The Rose in the Snow
The night seemed to mock her. The moon shone contentedly, the snow glided gently down to the sidewalk. Couples strode down the street, hand in hand under the lamps hanging overhead. It was almost as if they were trying to upset her further, as if the guilt wasn't enough. The candles would occasionally flicker, giving the snow a magical quality. Even the pigeons seemed happy. Despite the cold weather, they seemed to be smiling at her.
She lifted up the crimson skirts of her dress, and walked up the stairs to the basilica. Her steps on the marble flight were the only sounds to be heard on St. Oleff Street, as everyone else was inside merrymaking. She put her hand on the brass handle, and dragged back the door to reveal a darkened chapel.
As she began to walk towards the altar a man stood up from his pew in the front of the chapel, and turned his head to look at her. As he acknowledged her with a nod, she began to walk towards him. She paused just before the altar, kneeled, and made the sign of the cross over herself.
“God forgive me,” she whispered. She turned to the pastor beside her who nodded, and motioned for her to approach the alter. She knelt before it, and brought her hands, tightly clasped, to her forehead.
The man spoke softly, his voice in the cathedral a whisper that seemed to fade and vanish into the towering ceiling, “He always forgives, Genevieve, always. ‘Tis the way of the lord, as it was in the beginning, it is now.” He approached her, and laid a hand on her forehead. She stood, and gave a slight bow.
“Thank you, pastor,” She turned, and began to walk down the marble aisle once again. She reached the doors, and threw them open. Before she could take another step towards the open night, the pastor spoke.
“May I ask, are thou going to the graveyard tonight?” he called after her.
“God willing, I shall go for a while,”
The pastor let out a sigh of pity for the beautiful woman standing in the doorway, and spoke once more to her, “I shall accompany you; on a night like this you shouldn’t be walking the streets alone in sadness,”
He said one more prayer, eyes turned up towards the top of the grand cathedral. Then, he kneeled before the altar and went to where Genevieve was standing in the doorway. He shut the doors behind them as they departed the cathedral, and walked down the darkening cobblestone street to the gate of the churchyard. The flickering candle light made the snow seem to come into view just to vanish again. So much like he had; in the same cruel way he had appeared and then vanished all on one snowy night.
A horse drawn carriage rattled by where the pastor and her were walking. The horses’ eyes seemed to meet hers for a moment, and its eyes held no remorse. It seemed unaware of the crime its kind had committed, though it was her fault Nicholas had been in the street in the first place. The night seemed to parallel the night he had died, though that vindictive night the snow had been nearly blinding instead of the caressing the air slowly.
As they neared the gate Genevieve stopped and took a deep breath. Tonight was the night. She had prepared for this night for a long time, but it still didn’t feel like she should be here. Her hand rested on the gate, but her muscles wouldn’t push it open. She pulled her hand off the gate; the silk glove that protected her hand shining in the lamp light. Nicholas would have wanted her to come here. On Christmas, he had told her, and she owned him at least this much.
She met the pastor’s eye, and he nodded to her and extended a pale hand towards the gate. Genevieve took a deep breath, and turn back to the bronze opening.
“Thou should not procrastinate, when thou knowst that thou shall enter anyway,” the pastor spoke, in that same whisper that seemed to get lost in the night air.
“Of course you are right, pastor,” Genevieve bit her bottom lips, and looked back at the gate.
She pushed open the gate, and flinched as she did. The rows of stones seemed intent on making her change her mind, and for a minute she took a step back. But a certain stone, along with the pastor placing a cold hand on her shoulder, guided her to move on. She looked at the engraving on the white marble. It wasn’t the reason she was here, but she still knelt down beside the stone. The name, the date, the message, she had memorized them all. A single tear dropped onto the snow above her mother’s grave. Every day for a year, three years ago, she had visited this very grave. This wasn’t why she was here.
The pastor watched her, unmoving in the snowfall that surrounded him. A lamp lining the street behind him gave him almost a halo around his head, a golden aura that cast no shadows on his sallow face, but yet seemed to brighten it and give his face colour.
Genevieve stood up, and walked towards the back of the graveyard, where the newer graves were. His was the newest of them all, exactly a month old tonight. The trees seemed to mourn with her, the gentle ranches of the weeping willows brushing her coat and dress as she walked by. Her boots left footprints in the snow, and hers were the only ones on the ground. No one came here on Christmas, no one but her and the pastor.
She found it, at last. Smooth green marble, polished to perfection. Carved by a master, engraved by an artist, just the way he would have liked it. She bent down to read the inscription for the first time. The pastor bent down, and from inside his robes he pulled a single scarlet rose. He placed it on the snow, and the flakes drifting from the sky above appeared to not touch the petals, for the rose remained unaffected by the snow.
She hadn’t come to his funeral, and she regretted it to the day. This, she knew, would not be her last visit here. She could never make up for what she had done, but this could still ease the guilt. She traced the words as she read:
Nicholas Jones
1810-1818
Son of Genevieve and Simon
“They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it,
Death cannot kill what never dies…”
She rested on her knees for a moment, tears rolling and then freezing into the snow. Her long blond hair cascaded to the ground in flaxen waves, the tips just touching the ground. Snowflakes began to rest on her eyelashes as she kneeled there, completely immobile from grief.
She turned to ask the pastor what she was to do know, ask him for guidance, the same guidance he had given her so long ago. He was gone though, and she become conscious he had been gone for a while. She looked down at the snow above the grave and realized, peculiarly, the rose also had vanished along with the pastor. Once again, she was alone.
After a time, she stood. Wiping a tear from her eye, she began to walk.
She reached the gate. With a final glance backwards she left her son and everything she had ever loved behind.
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