MEROPE

"My Church, my followers…"

Gracie sulks in the damp, low socioeconomic studio apartment filled with pictures of Ethen and his missing mother.

The mood is heavy and tense. She has temporary injuries; slight cuts across her skin in various places from shards of metal shot like bullets, and significant ear damage that is supposed to heal. But her real lesions are psychological, perhaps even spiritual, and permanent. She hasn't said much since.

The explosion was being covered in the news cycle… the TV is not on currently, of course. Instead, Ethen looks into the open fridge's fluorescent bulb, hypnotized by the pale glow in the dark apartment like a moth to a flame. The sharp pain in his eyes is soothing.

There was great curiosity over the innominate building within a false building, and the media had picked up on the inherent secrecy in such a design, fueling speculation and intrigue. News anchors asked questions to field reporters standing single-file before the wreckage and police lines, responding after transmission delays of several seconds.

No interviews had successfully been conducted. The congregation decided well enough on their own that this was a terrorist attack on their beliefs and community by an exogenous hatred. They had seemingly been coached for such an event, and hadn't offered up any information or comment, as it would solidify the bomber's purpose of exposing the church for an additional onslaught of scrutiny and ire. Services were suspended. A few dispersed priestess boxes — used for mutual support, emotional coddling from the Goddess, and confessions — still operated at locations in the city. The congregation's solidarity was admirable, if perverse. Multiple theories ran around the world in their socks. The actual, accurate take was dismissed by the larger world as a conspiracy theory cooked up for political purposes.

Naturally, the body count was an ongoing tally on the news ticker, affixed to the bottom of the screen at all times. 23. Five were children.

Unnamed was Clay. Ethen had come across him, turning him over in a futile attempt to identify him along with his clothes. And so Ethen had witnessed two explosions that day; the second one erupted from Clay's mangled face, and was made of molten guilt. He was not anywhere near the understanding that it wasn't his fault for bringing Clay to the church to begin with. The invitation, selfish of Ethen, had ultimately robbed Clay of a life, an identity, and a proper burial. He had to be cremated. This sat very wrong with Ethen, given the circumstances of his friend's death. He dodged Clay's family, and did not show for the wake.

Dwelling on death brings to mind his mother. Did she show up at the church in his absence? If so, that is a sick sense of divine humor. Surely Gracie would have been informed of the missing missionary turned up. He doesn't want to make this about himself, so he tables the question for now.

"I'm sorry. I don't have much to offer you." Ethen manages.

Sitting at the kitchen table, Gracie doesn't respond and she doesn't look away from the window. Her jewelry had been removed, so too her makeup and garbs, so as to blend in. In the casual t-shirt belonging to his mother, she looks almost ordinary. She keeps her lips as clasped as her hands in her lap. She is looking at the world from the bottom of a well, and drowning. Ethen closes the fridge, empty-handed.

"I heard a loud bang, and there was just…. blood. Everywhere. I thought I was picking up one of the floral ropes, but it wasn't a floral rope…" Gracie finally speaks quietly. "It was… someone's..." She can't finish the statement.

Ethen turns to her, soberly. "I'm… really glad you were ok."

"Thank the Goddess." She replies, habitually. At this, she dropped her head, her palms catching it, tears leaking between her fingers. "How could someone do something like that?"

Erroneously taking the rhetorical at face-value, and so not helping at all, Ethen tries to find rational footing in an effort to comfort her.

"There are a lot of people who don't understand how the church can think and do the things it does. It should come as no surprise that there are people outraged enough to kill." Ethen pauses to make inferences. "It was likely someone who knew enough about the church to be disturbed by it. Could it have been someone traumatized by being raised in the church?"

"But why would anyone be traumatized of being in our church?"

Ethen dropped his head in disappointment. She was brainwashed. So naïve. She truly had no clue.

"Gracie, you are not to blame for this. You were raised in the church. You have been sheltered. You don't know better. It's why I like you, why I can love you. But you have to understand, now more than ever; people out there rightly believe that what the church does constitutes sexual abuse, and of children! Ok? That's the reality of it. Religious exceptionalism goes a long way, and so does victimhood but not that far. Most of the surrounding nations and city-states feel that as well. I know your missionaries face such difficulties in trying to spread our beliefs. The church's ways… are just too extreme."

Gracie looks up, and for the first time since the bomb, looks at someone rather than through them. "What? No! That is not true! We only do what's best for the children! We are about family, there's nothing harmful about what we do. You've been listening to propaganda. Who said those things?"

"Look, this is not the time to debate this. But you asked, and it's reasonable that someone could've become disillusioned, which would explain the hostility. Like I said, this is literally a cult of sexual abuse, Gracie. It's pederasty."

Her face contorts to an ugliness unfitting of her beauty. "It is an holy act in the right circumstances, and the patriarchy has defiled it into being synonymous with rape!" She spits the phrases out; regurgitated, irreducible.

Ethen is shocked at the amount of denial here. Gracie continues an offensive. "And what about you then? You were a child of the church. Are you disillusioned? Could you have been the perpetrator of this crime?"

"What? No! Gracie, how could you say something like that? I disagree with the church, but I would never hurt anyone over these beliefs."

She heaves out words between sobs. "Sorry, it's just… all this is making me very tense. I am just speculating. I'm sorry."

Ethen is offended. "I never understood this about the church. You are so secretive, like you know what you do is wrong. You keep yourself hidden. Yet, you intend to spread your beliefs and community! You're welcome newcomers to the church openly, people like Clay! It's all so… fucked up!"

She turns away from his harshness bearing down like a blast of heat.

Ethen doesn't stop. "Anyone can come in and show up at a sermon. That could be anybody! You don't have any sort of vetting system in place for newcomers. You are at once opened and closed off."

Gracie shouts back, tears rolling down her face. "We are not secretive. Our beliefs are sacred and we must protect them. We've been hated since the moment we came into existence. We are open and welcoming to anyone who wants to listen to our teachings, because as Mothers and missionaries, it is our duty! At the same time, this is a world full of hatred, and it's not safe. You have no idea how much hate and threats we receive on a daily basis. It's truly, incredibly saddening..."

Ethen softens slightly. "Then couldn't we have helped prevent something like this from happening? Seen it coming? If you understand that you are so hated, why do you leave yourself out in the open to be vulnerable to things like this… this…? It's amazing something like this hasn't happened before."

"Yes, almost miraculous."

"That's not what I mean, Gracie."

She wipes her tears with the dorsal crease of her bent wrists, looking up and drooping her jaw to access her eyes more delicately. "As I said, we have the duty of missionary work. We have the duty of teaching people how to love their Mothers, becomes full Sons, and show the true path of the Goddess. But we can never do this without opening ourselves to the possibility of being hated. We understand this is dangerous, but what else can we do? It is a risk we all take."

Ethen slammed his palm onto the table and shouts. "You can stop it!"

Gracie looked up, startled.

"Children died, Gracie. Children were killed in the explosion. Is it really worth it? Is it worth putting these innocent people at risk?"

Gracie seems truly disturbed, and even guilty. "Those little, sweet children… what kind of a monster would ever do such a thing to them? But… The church has to survive. It has to… We can't give in to these terrible acts of violence…"

"Someone out there is trying to send a message. They are telling you that your ways of living are as destructive as that bomb! They were trying to save the kids from a worse fate, I am sure of it! The bomber thinks he is a vigilante hero!! And if those kids hadn't of died, everyone else in the world would have agreed with him!!"

Gracie stands up, resolute, trembling, fists white. "We cannot give in to the fear created by this act of terror. It is exactly what they want, what they are expecting of us. To be afraid, to go into hiding. We. Must. Resist. We must show them that our faith is unshakable. This attack was calculated, and aimed not just to do damage to us, but to damage what we represent - the truth. That we are persecuted is proof of it enough. They wanted to make an example. All the more reasons for us to stand strong, and to resist."

Ethen leans into his stare, squinting his eyes into daggers. "If you keep preaching and believing, and spreading your message, more children will die! Is anything so important as to deny an innocent the right to live? What kind of Goddess allows that?!"

"We are not killing anyone! We are just spreading a belief, a way of life, a way of the heart. Something good and wholesome. Something that should inspire peace and love in the world, not terror. Why would they try to kill us? What do we do to them? What are we, that this hatred is born against us?"

He pushes a chair over onto the floor. "You groom children, and coerce them to be sexual when they are not ready, when they do not understand, when they cannot consent!"

Gracie seems utterly heartbroken, and horrified. "We don't groom children! Those allegations are ridiculous, and they come from ignorance. We oust anyone who disobeys our rules on this. It is the duty of every good Mother to teach her children, and show them the ways of the Goddess. It's love. It is not abuse!"

At that moment, a loud bang interrupts them. The door to the apartment has been thrown open. Gracie ducks, cowering and covering her head at the sound. Ethen freezes, but has enough shock in him to jolt his torso towards the door. One of Gracie's icy Meropes stands in the doorway, a sleek, compact sword drawn. She sees the configuration before her and advances towards Ethen, who raises his arms in surrender, pleading.

"No, no, everything's fine!" Ethen insists. The Merope's blade penetrates the space between his fanned hands, stopping just shy of his Adam's apple. He wets himself.

"Stop!" Gracie has composed herself and stands with a hand outstretched. "Stop it, we were only arguing."

The Meropes agreed to let Gracie stay at Ethen's, but were not happy about it. They hadn't yet ruled out the attack as an assassination attempt on the First Priestess, and possibly an inside job. Those of the guard who survived — a minority — identified that Ethen conveniently left just before the bomb detonated, and just so happened to return immediately after. However, they acquiesced to Gracie, who insisted.

She had little place else to go; the bomb had caused structural damage to the cathedral, and the Lesser Seat had been compromised. The stability of the catacombs, including her chambers, was still under investigation. As such, two Meropes stood just outside his apartment. They look very odd in street clothing to Ethen, but become intimidating quickly.

The Merope lowers her blade, leaving a papercut on Ethen's thumb along the way. "My Lady, we should leave. I recall this one from his youth, alongside you. He has always been an agent of the patriarchy; a rebel to the ways of the Goddess, through and through. The attack did not change him. And so you cannot change him either."

Gracie ponders the thought. "You know what…" She glares at Ethen. "You're right."

At that, they haste out of the apartment, leaving Ethen alone. He erupts, throwing furniture as if trying to hit them, cracking wooden legs and denting drywall. A knife set is knocked over and spills to the kitchen floor with a clang. He rips the bedding off of the mattress and clumsily tries to heave it across the apartment. He stops when his need to focus solely on breathing defeats his anger. He looks at a bare image of his mother on the floor, the glass shattered.

The image sends a bolt of lightning to his brain. He runs to the door and pulls it frantically. "Gracie?" He calls out into the rain. "Gracie!!" But she is gone.

Ethen walks back into his apartment, broken and dejected. His every attempt at normalcy has failed. Maybe he truly has a disorder, one that prevents solid connections — these either lost to incompatibility, bombs, or both.

He looks down at the shards of glass, split like talons on the image of his mother. As he picks it up, the loose glass shakes off. Carefully peeling back the remnant pieces, he gives a long, forlorn look at his mother, the photo bare and nothing between the two of them.

"She's so pretty." He says to himself, and to no one else at all.