Beloved: Memoir of a Phantom

Chapter 24- Follow

    CHAPTER 24

        Follow

I asked Sean and even went as far as asking the newly appointed father who my mysterious visitor was or if I had imagined him. Sean accompanied me to the chapel to propose my question to the little old priest.

“I believe there was a young Monk accompanying the young father from the Renborough monastery a few weeks ago. He was an Irish lad…didn’t say much… Oh what was his name again?” He said trying his best to recall the information.

“But did he visit Miss Thomas’s room that day?” Sean asked a little impatiently.

The little old father thought it over a few moments, rubbing his clean shaven chin as he did.

“I do believe we did lose him somewhere along the way in the ICW, and he did mention something about changing a record for a patient, but I can’t be certain.” He said with a little shake of his head.

I smiled at the two men, feeling so elated that I didn’t envision my visitor that I did an excited spin in the aisle of the chapel.

“Yes he changed the record for me! Oh thank you so much, I thought I had imagined the whole thing! Do you know if and when he would be returning?” I asked hopefully.

Both Sean and the priest looked at me as if I’d sprouted a second head. Perhaps I was a little too excited about this news.

The old priest chuckled after a moment “Whatever for my dear?”

I looked over at Sean’s confused, yet surprisingly stern expression and blushed. “I…well…these past few months I haven’t exactly had a lot of visitors and even though I didn’t know him it still meant a lot to me that he stopped in to at least change my record and exchange a few words with me. I guess I just wanted to thank him for what he did.”  That and he seemed oddly familiar to me…why couldn’t I place him?

“I’m afraid I don’t know when the men from St. Michaels will be back, but if you come back in a few days I might be able to find out for you.” He smiled kindly.

I went to the chapel nearly every single day that I could, but I never did see my visitor again. I found that I was starting to regain fragments of my old self again and according to Sean, had developed a firm grasp on reality, despite the fact that I was lost in daydreams most of the time. To be honest I really don’t remember much of my last year of life in the Lunaville institution on account of my daydreams…how strange that I ended up blissfully dreaming my life away.

I recall spending some time alone in the library poring over books about death and philosophies about life after death, just so that I could understand where the spirits I crossed over actually went, and why they couldn’t come back to see me again.

I took the book to the chapel with me and sat near the back like I always did, waiting hopefully for another chance glimpse of my visitor.

“Father, what happens to our souls when we die?” I blurted out one afternoon when the old priest walked by where I was sitting. He paused and thought about it a moment before settling down on the pew beside me.

“That is a bit of a tricky one. Really it depends on which religion you follow. Some believe the soul is automatically reincarnated into another living being, others believe that their souls will go straight to heaven or hell with no chance for redemption after death. Then there is what I follow which is the theory of purgatory; a place where the souls wait for god to judge whether or not they have earned the right to heaven and gives them the opportunity to redeem themselves. Yet there are others still who believe that purgatory is the only thing that awaits us.” He explained.