Never to Return

I'm coming back for You

"What do you mean you found a wallet on the sidewalk?", Sister Antonia asked incredulously, "you barely go outside, Allie!". She had a smirk on her face that screamed sarcasm.

Alice just sighed, annoyed, but diligently cleaning the pew while she listened to her best friend's little banter.
"Yeah well. First of all, that's not true. I really love spending my time outside. And second of all, yeah, I found it outside on the sidewalk right when I left the house".

Antonia stopped cleaning for a moment. "You're a liar", she giggled, the washcloth falling out of her hand, "Allie, you know that God does not approve of lies. Just five minutes ago, you told me that you found the wallet on your way home!". She shook her head, and then placed her hand on Alice's shoulder to calm her down a tiny bit. She seemed absent.

"Hey, are you okay?", Antonia asked quietly, but Alice just avoided her eyes. It was strange. "Honey, you can talk to me about anything. What is it with this wallet?".  Feeling her best friend's hand slowly stroke her shoulder, Alice would usually feel soothed. But right in that moment, she just couldn't  bear the touch.
"I'm just.. I'm feeling a bit sick today. Can I... I mean it's late already, can't we just...", Alice started talking incoherently at that point, and Antonia decided that she's had enough.
"You go home now. I will tell Father that you haven't been feeling too well, yeah? Go home and rest. And if something's wrong, please call me. You know where to find me, really!", the Sister said, surely concerned for her best friend's wellbeing.

After a moment of contemplating, Alice nodded silently and got up between the pews. She really, really needed to get home to get her things sorted. "Thank you, Tony", she whispered and embraced her tightly, just a moment longer before she packed her things and sighed in relief. She needed some fresh air now.

Walking outside, the sun was already beginning to set, and the weather really didn't look too friendly. Sometimes it was just so incredible, how the weather changed and what God made us people endure with the storms. But then again, Alice thought as she walked down the street, away from her church, sometimes it's deserved. She definitely deserved the rain that was starting to drizzle down onto her way to thinly clad self, because she lied, and because she had been having thoughts that she shouldn't have had.

It took a short while until she came home, but when she finally did arrive, she was happy to be greeted by her two little rodents scurrying around their spacious cage and welcoming her. Alice watched them for a while, thinking back to when Copia played with them ever so innocently, as if he didn't just almost took her virginity the night before. It was an odd feeling. One that she couldn't really understand.

It was yesterday, right when she went upstairs after saying goodbye to him that she found his wallet on the bedroom floor. He must've lost it there. Checking, she could barely believe her own two eyes. There was, of course, some money in there. Normal notes, yes, but also some odd ones she's never seen before. What startled her the most was his ID. Well, he had several weird looking cards in there. One of which showed a more or less biometric photo of him, next to his name and... title? He was a Cardinal. His signature stated C.C. Emeritus. 

It was when she looked a bit more closely that she gasped in disbelief, realising that Copia wasn't just any Cardinal, no! He was a Cardinal of the broadly feared Satanic Church outside of the town. Alice almost dropped everything then, and she wanted to cry immediately. Not only did she sin by getting drunk and almost loosing her virginity to a stranger, the stranger happened to be a satanist as well!

Alice was shook to the core. She didn't know what to do. She was alone, she was unsure who to confide her secret in with. Her parents weren't going to be home for another day since they decided to stay with their friends for another day. It was fine for her, and she kind of needed the quietness of her own four walls to somehow cope with the whole situation. She needed to somehow get her mind off of him, off this whole situation.