The Stone of Blood (22 page)

I stood there for a few moments and laid my hands upon the base of one of the sculptures, runnin’ my fingers over the rough and smoother surfaces. With the sun in the sky, the stone was amazingly warm to the touch, part of it was hot; which seemed all together odd to me, cause my first inclinations were that the granite would feel a whole lot cooler, but it was
not
the case!

“
I gotta get up to the bell tower!
” I thought to myself then. “
Mama will be back to get me before I know it!
”

I walked up the stone steps of the church between the six huge columns of white that seemed to reach up into the heavens for miles as they held up the ceilings crown. The facade was made with red brick, havin’ white nooks cut into its walls with still five other white sculptures; images of their saints sittin’ in em’.

I pushed down upon the large metal handles and opened up one of the rounded arched doors that held a single window glass above it. I opened it just as slowly and as little as I possibly could so that I could slip through it without anybody noticin’. At my age people were always wonderin’ stuff and askin’ stuff about me that I just didn’t have time to be concernin’ myself with! You know …stuff like ‘
who was I
’ and ‘
what was my name
’ and ‘
what was I doin’ here
’ and ‘
who was my mama
’ and other stuff like that!

Luckily for me, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of people or preachers around to be askin’ them kinds of questions of me, at least not that I could tell. So I just slipped right on inside the church foyer and closed the door behind me.

It was almost completely dark inside when I shut the door. So it took me a quick minute to get my eyes adjusted. But once they did I had myself a quick look around!

I’d only been inside of this church a couple of times before; once when me and my dad had come for a church service and then a couple of other times for a funeral or for a weddin’ or somethin’ like that. But as for knowin’ exactly how to get up to the bell tower, I was personally at a loss. From what I could deduce from the view from the outside of the buildin’ however, the bell tower appeared to sit directly above the foyer room in which I was now standin’.

That meant that one of the two dark green doors directly to the right or left of me had to contain a stairwell that would lead me up to it.

I opened the door to my right and stepped into a still darker room, feelin’ my way around in the darkness until I felt my way to the far right corner of the room and I flipped on the light switch. And then I gazed upon an old wooden staircase!

I knew that if Mama knew where I was at that exact moment in time, she would probably have come right down there and just killed me dead! There wouldn’t be a ‘
body
’ or any kind of identification left for anybody to find, except for maybe my shoes! Cause the rest of me would immediately explode just from the look in her eyes!

I’d have to admit, that I probably didn’t think my plan out very good, at least not of all the way through. But nevertheless, there I was climbin’ those stairs up that long solemn staircase in the diffused light …to the Bell Tower of St. Joseph’s Cathedral; with a limited amount of time to find what I was lookin’ for and with an equally limited amount time to get back to the Library before my mama found out I was gone!

The stairway led to the balcony above, which overlooked the grand cathedral, where eight large columns stood as watchful guardians over its walkways and where paintin’s and statues aligned its walls. The Alter stood in marbled grandeur at the base of the sanctuary with a giant paintin’ depictin’ Christ upon the cross at the peak of the room’s splendor. I stood in awe of the room’s majesty as its extent shown of beautiful multicolored lights that entered through stained glass windows that lined the outermost walls of both the eastern and western sides of the hallowed chamber. The view was serene and breathtaking!

I turned to open the door then that led still further upwards into the bell tower. But just as I turned the handle of the door, I discovered …it was locked!

Panic began to ensue! I had risked everything to get to this place at this moment and the ‘
danged
’ door was locked!

Argh! I couldn’t believe this was happenin’! I grabbed the metal handle again and thrust my whole body’s weight against the old wooden door as hard as I possibly could! And suddenly, just like that, it opened up! The door knob was unturnable and locked, but the latching lever hadn’t detached and the door had simply been stuck shut by the heat and old paint!

I entered the stairwell, flipped on it’s light and I climbed up those wooden steps eagerly; steps that lay directly behind the huge black hands of the Cathedral’s grand clocks; giant gears turnin’ and churnin’ and spinnin’ as I continued my climb ...up …up …up. I never knew before how it might feel if I were ever to be inside of a clock or a pocket watch before, but I figured that it would’ve been really close to what I was experiencin’ right there and at that particular moment in time!

There were four clocks that sat on different sides, facin’ outwards towards each of the north, south, east and westerly directions. The sounds were meticulous and loud for the spinnin’ and the whirlin’ of the gears. It was absolutely incredible how large the hands of these clocks were right up close and personal! It made me kind of wonder what time it was! And then I had to laugh at myself, just for thinkin’ it!

There were twenty rungs left up that flight of stairs as I climbed steadily onward and upward. My legs began to tire and shake and my breathin’ became heavy as my lungs breathed in and out rapidly! As I reached the final steps I found myself completely out of breath and in awe as I stood within the summit of the bell tower!

It was a large room where slatted windows opened to brightened thin strands of daylight comin’ in from all directions; windows from which I then ran to and stood before as I looked out upon the essence of the past, with vast mountain ranges afar off in the distance!

I had never been up so high in my whole entire life! Everything looked so small; like little tiny toy doll houses; play cars and little people walkin’ around lookin’ as if they were nothin’ more than small ants or somethin’! I looked for our house over there by our mountain and I looked out to the river, the lake and the horizon. I could have stayed up there forever and no one would have ever known!

I don’t know how long I stood there, lookin’ out upon my town; cause time itself seemed to stand still in those moments of complete calmness. But when I turned from my view from the slatted windows, I found myself before the massive cathedral bell!

It was the one from my vision! And it was enormous!

I was both excited and terrified! Excited that I was there, yet terrified that my vision was true!

Its magnificence rested upon a large wooden wheel, which was held by two wooden braces on either side of it, allowin’ it to rock in a circular motion as it was rung.

The bell was made of an older discolored metal, for the patina had tinted its surface with age.

It was a most wondrous site to behold! Words were written upon its surface, but not in a language that I could understand.

“
The words must be written in French!
” I thought to myself.

I quickly took out the pencil and paper that I had placed in my pocket earlier that morning and I did a quick “
rubbing
” from the bell’s surface. “
Lyon
1821 Jesu-Maria Entendre la parole du Seigneur toutes les nations, et il déclare dans les îles comme une distance qui Jérémie 31:10
”

“
That’ll do!
” I thought to myself as I folded up the paper quickly and put it back into my pants pocket for safe keepin’. “
I’ll check the translation when I get back to the Library!
”

I laid my hands upon the bell’s surface then, to feel the coolness of its touch. It was like sayin’ goodbye to an old friend that I might never see again. And then I walked back through the poorly lit doorway, and began my journey back down the steps of the tower’s wooden stairwell.

The way back down wasn’t nearly as hard on my legs as it had been on the way up. But while slippin’ and fallin’ down em’ wouldn’t have been a viable option for me neither, I still took extra precautions on my way back down. I mean ...I only jumped over every other step!

I busted out through those big church doors and ran out of the churchyard just about as fast as I possibly could go …once I had gotten back down to the ground level! I might’ve even been seen by a preacher man on my way out, but I was movin’ so fast that it was really hard for me to tell. It was really all a great big blur! But I felt like I was bein’ chased! Like I was bein’ hunted! So I ran faster!

I knew that my Mama would be comin’ after me soon. So I had to get back to the Library and at least be lookin’ at a book or somethin’ …just in case she just so happened to have come inside to find me!

The stop lights didn’t work to my advantage this time though, and I had to stop and wait for a whole bunch of cars! Thank goodness none of em’ was our car! I was awfully thankful for that! The last thing that I needed to happen was for me to be standin’ at a stoplight and see my mama and little sister come pullin’ up in our car …right there beside me!

I reached the Library safely and was just roundin’ the back corner by the sidewalk when I looked up and I saw our car was sittin’ in front of it!

Ours was a great big long white car, and I could see it sittin’ in one of the parkin’ spaces in the front, where my mama had dropped me off. The front of the car jutted out into the road a bit from its space, so I could see it pretty clearly. But I couldn’t see if Mama was sittin’ in the car or not, cause I stopped right then and there …before she could have seen me, and immediately decided upon an alternate route!

The way I figured it was that if my mom was still in the car, then maybe she had just gotten there herself and was waitin’ on me to come out of the Library. So as I figured I had to go in the back way so that she could see me comin’ out the front! That was the only viable plan I could think of. And so far as I knew, she hadn’t seen me outside and she hadn’t come in to the Library to get me. Unless of course if I found her standin’ inside lookin’ at me when I went in!

I opened up the back door of the Library and I walked into its musky smellin’ archives. I looked around cautiously, between the angled book shelves and over the tops of the books, checkin’ to see if Mama was in there someplace, lookin’ for me. But as far as I could tell, she hadn’t come in! So I made a quick ‘
b line
’ for the front door!

The Library ladies looked at me funny, but I didn’t mind.

I walked through the front lobby and out through the front door like I had been in there the whole time!

“Hi Mom!” I said as I sat down in the back seat and closed the car door. “Have you been waitin’ long?”

“No, we just got here a few minutes ago.” Mama replied. “We finished up early. Did you have enough time to find what you were looking for?

“Not really.” I said. “But I’d like to come back again and check out a few other things another time, if that’s okay?”