05-29-2022, 03:09 AM
The morning’s service had gone much better than expected, considering how little of it Malachi remembered actually doing. Lately it was all… muscle memory, so to speak. Reliant only on well-practiced motions and words practically engraved on his tongue. Some time ago the training took over, defaulting to what had been instilled in him rather than what came to him natural as breath, and sometimes habit felt like the only thing that kept him from running off track.
Midmorning saw him taskless, though he remained present in the sanctuary with the expectation that he would be needed soon. If not by Father Richards or the other residents of the presbytery, then by one parishioner or another seeking his assistance. It would have been a lie to say that his own spirit was one to be modeled after, at least in its current state, but not even his distraction from general services could lessen his desire to help.
Perhaps that, too, was mere distraction. More problems piled atop his own, so that he would not have the chance to find and face them. How perfectly that was working out.
The sound registered only vaguely when the doors of the church were opened and shut, his attention drawn downward to the dried stalks of lavender in his hands. Malachi sat in a pew nearest to the front, one leg crossed casually over the other as he filled a tiny cloth pouch with them. Ordinarily, he’d have been peering down into the pages of his bible instead – and had anyone approached, he would have shoved the pouch aside in favor of the book.
It was another noise that forced his attention away from it instead. A shrill one, that sounded like the scrape of one hard surface against another. Eyes narrowed, Malachi glanced behind him, over the rows of empty pews that separated him from the source of the noise.
Was that… intentional?
Slipping his things into the pockets of his cassock, he stood, and a swift stride made quick work of closing the distance.
“Good morning,” he greeted. “My apologies for the interruption, but- I’ve not seen your face in here before, have I?”
Midmorning saw him taskless, though he remained present in the sanctuary with the expectation that he would be needed soon. If not by Father Richards or the other residents of the presbytery, then by one parishioner or another seeking his assistance. It would have been a lie to say that his own spirit was one to be modeled after, at least in its current state, but not even his distraction from general services could lessen his desire to help.
Perhaps that, too, was mere distraction. More problems piled atop his own, so that he would not have the chance to find and face them. How perfectly that was working out.
The sound registered only vaguely when the doors of the church were opened and shut, his attention drawn downward to the dried stalks of lavender in his hands. Malachi sat in a pew nearest to the front, one leg crossed casually over the other as he filled a tiny cloth pouch with them. Ordinarily, he’d have been peering down into the pages of his bible instead – and had anyone approached, he would have shoved the pouch aside in favor of the book.
It was another noise that forced his attention away from it instead. A shrill one, that sounded like the scrape of one hard surface against another. Eyes narrowed, Malachi glanced behind him, over the rows of empty pews that separated him from the source of the noise.
Was that… intentional?
Slipping his things into the pockets of his cassock, he stood, and a swift stride made quick work of closing the distance.
“Good morning,” he greeted. “My apologies for the interruption, but- I’ve not seen your face in here before, have I?”
