The Third Church

I have been called many things, depending upon who it was that briefly caught sight of me: shadow, phantom, or wraith. I am none of these. I am flesh and bone, blood and fur, but I shall never let them see me clearly enough to know.

I am of the Folk, and of the Clan of Cat, we of nine Life-Walks in the world that turns beneath the sun. I do not reveal the name given me by my own kind, when my spirit awoke and I began my first Walk. That is for me alone, and I withhold it.

To my kind, the naming of names is of great importance. Names define a person’s place, upon the earth and under the sun, and among all those who dwell there. Names should never be given lightly.

But the Clan of Man is wanton, and without dignity. They strew their own names abroad like dust, without regard for who may hear, and ascribe names to others, with neither consideration nor thought.

Humans see the world as a series of small boxes, and every living soul they meet must fit neatly into one, receiving a name which is meaningless, because it indicates the box, and not the soul. I have allowed none of them to name me, in this, my final Life-Walk.

Therefore call me Shadow, or Phantom, or Specter, or whatever else may suit your transient, mutable fancy; I am none of them. Who I am is not for your kind to know.

My folk, the cats, speak of life upon the earth and under the sun, for the earth is the living center of all that was breathed out by the Spirit Above, in the morning of all things, and the sun itself is its life force. So it has been sung, and so it has been remembered, and so it is true.

But I have not felt the warmth of that sun upon me, in all my ninth and final Walk in the world of men, and now I am growing old.

I was born in the Lower Church, far below that sunlit world. My mother was a she-cat mortally sick and alone, who sought refuge in the dark passages. There was sanctuary there, and rodents to be caught, that she might live long enough to wean her single kitten.

Her bones lie there still, and I honor her.

I grew there, and came to know that place, its labyrinthine ways, its utter darkness, and its silence. It was a church, but not like those built above it. Not to the Spirit Above, but to Jove was it built, the cold stone figure before which the old Roman folk made sacrifice.

That central part of the below-world was made with great stones and arches, immensely strong, and most of it withstood the millennia of rubble and earth that now lie above.

Beyond it are miles of catacombs and tombs, and then the old water channels, now mostly dry. I know it all, every gallery and hall, every narrow crevice, where one of my kind may creep stealthily through.

My kind possess senses you do not, and lightless spaces beneath the earth neither deter, nor dismay me. I prefer them. They allow me to avoid the Clan of Man, who are faithless, and without honor.

I was not alone in that lightless realm, but shared it with the restless specters of others, those who parted the Veil and made their Journeys long ago, and now their revenant spirits ceaselessly lament. I know their tales of intrigue, and treachery, and gold, the wars they won and lost, and the blood they shed. I know them all, for they are never quiet.

I often times wearied of the specters and their endless bewailing of the dead past, which all their laments can neither restore to life nor alter by a single whit. If only to escape them, I traveled upward on occasion, then finally left the Lower Church for another home.

I found the upper spaces while I was still young, for I never ceased exploring. There was light there, after a fashion, and it hurt my eyes. It streamed downward through crevices and cracks, places where dry dust trickled endlessly from above.

The higher realm is old, though not nearly as ancient as that below. Much of it had fallen in when I first saw it, for it was not built as strongly as that below, and had been collapsed by the immense weight of that which lay higher still.

There were bones there too: the desiccated corpses of priests and soldiers, but their spirits were mostly silent. They were still confused by what had happened to them, and stared mutely from their black shadows.

This I called the Second Church, and I lived there for a time, after my eyes became accustomed to its dim glow. I soon realized that what seemed at first a fiery glare of light, was in fact but a pale remnant of the day above, that had penetrated from the upper places.

More prey was to be found there, among the endless dusty chambers, moldered relics, and web-draped crosses. Rats and other creatures, which lived upon the scraps left by the humans who dwelled still higher, sought hiding places there. Some of them found me instead, waiting for them.

There were sounds in parts of the Second Church, where below were only weeping shades and silence punctuated by the dripping of water so regular, that the mind soon loses it altogether.

The voices of the Clan of Man are sometimes heard there. They gather above, and mostly they sing, after the odd way of their kind.

At first I listened closely, hoping to learn from the stories the songs told, but was baffled. Their songs did not recount the legends and tales of their Clan, as ours do. They repeated the same words at every gathering, seeming only to desire hearing themselves.

Though nearly devoid of meaning, the sounds in themselves were pleasant, much like those sung by the various Clans of the Birds, so I continued to listen. That must be the key, I concluded. Like the birds, they merely celebrated life.

Foolishness, I scoffed from below. I reject life. I have lived many more times than any of them, and taken all together, more years. I know that life is pain, and loneliness, and loss.

Life is watching a human child, to whom I have given my love, be lowered into the earth, cold and still. Life is hunger, and cold. Life is cruelty and rejection, kicks and angry voices.

No. I do not celebrate life. I live it because I must. The Spirit Above decreed nine Life-Walks for my Clan and my kind; there can be no more, and no less.

Soon my ninth and final Walk will be done, and my bones will lie forever beside those of my mother, far below and out of all knowledge of those who sing. I shall make my last Journey to the Sacred Isle, where my kind rest. Until that day, I endure. I do not rejoice.

Foolish or not, I was drawn to the sounds of singing voices. They were melodious, and somehow soothing. They wore down the edges of the wildness that had lived within me, all my ninth Walk.

But not my hate for the Clan who sang there. That was still too raw. I had died too many times at the hands of their kind, the victim of neglect and abuse. My kind have long memories. We cats remember.

At first I had believed that the Third Church, as I called the place where they gathered to raise their voices, was completely filled with the searing light of the sun, which I could not tolerate. Soon I realized that this was not completely true.

There were still many deep shadows, even darkened chambers, where one like me might lurk to see and hear those who came. I crept upward once more, into the shadowed places that smelled of incense and the greasy smoke of candles.

There was also a huge house-like instrument, played there in accompaniment to the combined voices. It was made of shining polished wood, and had many hundreds of golden tubes arrayed upward from it.

A human sat behind this instrument, and with his hands caused it to emit many astonishing sounds; some high like the music of the birds, others so low and thundering that they were felt as well as heard. I loved the way my whiskers vibrated with some of the lowest notes.

This was my favorite music. I returned whenever I heard the sonorous notes begin to play. I made it my habit to stealthily climb up to the shadowed, dusty galleries that ran high above both sides of the main chamber where the humans sat. The sounds reverberated here, and I would sit in the shadows and listen with my eyes closed for hours, if that was how long the performance lasted.

Sometimes I would look down upon the Clan of Man below, so intent on their own incomprehensible rituals that they never thought of looking upward. If one is to observe humans, it is safer to do so from above. They cannot climb well, nor can they leap, and one is thus given more time to escape from whatever atrocity they may think to commit.

Given the time, a human will always think of cruelty. I do not give them the time; I am there, and I am gone.

Hidden where I could see beneath me, I began to recognize some of the individual humans, always in their same places below. If one observes closely, they are as different, one from another, as are we cats.

One particular group piqued my curiosity. I often deliberately positioned myself so that I could view them unseen, where they customarily sat in the huge, vaulted chamber. There a deep shadow lay black, where if anyone saw me at all, it would only be my glowing eyes.

I called these three humans “The Family,” in my mind, for that was what they clearly were. The grey whiskered father was Jacques, the considerably younger mother Gabrielle, and their son, a boy of perhaps six summers, was called Jean.

They all carried the earthy scent of vines and the soil about them, and sometimes the smell of baking bread clung faintly to Gabrielle. These were folk of the earth, living their lives openly, honestly, under the sun.

Their clothing was worn thin, but clean, and their hair was neatly brushed and combed. None of these things was remarkable in itself; it was their hearts which drew my attention.

My kind were gifted, by the Spirit Above, with the ability to see the hearts of others, to know them in ways it is doubtful they even know themselves. It has been thus, since the morning of the world.

Jacques, the massive, grey bearded father, loved his young wife and small son, and that was all there was within him. It emanated from him like a bright globe of fire that shielded and enclosed the three of them. Any harm that might come to Gabrielle and Jean must pass this grey colossus first. Anything this huge man did in his life was for them. For Jacques, there was nothing else.

Gabrielle, the recipient of his love, was a far quieter spirit, but cut from stone no less solid than that of the cathedral above them. To Jacques and her young son went all her own love, all her loyalty, and all her support. Gabrielle’s entire image of herself was as a part of her family. If something should take them away, Gabrielle would cease to exist. For her too, there was nothing else.

There was a she-bear hiding within her, I knew, but kept hidden, and in reserve. If those she loved were harmed in any way, that part of her would emerge, and woe betide him from whom the harm had come.

And then I reached out to see the heart of Jean their son, and was astonished, for I touched a pure and clean simplicity, something I had never before found in the Clan of Man. There was nothing of pettiness about this human child. Strangely, his thoughts came more slowly than those of the humans around him, but were much more straightforward, and brighter. His heart was utterly clean.

Jean did not speak, and I saw that he did not have the power to do so. It did not matter. Most of the Clan of Man spend far too much time speaking, and listen not at all. Jean owned no guile, and no deceit. He did not hate, did not look with envy. Cruelty would never occur to him.

He met new people assuming they were good, and expecting to love them. They loved him in return, because they could not help themselves.

As I could not help myself, I realized one day. I shuddered in my shadowed hiding placed above them. I had never expected to love another human child. I had sworn that I would not, in this my final Walk upon the earth. Such love always leads to personal disaster.

But Jean owned a power to make what he looked for in others become true, upon the earth and under the sun. He brought these things into existence by expecting to see them, in the humans he met. And in me.

Every human who came into his life was better for the experience. He was a light, existing alone in a darkness deeper than that in which I had been born.

I realized that Jean’s parents were greatly worried by the slowness of his thoughts, and his silence. I wanted to shout to them from my shadows, to tell them that these things were nothing. They needed to realize that their son was a far better representative of the Clan of Man than any of those around him.

I left them then, and crept back to my home in the semidarkness of the older church below. I pondered long, as I lay there in the age-old mold and dust, with the silent specters watching about me.

I knew I had committed the worst error possible for one of my kind. I could not afford to love Jean, son of Jacques and his beautiful young Gabrielle. I could not afford these feelings, but I did not own the power to deny them.

To love is the greatest glory of my kind, but also brings the greatest pain. One must balance one’s own scales, and accept whatever joy or tragedy comes.

The scales tipped, for the cat in the shadows. There was no undoing what had come to be. Now I had to live with it, if I could.

I returned to the Third Church, as soon as I heard once more the thundering sounds of the great instrument whose music I loved. I climbed unseen into the upper gallery, and crept into my shadow, above The Family.

I knew pleasure then, after so long a time that the feelings were almost beyond memory. I basked in the glow that only I could see, the warmth that came from Jean, and his parents.

There I listened to the beautiful sounds of the great instrument and the singing voices. They began to heal many wounds I had not realized I owned.

This became my habit. The meetings in the Third Church came at regular intervals, and once I understood this, I could be in my shadowed gallery and ready to attend, as the first notes of sound were played.

I felt alive there in that place, hidden above The Family and their love, and always stayed until they left the chamber. Then I made my slinking way back down to my dark, silent home, where I was safe from the feelings I both feared and desperately needed.

There I counted the hours until they returned to their places in the Third Church, and I could join them. My spirit, that deep kernel of self within me, the part of me that was breathed out by the Spirit Above, stirred and began to live again.

What might it be like to join that Family below me? How would it feel to enter their small circle and never leave it again? Foolishness, more foolishness, I knew. Just a fantasy.

But still I would doze, above them in my shadow, and dream my foolish dreams, for as long as they sat below me. Only there was I truly alive.

I became careless one day, as I lay with my eyes closed and allowed the music and singing to wash over me. I had been in one place far too long, paying too little attention, and the sun had moved. With it shifted the shadow that hid me, as the day grew older.

I felt the warmth first upon my head and back, and awoke with a jolt of fear. I was no longer hidden by the shadow! I quickly looked below to see if I had been observed, and found myself staring into the brown eyes of Jean, the small boy whose pure and clean heart I had come to love.

Several moments passed thus, and then I leapt back into my shadow and fled. Downward I scrambled, out of the gallery and into the lower parts of the Third Church, and finally through the crack in the cathedral’s basement wall, which was my route home, to the dark places below.

My breath came in sharp, painful gasps, and I wailed and cried, after the way of my kind. I should never have gone to the Third Church! I should never have left the silent safety of the place of my birth at all!

I had been seen by Jean, the son of Jacques and Gabrielle, and he would tell them of me, very soon. He had seen me for long enough to be sure of what he was looking at!

I could never again venture into the lighted places above, where the voices sang and the great instrument thundered. I must return to the darkness of my birthplace, the Lower Church, and there lie down beside the bones of my mother.

The Clan of Man could never find me there, but I would never again be near The Family. I could never again lie in my gallery above Jean, whose simple, clean heart I had come to love, nevermore to know anything at all but the darkness, the wailing Roman shades, and my memories.

A moment’s carelessness had cost me everything. All that held value to me was gone. I could face my silent, lonely life before I had seen them, because I had known nothing better. Now I had, and my loss was more than I could bear.

But, as I slowly realized, I could not make myself believe that Jean would betray me. I could form no picture of that, in my mind. In his purity of thought, he would understand. He would not violate my secrecy.

I cannot say what it was that made me know this, but it was true. Jean, son of broad-shouldered Jacques and beautiful Gabrielle, would not communicate what he had seen to anyone at all. In his pure, clean simplicity, he was utterly worthy of trust.

There is a courage that leads great armies of men into battle, there to face mayhem and death, and that is a very great courage indeed. But there is another sort of courage, a quieter valor, even more difficult to attain. There is a courage that allows a living soul in the darkness to trust, to place all that he is in the hands of another being, and that courage is far and away the greater.

My breathing slowed, as my terror faded. I need lose nothing. I could return to the Third Church and my shadowed hiding place, for the very next gathering. I could hear once more the blended voices, and thundering music that had made my life so much more bearable.

The only difference was that now, I must trust in Jean. I must place my safety in his hands, for the rest of my Walk, for the rest of my existence, upon the earth and under the sun.

I could do that, I realized. I really could do that, if I could but muster the courage to trust.

I slept for a time, then. When I waked, I would hunt and eat, and live my life as I had always lived it. When next the music played, and the voices sang, I would creep upward once more.

When I did awaken, I knew immediately that something was different. Something was very wrong.

I scented him first, long before I heard him. Sun, and soil, and green, growing vines, with a lingering trace of the grapes themselves. It was the scent of the boy, the scent of all his family, but distinctively Jean’s, subtly different from that of his parents.

It was a scent that did not belong in this place of silent darkness. Jean had not betrayed me; that he would never do. But he had followed me as I fled downward, leaving his family in the sunlit world above, to search for me here.

Now I heard the scuffing of his small shoes, as he found his way slowly through the semidarkness of the Second Church. Then he was beside me in my shadows, and though he hugged me in his arms, I felt no fear. This was Jean, of the clean, simple heart, and no harm could come from him.

For long minutes we remained thus, I and the child I had come to love, above everything else in my world. How could I not? There was nothing else in my world. I wanted nothing more than to remain at his side, forever.

That we must part, I knew. Jean could not remain here. This was no safe place for a human child. I was not the only living thing that dwelt here in these shadows; there were other creatures as well, darker things, that I must not allow Jean to encounter.

I would lead him to safety. By now Jacques and Gabrielle must be frantic with worry over their son. He must return to his own place, upon the earth and under the sun. The Family must be reunited, as before.

Physically, it was easily done, a very simple task. I moved a few steps and called to him, and he followed my voice. Then I did it again, and again, many times, until we had reached the rift in the basement wall, which would allow him to reenter the Third Church above.

Then, when I was sure Jean could find his own way back to the ones who loved him, we parted. It tore my soul, it was the most difficult thing I had ever done, but I left him there, this little boy who meant more to me than life itself. It was done. Jean was gone.

And then I crept slowly back into the dark, moldering depths below, where my life was, where I must now exist, even though I knew what it was like, if only for a few brief moments, to walk by the side of this human child.

But Jean, the boy himself, son of Jacques and Gabrielle, was gone. My memory of him must be enough for me. Bereft and alone, I wept in my secret hiding place, for what could have been, what should have been, but never would be.

The Clan of Cat were not created to be alone. We were set upon the earth to walk beside the children of human men and women, to share their joys and their sorrows, and keep them safe.

I had been terribly wrong to squander my ninth and final Walk in dark places and bitterness. But what was done could not be undone. My life was what it was. No human had harmed me more grievously than I had harmed myself. I alone must pay the price.

The days allotted until the next gathering in the Third Church above me passed slowly, painfully. Then, upon the appointed hour, the sounds of the great instrument began to echo above me. Human voices reached my ears, singing the same songs they always sang.

Until that moment, I had not known what I would do. Would it be less painful to see the child from my hiding place above him, knowing I could never be near him, or to remain here in safety, alone?

I crept to the opening that would lead me upward, and slowly made my way through the dark basement and into the cathedral itself. My paws moved of their own volition, as I climbed into my gallery, toward the shadow where I might gaze longingly at The Family below me.

And there before me was Gabrielle, beautiful mother of Jean, the little boy I loved. Awaiting me in my accustomed shadow, knowing I would come, she stood. There was no point in flight; she had clearly seen me, and knew enough of my ways now, to find me again.

I stood on a precipice, not knowing which way my life would fall.

“Do not run, petit chat noir,” she said softly, bending toward me. “Stay and hear me, small black cat, I beg.”

I bunched my muscles to leap to safety, but there was none, not anymore. I remained at her feet, gazing into her brown eyes.

“I know what you did, petit ami. It was not only my Jean who saw you here, little friend. I also saw you. I know my son came to find you, and you returned him to me. Will you listen, for a few moments more?”

I remained frozen before her. This was the mother of Jean. Her son was worthy of my trust; I would trust in Gabrielle as well, at least for a little while.

“Jacques, my husband, has spoken of you, petit chat de l’ombre. He wishes you to come to our home, and to be the companion of our son. I wish it too. Jean needs you. Will you come?”

I stood unmoving, thunderstruck. My fantasy was within paw’s reach. If I could believe my ears, I had just been offered the chance to enter The Family, to be one of them, to walk beside the boy Jean, for whatever days might remain of this, my final Walk.

Gabrielle clearly meant what she had said; this was the mother of Jean, and there could be no lie within her. I saw her heart and knew it was true.

“There is a road outside this church, mon chat bien aimé,” she said softly. “A short walk on that road, beyond the village, lies a vineyard, and within it a small house of stone. You may come whenever you wish. We shall await you.”

And then Gabrielle was gone, back to her accustomed place with her husband and son, singing with the others, accompanied by the music of the great instrument, as it rolled out over us all.

“I know where you live, beautiful Gabrielle,” I thought to myself, willing her to hear me. “I smell upon you the life you live in your vineyard, earthy, bright, and good. I can find your home.

“But not now. The sun is too bright for my eyes, and I am afraid. Let it set in the west, and in the evening I will come. I will come to you, and enter your circle. Nevermore will I depart, while my life remains within me.

“I will walk beside Jean, the silent little boy whose thoughts might come slowly, but are clean and good. I love this child more than life itself, and I will never leave him again.

“Perhaps one day he will give me a name, upon the earth and under the sun.”

END