“Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they,” I said through gritted teeth. “I doubt any plummeting peasants ever made it onto his permanent record.”
We finally reached the little cliffside plateau that held the monastery’s two tiers, and Luka eased us into the empty parking lot outside the monastery gates. I nearly tripped over myself in my urge to scramble, weak-kneed, out of the car. “I think I need something to eat,” I said tightly. That queasy, skin-crawling feeling kept sweeping over me, and I thought I might throw up if I didn’t line my stomach with something.
“There’s a shop that sells relics and food over in the Lower Church, on the first tier of the monastery,” Luka said. “We can get something there before we go into the monastery proper.”
The Lower Church’s facade reminded me of a film set, as if the stone archways, cream-colored balcony, and three inlaid mosaic icons had simply been rested against the stone of the cliff behind it. Inside the shop, the shelves groaned with golden jars of honey, herbal creams and tonics blessed by the monastery, and rows of wine from the vineyards in the villages below.
I picked one of the busier honey jars, dense with dates, almonds, and apple slices, and we carried it up the steps that led to the monastery proper and its terrace. The prune-faced, kerchiefed woman at the shop had given us some plastic spoons, and Luka and I dipped into the honeyed fruit.
“It looks like something your mother would have made, doesn’t it?” Luka said, swirling his spoon through the sticky mass. My heart went raw at the thought of her, and of Lina back in Cattaro, without me. “Although messier. A little lacking in presentation.”
“I think it’s perfect,” I said. I propped my elbows on the stone wall and gazed over the lowland plain below, emerald beneath the leaden sky, a cool, piney breeze stirring my hair. Looking down over the valley seemed to settle me a little, soothe the feeling that my skin had flipped inside out, nerves dangling raw on the outside. “It tastes just like this valley looks.”
“That’s what they say about honey,” Luka agreed. “Every kind is different depending on where and when it was harvested. Even a batch from the same hive can taste completely different two weeks later. People who really know honey can tell exactly where each batch is from, and when.”
We looked up as a priest approached us, his black robes brushing the dusty stone. He was in his thirties, almost as tall as Luka and the peregrine kind of handsome so many Montenegrin men were, hawk-nosed and full-lipped beneath a neat beard. He was eyeing us sourly, and I could see his gaze flick to me and then purposely away, his Adam’s apple bobbing beneath stubble. It reminded me of what Luka had said, and I wondered if I’d spent my entire life misinterpreting the way people looked at me.
“The reliquary is closed,” he said finally, sighing. “No one should be allowed in there until we’ve properly resanctified it, but I hear the powers that be have decreed otherwise for you. Even still, I’m hesitant to let you pass. It isn’t right, adding insult to injury that way.”
“I’m not sure what you were told, Father,” I tried, tugging at the hem of my shorts, wishing I’d worn something longer. The buzzing on my skin was growing so thick and uncomfortable I felt like I was covered in a swarming blanket of flies. “But our—my mother died, not three days ago. She was murdered, and the police don’t know why or by whom. I’m just looking for some peace on her behalf, Father. Please.”
He wavered for a moment longer. “All right, child,” he finally conceded, his eyes sliding away from mine again. “For the sake of your mother’s soul, then. I’ll come in with you and administer the saint’s blessing, but you may not approach the remains as we’d normally allow. You will stand in the doorway, both of you.”
He turned and swept ahead of us, robes swishing.
The rock-hewn monastery was smaller and blockier than the Lower Church, square and snowy against the sheer cliff it had been carved into, its whitewashed surface scored with tiny slits for windows. It looked as though it had been partially swallowed by the rusty, yellow-streaked rock around it, as if the mountain had once been a ravenous stone Titan before it settled.
The priest led us past the main entrance, toward a terraced area that ended in a tiny black metal door emblazoned with a cross. “This is the cave-church of the Holy Cross,” he said, fishing a heavy, bronze key out of his robe pocket. “Normally there would be many gathered here to receive blessing, but we’ve been turning pilgrims away since yesterday.”
“What happened?” I asked. “If you can say.”
“The remains were desecrated, child. Some devil-ridden blasphemer stole one of our saint’s finger bones, if you can imagine something so grotesque.”
My gorge rose, and I abruptly wished I hadn’t had so much honey. Whatever was happening here wasn’t just beyond the pale. It was sin, mealy and soiled.
My stomach still churned as I followed Luka into the cave-church, ducking my head under the door’s low threshold. The father stood in the farthest corner of the little grotto, next to a massive cross of wood and gold. Biblical frescoes, richly pigmented like cave-paintings, covered the rocky walls and low ceiling, from which hung gilded censers. The reliquary that held the saint’s bones was swaddled in burgundy velvet with a golden fringe of tassels, like some morbid bassinet.
As soon as I set foot inside the cave and took a breath of ancient stone and incense, the nausea and roaring wrongness swelled until I choked back a dry heave. My scalp tingled, my ears buzzing as though we’d stepped into an apiary. Instead of fear, a strange, blind rage began howling inside me—like a gale of winter, like the roaring song of storms—and I barged ahead, pushing past Luka until I stood with my fingers wrapped around the wooden edge of the shrine. The priest’s shrill voice echoed faintly, as though from somewhere far away, because he couldn’t touch me here. This had nothing to do with him. This was between me and it, the aura that surrounded these dry and shrouded bones.
And it hated me. Just like I hated it.
How dare you hate me, a whisper curled inside of me like smoke. How dare the remnants of you pitiful man, who groveled for a mewling child-god only to be reduced to withered tendon and dusty bone, lay judgment upon the likes of me? The ancient gods attend to me, you skeletal, marrowless heap. WHO ARE YOU TO SPURN ME AFTER EVERYTHING I’VE DONE?