to think, then blurt it out like some twit.

‘Harrison. Yours?’ I add the ‘yours’ as an afterthought, and I sound even more of a git. She just ignores it though, and carries on without telling me.

‘Weird, isn’t it, this Saint thing?’

‘Don’t particularly know. I mean, she can’t have been a Saint, can she? That’s just religious stuff. Not real. Myths.’

The girl smiles at me. ‘Yeah, probably. Weird though. My dad, like, lectures me on this stuff. He’s a history buff, you know? Says we need to learn how people in the past lived.’

We stand a moment in silence, hearing children far off.

‘You never said your name.’ I say. I sound stupid there, like a little kid.

‘It’s July.’ A cold spider runs down my back.

‘Isn’t July the name of that Saint?’ I struggle to hide a niggle of fear. Ghosts don’t exist. Just a weird coincidence.

‘Yeah. My dad named me after her.’ The shiver of fear in me dissipates mostly, sitting back and waiting for more. ‘That’s how much of a history geek he is. He named me after some long-dead girl who he never even met. When’d she die?’

‘Tenth century’ I say, before adding: ’I think.’ Don’t want to sound like a git again, Harrison. July brushes her blonde hair away and smiles at me with those lips, like a ripe, red fruit.

It’s been so long, Harrison.

They called her the Archangel of England, a piece of heaven on earth. Every day, at her tomb, mourners would wait for her resurrection. They hoped with all their hearts that she would return to save them. But she did not, and the people of the fortress fell to another attack by the western Kellermen. For some reason the two tribes had always been enemies, like it was written in there blood.

The Fortress was ransacked, and the great king Herephude was slain. Before the sword separated his head from his body, cried for Saint July to save him.

The Archangel never returned to earth, and the Fortress fell to the evil of the west.

‘Why did they call her Archangel?’ I ask hesitantly. July looks up, and I repeat my question.

‘I dunno. I think they just thought she was heavenly.’ I get a sudden urge to say something that I will regret. I stop myself from speaking, from saying ‘so are you’. I don’t even know this girl.

I never even had a girlfriend, not like that. This would be impossible on so many levels. She looks at her watch, then says a quick good bye. I want to ask her why she has to go, like everyone does, like my parents and my sister always do. Everyone leaves in the end.

She hurries off, out of the room and away to her family, and their love. She probably has a boyfriend.

I get a sudden stab of jealousy.

There was a fire at the old Fortress on the hill in 2004. Damage was minimal, but a young boy, who was visiting, was killed. His name was Harrison.

I am dead.

I see the bunch of flowers that my family leaves behind in this room, where I died. They have no idea.

Something stirs behind me, and I turn. She’s here again. I look for somewhere to hide, but you cannot hide from her.

‘Harrison, please. Let me talk to you. I can comfort you.’ Her voice is heavenly, but I do not look. I cannot. Her light hits me, and I curl up on the floor in a foetal ball, making myself as small as possible.

‘Please, you need company. We are both dead.’

‘No!’ I scream, and run from the room. She knows I cannot go far, for I am anchored to the tomb of The Saint. That’s the place that I died.

The Saint wipes her eyes and walks back to her shadows. The poor boy fears her, and she just wants to be motherly. Thousands of years takes its toll on someone.

She’d been there when the poor child died. She’d tried to pull him from the flames, but she was too late. The fires had burned his little body to a crisp.

Saint July, Archangel of England, goes back to her tomb to wait for another year.