Previously on Wings of Light:
--- *** ---
"Of course, you are not weak, Martha! You aren't all alone dealing with the person who is not only your father, but also the actual murderer of your mother Clementine. Don't ever forget who's trying to eliminate the family he thinks he wants to protect from his foes as he brought himself each trouble!"
"S-Satan! I'm surprised what I'm even doing with loving a parent who murdered brutally my own mom. Why I'm loving him when I'm presumed to despise him to the depths of my bones for...for punishing me to have only father instead like the other kids, you know, a loving mother and father next to them? Why my father punished my mother with the death, itself?"
--- *** ---
"Sebastian Gray's younger brother!"
"Mister Cayden Gray, right?"
--- *** ---
"It's not called shit. My sister Anna is seriously on fire about the Beatles."
"I was just kidding it's shit! Good for Anna! She's pretty awesome person when I met her personally."
--- *** ---
"Due to the fact, there are boiling feelings inside me, that doesn't cease what ya said as last words! There are always opportunities to work on everything and to harmonize everything if only we want it. For example, there were patients that bugged me off to bones, but that doesn't change what the devil would want if it was living inside me. The evil would want me to be a shameless murderer, despite his strength to keep me against my will of innocence."
"Just enjoy your breakfast and I don't want any bad vibes slipping from your tongue on Christmas! It's Christmas time rather than have a cow day. Shh, shh, shh! It's high time for positive vibes. Look at you, sweet ray of sunshine!"
--- *** ---
"Good evening, miss! It's already midnight and the patients are asleep. What are you actually looking for?"
"I would like to see my uncle. His name is Sebastian Gray."
--- *** ---
--- 5th of April, 1966 ---
--- A Few Hours Later or So ---
When the wee hours of the morning blended the great deal of pitch-black darkness consuming the thick, tubby cloak obscured the starless sky from any wee inkling of light to loom either horizontally or vertically, the Michiganian struggled to drift off asleep peacefully, thoughtlessly.
Spending a few hours in her bed and flipping on the other sides to readjust her own position and finding utter comfort for her muscles and bones, it was a fair attempt to creamily, leisurely attain the undeserved insomnia annihilating her very being. It was a challenging night for the young woman to protect on her own the flat she hospitably, altruistically shared with her older brother that was recently, fleetly occupying the Howards' privately owned property nonetheless.
Even though the young woman has experienced plenty of times forlorn nights when her brother's absence in the apartment vividly ghostwrites some of the rowdy neighbours' bickers or the sufficient mass of disruptive young adults or teenagers holding a house party with excessively tolerable loudness of the music they've adjusted, the somewhat common insomnias genuinely chased the blonde and the lurking shadows as her diabolical silhouette surreptitiously, unknowledgeable danced and shared its waltzing motions when her hazelish-brown jewels were casted on the ceiling or shut, obscuring the absolute reality mounting the horizon of her tinted images to draw her attention and perforating squarely, mindlessly.
While the grandiose television screen in Madeleine's bedroom was turned on and switched on the early morning's news channel lowly droned in the sufficiently expansive room, she fled to the kitchen to boil the water in the kettle for a cup of green tea and zapping her mushroom soup. In long three minutes of sheer anticipation for the hot mushroom soup and the freshly healthy green liquid, consequently the young lady pampered herself as she served herself with the mug of healthy green liquid and bowl of mushroom soup on her oak wood night stand, darting her honey brown big, roundish minerals to imbibe each discrete detail of the broadcasted news.
"Earlier tonight two members of the Gray family under the names Martha Gray and Sebastian Gray were hospitalized shortly after their attempt to flee the Vermont State Hospital as results of Martha to help her uncle to not be situated inside the well-known mental hospital." At the moment, the Michiganian manifested to crook her spidery palish, deft fingers around her silver scoop to scoop mouthful of her mushroom soup she has prepared earlier tonight, slowly but surely bestowing with the first bite to lace her oral caverns and tongue when her caramel brown minerals widened broadly, abruptly at the news journalist's exceeding breaking news about the Grays family. The vehement heart pulsations flumping heavily into her flimsy ribcage intensified megawattly headstrong and adrenaline coursing shrewdly through her veins. "The both victims of the high jump from the first floor of the asylum's building couldn't help but be the center of the medical experts' attention due to the both adults' critically upsetting conditions that were screaming for medical help." The suddenness of the juvenile lady itchingly awaiting the healthy green liquid's temperature to diminish within a few minutes, she was utterly focused on the healthy, refreshing mushroom soup and spooning a mouthful of the second bite, immersing the silver surface and the pale, vivid lights of the television screen's jumpcutting scene to the hospital's entrance spine-chillingly spiked stealthily the Michiganian's electrifying goosebumps on her frail epidermis.
"Holy goddamn!" In the interval, Madeleine manipulated after masticating greedily, gamely the second scoop of the soup to measure her breathing as the silverware spoon dunked in the remaining scale of the meal shortly after lowering abruptly the decibels of her Michigan lilt to puncture raspily, unavoidable euphoric the expletive whilst readjusting her folded legs faintly to attempt to find a better, more comfy position while seating in the middle of her double bed. What it candidly nuked the blonde was acknowledging the critical condition of the both members of the Grays after ominously inevitable, brilliantly believing in the karma, foreshadowing eerily the sequence for the intruders whose failed attempts to quench their harmony and peace pathetically equated to their fate which Madeleine strongly leaned to credit astoundingly cunning. Sooner or later after Martha's rueful attempt to accuse the former pious man of the cloth in sexual assault and non-consensual touch of her sensitive body parts, besides Sebastian's fiasco to deliver the perfume efficiently to the Howards, in fact, Timothy's slyness escalated to pretend his character to be somebody else under the name William Davis, graced with the enormous mass of arduous troubles escorting Martha and Sebastian due to their pure, diligent dedication to the nefarious serial killer of Vermont.
"The huge quantity of glass bruises, wounds even dried blood are the eventual aftermaths of the incident earlier tonight and sequencing the both patients to seek recovery in the hospital for a couple of days at least." When Madeleine's pristinely spidery, palish fingers dexterously reached to finger the plain lily-white porcelain mug, in order to test gingerly its current temperature, subsequently she emboldeningly daredevil crooked them to apt to tandem the brace of the mug handle and lifting it up from the nightstand, while the bowl of mushroom soup abided motionlessly careful in her lap. "For the moment, the doctors will urgently take care of the both adults in obnoxiously utmost condition." When the young lady snatched warily the cup of green tea and maneuvering its porcelain material to dip her parted lips in a soft O to grace with better access the liquid welcomingly, tenderheartedly hydrate her organs and wet tongue, the news journalist's Waterbury stern, firm lilt restlessly punctured the recent reports about the incident situated in the wee hours of midnight.
"The job is done." Emitting a hedonistically blatant, ruthlessly uncontrollable slur whilst swigging series of tiny, guiltlessly healthful sips then the juvenile lady left aloof on the night stand the mug and shifted her attention to the unfinished bowl of soup, whilst a blatantly wicked smirk flourishing past her soup-greased roseate, deliciously plump lips. "When you're a bringing a knife to a gunfight your evidence to be candidly obvious for the authorities as you're the first one to take the first step of a case even having the audacity to be caught red-handed for a flagrant slander against somebody to wash your hands with its menacing reputation, don't even try to twist the knife!"
The villainously riotous splinter of the kitchen window caught off guard momentarily the young woman, consequently scooping meekly, humbly the bowl of mushroom soup on the night stand and turning off the television screen in a jiffy. In order to prevent any noise melding creamily, stealthily with the spooky mumble of docile, ardently inquisitive footsteps ghostwriting the carpeted flooring of the bedroom on Madeleine's way to flee the bedroom and retrieve the letter opener from the dressing table of the hallway shortly before retiring to the kitchen and honing up her petite, vulnerable ears to detect any foreign, bitterly virulent sound of the intruder interrupting her lonely time in the wee hours of the early April's morning.
"What's this bitch thinking can do when I'm armed with a letter opener and a phone to call 911?"
Once the young flower store saleswoman retired to the kitchen with fashionably twisting the door knob humbly, shyly to peer through the small gap who have might broken into her property audaciously, throughout the Michiganian set foot in the kitchen and shot a fleet glance at the familiar tall figure, viciously glazed with nocturnal shadows pebbling the opulence of thick onyx mantle swathing exquisitely his bulky anatomy standing before the broken window while shoving his mammoth, stiff veiny hands into his slacks' pockets to diminish the chances of detection, in spite of the woeful attempts begetting the obviousness examined in the corner of the younger lady's eye when her utter focus landed on the brick and the sea of wee, flimsy glassy fragments of the cracked pane.
Cold-blooded ire palpitated into her petite frame and furious adrenaline coursing through her veins and muscles how just because of the vicious, infamous serial killer who was one of her worst foes would be the essential motive of hers to spend a handful of hundreds of dollars on a new pane of her window.
"Do not grin, you psychotic bastard!" Meanwhile, the young lady registered to hunker down to studiously, attentively examine in a scrutiny the trivial, discrete details, sequencing the aftermaths of the partly broken furniture that naturally mirrored the magnificently monumental vista of outdoors and the cusp of indoors and outdoors altogether, whereas her honey brown huge, emotionally rotund minerals glazed a scintillating glare at the middle-aged gentleman's vibrant grin, curving his naturally baby-pinkish, cherub lips into the balefully wide ivory enamel, swathed with light-hearted layer of nicotine-grease embellishing his surprisingly firm teeth, grasping even tighter the letter opener in her grip ominously. The vigorous heart pulsations resiliently jaunty drummed in her flimsy ribcage and hammering into her ears due to the hasty adrenaline fantastically crystal blending with the embarrassingly unspeakable tension of the ambience. "What the hell do you think do you want from me?" Stilling her northern lilt authoritatively puncturing her posed question while straightening her posture promptly to approach the partly broken window, the baleful, rueful nonchalance kindly resonated her undertones to commingle calmness and egregious menace which didn't even mortify and triggered a quiver begrudgingly the ill-famed psychopath's bulky muscles to choir. "Your whorish daughter and your bastard brother are finally imprisoned in a hospital for recovery. Huh?" Huskily rusty, mellow chuckle flexed Cayden's Adam's apple when he muffled the buoyant timbre of his mirth, lingering the light-hearted texture ingraining his yet charming facial attributes. "You think it's funny that your daughter and brother are sharing a hospital room together even earlier your brother was institutionalized in an asylum, because of me and my girls?" Folding dramatically cold-blooded, emphatic her lean arms across her chest to alter her current stance, narrowing her thin, elegantly feminine eyebrows. "I didn't know your family's tragedy is no laughing matter!"
"Drop the letter opener!" Grimly authoritatively raspy caution cooed alarming tones into the younger lady's petite ears when Cayden ordered her to disarm herself.
"How do you think I'll drop it, in fact, I need something to protect myself in case if somebody attacks me? Or what about the wee cases of burglars even though I still don't know if you're like them or just pretending to be like them?" The suddenness of rhetorically sardonic enquires sailed out of Madeleine's venomously serpentine tongue tip, sharpening her caramel brown embers to imbibe the very figure of her foe. "Cayden, I know your teeny-weeny game! You are expecting me to follow Judy's steps how it happened on your first date with her."
"The letter opener, dumb blonde!" Blatantly increasing the decibels of his accent spotlighting his authoritatively antagonistic, ambiguous admonition to disarm her in possibly the most harmless way instead of attacking her non-verbally, whereas a jaded, heavy sigh bubbled deftly from her tiny, flexible nostrils articulating her inflammatory ire and nausea submerging the pit of her stomach at diligently unprotesting to follow the Italian compatriot's instructions to elude any kinds of trouble and unforgivable consequences.
"What kind of gentleman you're actually, Mister Cayden Gray? Calling blatantly a lady dumb in the possibly nastiest way just to indulge your growling ego of abhorrence and hunger for revenge and power?" Inclining rabidly lissome a thin, dark eyebrow when the razor-edge incredulity profusely etched her young-looking, stunning facial attributes. What it savagely revolted the flower store saleswoman was namely the Italian compatriot's intolerable, complacent vainglory for downgrading the equality as general population's opposites they're eventually. "Did you call your dear daughter dumb, fugly or whatever pops up in your mind to be such a misogynist?" At the moment, the older gentleman registered to modestly, solemnly shake his head, reaffirming categorically his façade's position. "The misogynists are such nasty liars as you buttered Judy up once just to make her biting the bullet of what kind of a psycho you're and turning a blind eye to the one of a kind disgrace you're for your family and for everybody living in Hartford. Instead of insulting each other, you better leave my apartment before the cops are being called in the right time." Grappling firmly, iron-willedly her lean, satin biceps when her youthful, sly calmness spotlighting exquisitely her parchment complexion brightly bleak contrasted to the unbelievable, unamusing vexation nuking the pit of her stomach and erupting the incredible cataract of lava overflowing her blood boiling viciously, amplifying her stark tolerance for the middle-aged man.
"I'm not here for your wet behind the ears games of talking, Maddie!"
"Then what do you want?" Clearing awkwardly gruffy her throat whilst attempting to muffle the rustiness in the cleansing process, the incredulity apparently evocatively depicted the real portrait of Madeleine's confrontation whose antagonists in her own story conveyed the cue of dubiousness to be assimilated by her.
"Since you mentioned Martha and my brother, I'm strongly guessing you acknowledged that thanks to the news."
"I fairly do! And what business you have to spill the tea about them?"
"I know you hate me as much as you do both of them, however, I don't feel any longer closure with my daughter even my brother."
"What are you saying?"
"She's such a sluttish disgrace to this family." Lingering her leanly silken arms crossed across her chest, a compound of brilliant incredulity and nonchalance rancorously feuded for domination to sketch her parchment, freshly young-looking face. In spite of Cayden's low-spirited revelation, puncturing his momentous resentment towards the incestual relationship that potently, doubtlessly waywardly bonding Sebastian and Martha that were in the other part of Vermont, the Michiganian's acute discernment confronting the inescapable dilemma of either even granting modicum of belief in her worst foe's word which his tongue pelt up to the recent moment or on the contrary not even being all ears. "She's pregnant with my brother's baby."
"W-What?" Resilient panic prominently jimmying her mumble, elaborating the inquiry, meantime, the begrudging unclasp of the letter opener from its tight, ominously unyielding grip and the fiercely hair-rising clink of the steel edge whispering rowdy against the carpeted flooring clouded the sheer, brassly misty oblivion for the juvenile blonde. "I have never had such case of incest as experience, not gonna lie."
"You don't need to so that to blame somebody why their creations are possessing homogeneous traits. I was betrayed. I was being lied to." The haphazardness of the sarcastically vile, heinously raspy snicker, half-heartedly illuminating Cayden's sarcastic, fake glee unmasking his soar, bittersweet obscene and betrayal of Martha and Sebastian's controversial bonding when the Michiganian managed to adjust her arms' position and uneasily crooking them fluently to peak to her pelvis. "Most of all, I didn't know they were hiding such vicious secrets as a late night storm with its tempest of growling thunderbolts shaking the ground and salty heavy rain translucently glimmering the candidness of how parallel to the reality they're." Enormous, salty lump seethed the younger lady's fleshy throat, constricting its delicate muscles and strong-willedly insisting for its release, when she maneuvered her averagely-sized, fashionably peach pink lacquered fingernails to reach for her scalp and gingerly dragging her claw to flinching delicately, whereas unnervingly and huge ball of nausea, enveloped in sinful discomfort crawled beneath her lower abdomen and swaddling frostily her muscles.
"You know I've never being fond of them or at least having some sort of like for your daughter and older brother, howsoever, I think that's a bit too much with that incest."
"Per se," Suddenly Madeleine registered to wedge her naturally nude pink, lusciously plumpish lips in a thoughtful, attentive purse indicating her ambiguous intentions readable past her features, while Cayden truly, slyly detected her very leeriness and quizzically quirking a dark, masculinely thick eyebrow. "That's not a decent example for granting a new generation to be full of sparkling potential to be its own of a kind."
"It's blood-curdlingly disturbing."
"I've to fairly second it, Maddie! But you've to blame it on them."
In a long minute of megawattly intensifying hush settling cozily in the adequately maintained proximity the both adults traded mutually, the jaded, glassy stares pronging one another's outstanding facial features merely tippling discreet inkling motion and facial expression's change.
"Are you trying to," Clash of vowels and syllables crucially determined the doldrum's destiny at last with constructing an awkwardly meek, presentable stutter hammering the young flower store saleswoman, hunkering down to retrieve surreptitiously her letter opener in self defense, in case if the Italian compatriot stubbornly attempts to attack her non-verbally.
"What?" It wasn't left unseen the explicitly hazy scenario of the Italian compatriot transfixing his cinnamon brown gems on the young lady arming herself with the sharp object to prevent any physical woes.
"I don't have any time for any uninvited guests. If you just kindly retire back to your mouse hole, I promise you there are going to be no more troubles between us."
"Like what, Miss Madeleine?"
"Bickers, know-it-all debates and messing with anybody between Jude, Frank and Timothy," Half-heartedly gesturing with her letter opener during her dearly malignant, contagiously equivocal retaliation to bash the unfriendly, very presence of the nefarious serial killer and having no intentions of blatantly bland resuming its heated, sophisticated debates that might have an ethereally timeless sequel without a logical apogee to conclude the points of the both sides, besides trying to outsmart Cayden with a solemnly diplomatic consensual promise of not evolving their rivalry in their daily lives due to a sole condition. "Even me! Everything will be fine and you won't whine that either your daughter is a whore or somebody called the cops on you. Just go away!" Mimicking ironically gentle, big-heartedly to the psychopath with wavering her elvish, blanched only free hand, consequently he turned his back and retreated from the balcony of the flat agreeably.
Little did the Michiganian know if her stealthily cunning concept to banish categorically the uncomfortable, distressful presence of the older gentleman played out smoothly and accompanying its very aftermaths gently following its sequence. What she sincerely longed for was not beholding his eerily disquieting face ever again even having any malicious intentions, regardless how humongous or wee they're weighed off on its scales for their actual quantity and indicating his versatile willingness to intimidatingly disturb his own foes.
--- *** ---
--- Several Hours Later or So ---
When the morning's progress bled into the inescapably phenomenal sunrise and the vibrantly roundish, gilded sun mounting up the baby blue horizon to bountifully steeping Adam's outskirts and living beings with stunningly beaming illumination, pale enough to outstandingly curtain their feature, the Howards woke up slightly after eight o'clock in the morning, due to the fact, it's honeymoon and they had a couple of more days to utterly relax and dedicate their clumsy inertia comfortably descending in their space. The former sleazy jazz nightclub singer had her own friends to replace her as manager or at least coworkers in the flower store, whereas Timothy didn't have any intentions of finding a job yet, due to the fact, his fortune was filthily satiable and could aid them to live the rest of their days drowning in galore of money. Anyway the former aspiring Monsignor's keen enthusiasm to stay at home to take care of Stephen and Edward Ralph during Judy's absence in the flower store even experimenting from time to time with cooking, cleaning and dusting off the furniture and the rooms, besides watering the flowerbeds in the grandiose yard bestowed him with myriad of pleasurable satisfaction to relish his life which he's never being steadfastly sticking to its peculiar daily schedule he's usually following after his resignation from the diocese.
When the small family came to their senses, consequently they brushed their teeth and ordered for themselves a breakfast, besides their little ray of sunshine was breastfed and opting to wean him off sooner than later. As the morning vaguely advanced, the former pious members of the church got ready for the ready lastly and left the desolated hotel, in order to find a nigh church.
Shortly before ten o'clock, the Howards fathomed the small formed hordes of people they were eagerly anticipating for the holy man's arrival before starting eventually the morning mass. It's been awhile since either of the nuclear family has set foot in the chapel.
First and foremost, when the duo set foot inside the chapel as the former licentious jazz nightclub singer scooped and frequently soothing, gingerly affectionate rocked the six-month-old infant to crack his facial expression into a hysterical, wild sob trembling his thoughtless voice, the notorious creak of the recent visitors' knowledgeable arrival caught off guard the huge mass of the visitors, seating motionlessly and reclining peacefully on the lacquered, comfy pews. The sea of discomforting foreign, sharp gawks fixated on the trio imbibed them from head to toes. Even though it was just an amorously adorable vista of a married couple with their six-month-old baby boy scooped in his mother leanly satin, protective arms, somehow the pallid glint glazing the majority of the nobodies' cabochons pinched pure neutrality and arcane awkwardness. Their sudden rowdy and silent chats they exchanged with each other evocatively muted when the incessant bounce of the former nun's lion mane of artistically old Hollywood unruly aureate curls fascinatingly curtaining her healthily ghostly pale façade even when the infant protracted perkily his pudgy hands to snatch violently tender a fistful of rebellious curls to finger and play, escorting reassuringly his babyish impulse and childish inquisitiveness to discover the undiscovered worlds and realms for his worldview. The mid-morning vibrantly scintillating sun streamed profusely golden saturation into the battered, monumentally rotund window and rectangle windows.
What the Bostonian's current outfit was an ordinary sunflower yellow retro dress with short leg of Mutton sleeves and boat neckline partly leaking her delicate milky collarbones and expanse, whilst the lively velvet hem flared slightly above her round, lovely knees, coupled with classy jet-black kitten heels shoeing her petite feet. Additionally the middle-aged lady's outfit articulated a cozy cotton cardigan, enveloping her torso, despite the unbuttoned coif and a silver bracelet bracing her flimsy right wrist.
Whereas Timothy's recent attires obscuring his toned, averagely muscular anatomy were a casual, ordinary denim blue cotton shirt guarding his torso with a handful of undone stubborn buttons, leaking partly his masculinely hairy, appealingly olive-tanned chest, coupled with pair of comfortable pitch-black trousers armoring his lower body and classy, elegant black oxfords. In addition to his recent raiment a wrist watch crooked around his wrist to indicate the uneasily ticking time.
When the Howards seated on the first pew on the left awaiting patiently for the man of the cloth's arrival to deliver his initial sermon for today, the haphazardness of the teasingly ticklish, faint clout of her incessant inward, light inhales and the dust taunting her button nose to sneeze docilely on the other side, evading any humanoid contact to plague with her own bacillus and germs whilst muffling the unhealthy process with one of her elvish, marbled hands. At the moment, the British aristocrat clumsily, lazily iron-willed shoved his pristinely alabaster, meaty fingers in his trousers' pocket to retrieve a clean handkerchief for his wife and handing it to her immediately to blow her nose.
"Bless you!" The blameless politeness of the younger man crooked one of his muscly, strong arms to secure her slim, silky waist when the Bostonian managed to bow timidly her head, evading the shamefaced contact with the nobodies due to the embarrassing sneeze interweaving with the further background noises of nebulous chats the other hallowed building visitors shared with each other.
"Thanks!" Once the middle-aged lady girlishly anxious mildly snorted her tiny, flexible nostrils due to the vague runny nose coating her entrances relentlessly, the British aristocrat yanked gingerly, delicately the young boy into his muscly, protective arms as his brittle lungs unloaded a sharp exhale.
"Here!" A coyly benevolent, poetically vibrant smile decorated Timothy's parchment, healthily fresh complexion when he manifested to hand his wife the clean, oyster-white handkerchief to blow politely, graciously subtle her nose. "Take your time to blow your nose!"
"Thank ya!"
"Mama! Dada!" Protracting blatantly joyous his pudgy, petite arms to cradle in his childlikely chubby hands his creator's sharp, swan curve of his jaw when his hazelish-brown embers boldly glazed the wed pairing, cooing honey-mouthed the fewest words that articulated fluently his actual vocabulary. His baby-pinkish, glossily spongy lips curved into a huge, candidly buoyant grin flexing his jaw.
"I know, honey! We love you so much too!" In the meanwhile, when the older woman curled her spidery alabaster, featherly-soft fingers to adequately fold the handkerchief squarely to blow emphatically, gracefully demure her runny nose, Timothy pressed an affectionately gentle peck on Edward Ralph's forehead seconds before tugging a boldly doting, merry smile at the corner of his glossy mouth.
"Dada!" Even though the former members of the clergy haven't stepped in a hallowed façade since they've fled the notoriously dilapidating, old mental hospital and eagerly looking forward to resume their free lifestyle they're truly graced with, the church atmosphere was far cry from familiar for the youngster, elaborating disquiet, ambiguous whimper.
"Is everything okay, my little prince?" Peppering recurringly his well-carved, childlikely chubby cheeks with series of tender, paternally humble kisses grazing his naturally lactescent, lavish facial skin dedicatedly on reflex to try to comfort his son, factly, Timothy's potent, adamant instincts and crystalline punctuation detecting instantly his son's unfamiliarity with the sacred community. "What's wrong?"
"Nah!"
"Come on! You can tell me what's wrong. I'm finely aware of the atmosphere might be not with the same people, due to the different locations, but I've mustered up with anything associated with the religion and the sacred."
"Dada!"
"Everything is alright! The church is promisingly friendly and harmless community." Then the former holy priest's pristinely feather-soft fingers traced gingerly his son's swan curve of his jaw until his pale fingertips peaked to finger and tease mischievously daring, lovingly the beginning of his featherly-soft crispy, chestnut hair, transfixing his coffee brown optics on the amiable section prominently strong glinting the youngster's facial attributes unmasking his actual chubby profile. "It's a community of interacting not only with other people that are religious like us, but also with God who secures us with His very sacred light. He's pretty aware of our woes and joys. Just like the vices and vows." When the former devotional woman of the cloth politely, presentably folded the lily-white, snotty-stained handkerchief and shoved it graciously surreptitious in her cardigan's pocket for eventual future cases of sneezes and runny noses, the art of nimbly breakneck glance shot at the empty pulpit and recently knowledgeable very presence of the clergyman whose youthfully gracious, fashionable physique engulfed the enormous mass of visitors' utter focus targeting his tall figure. "He's always watching us and in always troubling moments when nobody is presumed to land us a helping hand, he will grant us a second chance to fight the ordeals." Lowering rapidly the decibels of his logically rational monologue clearly explaining to the youngster as kind reminder that the others weren't all alone at all in the very presence of Father Ewan Fergus Russo, meanwhile, the Bostonian manipulated her elbow kindheartedly, faintly nudging her husband's arm to additionally remind him of Father Ewan's appearance. The tension of fervent heart pulsations' rapidly rabid anomaly hewed the couple's ribcages at the landscape.
Father Ewan Fergus Russo was eventually a man in his early thirties standing 5'10. His leanly muscly anatomy constructed his large frame, slightly smaller comparable to the former aspiring Monsignor. His halo ringlet of jet-black locks exquisitely, coyly framed his round unblemishedly olive-tanned façade, coupled with pair of big, roundish lapis lazuli optics authentically blazing his sheer wisdom and refreshing intelligence, besides uniquely embellishing his attributes and cleanly shaved facial hair. His diligent devotion to the cloth debuted a couple of years ago after regularly fulfilling the process of taking his very first vows and following the proper instructions as first steps to dedicate his very soul, heart and body to God and the priesthood. His emigration in Adams, Tennessee emphatically altered his worldview and chaotic daily schedule after moving out from his birth town Warren, New Jersey after spending a few decades of his childhood, adolescence and the commencement of his young adulthood being raised in a wealthy strictly tremendously pious Catholic family. Last but not least, due to his Catholic family's piousness, thus it aroused his fiery enthusiasm in the religion and increasing the chances of his priesthood's establishment even though he's dated a few times and dedicated his young adulthood stealthily to his university friends' indulging pleasures in the form of cocaine and alcohol.
"Good morning, my dear Children!" Shortly after straightening their postures to politely welcome the dark-haired man of the cloth, whose one of his mammoth, youthfully, healthily veiny hands' fingers braced the rigidly leather covers of the Holy Bible, whereas his other hand's fingers managed to fix smoothly awkward his ecclesiastical collar, flicking up his lapis lazuli gemstones pronging the vista of filled pews of religious visitors for the morning mass, the purely amiable New Jersey lilt spotlighted Ewan's gentleman politeness articulating his sacred language's fluency. The monotonous frequency of his masculinely docile footsteps whispering against the wooden podium and stepping before the oak wood pulpit, he ushered his wet, strawberry-coloured tongue to lick greedily his nude pink, deliciously plumpish lips. "It's another good morning to pray our hearts in the name of the Lord and the light. Isn't that right?" The stout, headstrong hush conveniently settled in the chapel's interior, while the pure provocation of a facial expression's change of Ewan's fleet grin decorating his face to a benevolently sympathetic smile permeating past his naturally nude pink, cherub lips, thus he quizzically mischievous raised an arch of his eyebrow, lowly humming in the audience's silent response encouraging him to deliver the sequel of his monologue. "We better get started with the morning prayer out loud before jumping into the important part of our daily moral topics evolving our mindsets and world."
All of a sudden, everybody lifted up their rears from the polished, convenient pews to fluently silver-tongued, creamily escort the New Jerseyan's half-hearted, nonchalant chant of the prayer and either knotting their fingers to recite rowdy the prayer or on the contrary meagerly fashioning their paws.
"Father in heaven, king of glory, we adore your name and work to glorify you forever. It is through your will that we are alive," Some of the sacred façade visitors' claws meekly held the holy book and timidly bowing their heads, diligently sticking to the prayer's effect. "And healthy today. Your Grace has allowed us to converge together. You have promised that whenever we call on your name, you will hear and answer us." The great blend of the morning honey-mouthed, elating birdsongs suffusing the chapel and the multi-voiced symphony of recite of the prayer tingled the extraordinary composition of untouchable, invincible serenity. "Come into our midst, God, and have fellowship with us. Make your blessings abundant and grace us with your presence. From the start of this meeting to the end, glorify yourself and accept our prayers." Heavy sighs flushed the former members of the clergy's nostrils after peaking to the apogee of the prayer, whilst the little boy's cinnamon brown embers ignited fierce wildfire of uncertainness when the holy man emboldened the nobodies along with Jude and Timothy chanting the hallowed declaim smoothly circulating its cataract of wisdom and warm comfort. Little did he know the genuine notion of the prayer and it is efficient aftermaths sequencing dauntlessly every person that has spent a couple of moments to grant themselves a sacred safety verbally either in the morning, the noon or the evening. Anyway the infant somehow comprehended the context of his father's rationally simple explaination he owed to Edward Ralph's uncertainness a few minutes ago about the foreign, odd atmosphere looming past the six-month-old toddler's bones and spine-chillingly violent throbbing paradoxal paroxysm into his frail muscles of unfamiliarity with another undiscovered world for his worldview. The church. "Amen!"
"Amen!" The multi-voiced ode humbly made the Sign of the Cross gesture along with the New Jerseyan momentarily shortly before retiring to recline on the convenient pews again.
"First and foremost," The haphazardness of the cocksurely raised colossal, creamily milky hand of Timothy gamely sheened Ewan's attention when his uniquely northern lilt elaborating the stammer taunted his front ivory teeth to bit the sensitive spot of his berry-coloured tongue, whereas his heart raced promptly. "Yes, ma'am? You would like to speak on this podium for the others?"
"I've a couple of words to articulate in an important topic."
"Excellent! Come here, my child!" Ushering encouragingly hospitable with a hand to embolden the former religious holy woman to deliver a speech on a remarkable moral topic in the mid-morning and stepping aside to gift the middle-aged lady with sufficient space of adequate proximity, while Timothy massaged mellowly gratifying his lover's dainty shoulder blade seconds before retreating to the pulpit in a jiffy.
"You've my immense support for the blowminding topic you've cooked for the visitors."
A minute of silence utmost unnerved the middle-aged woman when she retired from her seat with peppering her husband and son's cheeks with series of tender, angelic kisses before stepping before the pulpit, measuring her own stark patience in a corpulent sigh syncing with the vehemently sharp thud into her petite, vulnerable ears. It's been a handful of years since Judy has stepped on the pulpit to declaim a rationally vital moral topic, although her iron-willed will of sorting her chaotic mind in no time shortly before the awkward lurch of vowels and syllables heinously hungry clashing for dominance while sponging the beginning of her tongue. Swallowing sluggishly the thickness in her feminine Adam's apple, the Bostonian's classy kitten heels disruptively murmured against the ground when Ewan's ocean blue depths quaffed agreeably the older lady.
"I know this topic has nothing to do with the religion, but it has to do with our moral and value system as every one of a kind sinner seeking God's helping hand, holy light and offered second chance for a persistent battle with our hardships." Initially Jude's Boston lilt prominently spiked her fluency when the prologue segment tingled smoothly each chapel's visitor along with the New Jerseyan, himself. "First and foremost, leaving behind yar family and focusing on something more crucial like career, other lovers that toxically spoil yar marriage is like adding insult to an injury, you know! It's a sin to cheat on somebody even veiling the lie prominently in its cloth of sugarcoated innocence and impossible detection of the truth." The beehive of eagerly, artistically inquisitive orbs seeping through the physique of the former licentious nightclub singer's brilliant wisdom honed their ears and happily animating her boldness to essentially conjugate the other separate segments of her monologue. "As an ex-nun who was raised in a nuclear family with a single mother working a handful of jobs to provide for me and herself, my father left us when I was barely five years old. Yeah, his ongoing pleasures of the free lifestyle dominating over the love and the duties of dedication to the family made me questioned why I was never loved or at least sensing the genuine notion of that magnificent feeling that naturally oozes of your heart." An unbearably sweltering curled ball of dim shyness and self-consciousness fractured her lower abdomen, consequently conjugating a nervous gutturally sarcastic, perfectly healthy chuckle darkening her undertones. "I always thought as a little girl that I and my mother were never good enough and why on the earth it happens to us. Well, here's the answer. The criminally sinful people like my father that are far cry from caring about the family even to bestow with modicum of altruistic support to extend our survival chances even allowing ourselves to be pampered. He thinks it's not a good idea to help his family. He thinks his lovers and his gold digging character will aid him to dig its grave of my mother's tough parenthood. He dug that grave, howsoever, did his lovers loved him back and granted him whatever he yearned for? Did his Genies willed to fulfill his wishes after chanting to their lamps what he actually wanted? Huh?"
During the heartwarming oration, twin chubby celestially crystal tears rimmed Timothy's lower eyelids almost imploring desperately to trickle downward his well-carved, chubby cheeks at the thought of his wife's low-spirited, gut-wrenching gloomy past and the meaningful proverbs and rhetorical inquiries delivered out to the audience that was formed in the hallowed building's interior. A doe, unorthodoxy unglued smile perched upon the British compatriot's pale-pinkish mouth.
"After being through a lot of hardships in the form of heartbreaks, loneliness and salty tears regularly even dark past that is barely shadowed in its mantle of pitch-black darkness to obscure the very segments of my very being, I became a nun. That was some kind of redemption for me to be God's refugee and servant in the same time." The suddenness of reluctant stutters sailing out of the Bostonian's mouth sloppily indicated her outspoken honesty though she managed to gruffily clear her throat, muffling its rusty, husky cough. "I never believed in the true love or at least to find it somewhere in the church. In the very outskirts of the church. All I wanted was a family and I found it after the priest that was in charge of the facility we ran together and he genuinely counted on my experience, intelligence and strictness, there were strong points linking our bond and reckoning the chemistry's potential myriad of privileges even when we are still young." Vividly bright, poetic smile softened the British compatriot's parchment, young-looking yet face promptly at the amicably frank, thought-provoking statement molting his and the other nobodies' flimsy hearts."Due to my coveted wish of having family and at least one child to teach and love, it helped me to diminish the chances of beholding Satan's face once I no longer occupy this world. It was an effective medicine. Anyway getting back to my early childhood when I was a half orphan living in a modest household when my father left us, God was constantly conveying its crucial message that my father will go to hell and he will face his judgmental day the day when he disappears either for better or worse. It will be his lesson to rot in hell after leaving a family behind because of his selfishness to chase corrupted women that could satiate fleetly his physical needs, but how about the spiritual ones? Think about it!" In the interval, the Bostonian's dainty alabaster, creamy hands clawed softly, firmly the wooden pulpit, narrowing her poetically expressive thin eyebrows and squinting up at the crowd outnumbering her, reckoning her husband little ray of sunshine. "I and my husband had galore of tribulations, in order to harmonize everything in our family when we couldn't even stare at one another or at least I couldn't at him for more than a few seconds except irking me the way he shot that gaze or glance at me. I knew so far we had a second chance to harmonize and fix the things. We did it! We still do it! He didn't leave me for another woman when I had tough periods of time to fulfill his needs and the patchy void he's wearing beneath and outside him. Because he wasn't as weak as the other partners do to replace anything that they dearly love and strongly believe the things will be repaired slowly but surely." Gesturing a wavered hand whilst rippling its motion to indicate the wavelet's dance, throughout her front pearly white teeth slammed to nip at the delicate spot of her bottom plump, bloody-red painted lip. "I did the mistake of temporarily replacing him with a man that I believed would be better than him, however, I was completely wrong. It was proved in the manipulative mannerism and excessive flattery I earned smoothly. It was bolt from the blue when I truly fathomed the genuine notion of a difference between a gentleman and a manipulator being capable of foul snow job. It taught me a tremendously utmost lesson. If yar on the verge of moving on in yar life between repairing the impossible- toxic relationship and having potent motives of taking the initial steps of escaping the held grudges and rage; and finding a new love interest that would share similar interests as yours for example, you cannot change the person you once pearly loved. Ya cannot change the others unless yar capable of changing yourself even a little bit at least."
An uncomfortable, frosty hush dazzled the middle-aged lady when the truly consoling, creamy sensation of twin fat tears dribbled thinly its rivulets onto her lower eyelids, thereafter her fingertips reached to daub softly the wee despondent, bizarrely heartwarming drizzle tinging its translucent stream reflecting her non-verbal sorrow. Sharpened knives pronged her throat when an inward sob broke her facial expression, dropping sheepishly her head for a split second to soothe herself.
"What my husband taught me is it's not that yar not good enough to be the change for the others! Ya have to alter yarself before hazardously hopping up in the game, full of adventures and woes! It's really selfish to blame the others why the things ya have built together have collapsed unless they prove how ruefully pathetic they're with unforgiving intentions of the sort of adultery, lies and so forth that harm your relationship. Ya have to love yarself before loving the others as much as you do yourself. You have to be ready for sacrifices, no matter if they're physical or mental. They're the sacrifices that are vividly speaking volumes about you and the bond you're coupling together." In the meantime, the former ambitious Monsignor featherly-soft, attentively bounced and rocked Edward Ralph to warmly soothe him during his wife's meaningfully authentic, analytical monologue dripping from her cherub, brim lips and registering to caress and stroke their six-month-old infant's crispy soft chestnut hair and interweaving its strands tickling generously, altruistically his digits when his pudgy, childish arms braced Timothy's palish neck for support on reflex, clinging dotingly to his toned chest. "No matter how busy you're daily, however, if somebody truly loves you even if they have enough time to take a shower or to make for themselves a sandwich, they will keep in touch with ya. That's called the unblemished love we're everybody seeking its sacred sanctum that is closest to our hearts. Never abandon your families, no matter in what kind of a tough situation yar situated together! Family is all!" Bowing meekly, modestly beside the horde of audience whose tempest of stormy clapping hands rapidly rabid aroused her self-confidence and pleasurable satisfaction of having the chance to lecture even if it's a handful of people on an essential topic evolving each living being's outstanding life. Content smirk tugged at the corner of her lips when she retired from the pulpit and re-sitting on the pew where her compact, preciously extraordinary family awaited her nonetheless, while the juvenile holy man approached the podium, continuously applauding the blonde for her idiosyncratic sapience sweetly, solemnly pounding her utterances and leaving not only Father Ewan, moreover the rest of the nobodies and her husband along with her son memorably flabbergasted to bones.
"I'm so proud of you, my rare bird!"
"Thank you, honey! It wasn't a child's play to deliver out something that's ambiguous even being the core of my inner turmoil with my hesitancy." Pursuing courageously for the younger gentleman's naturally baby-pinkish cherub lips to press a hardening, brief kiss, meantime, the church's interior became a victim of the unspeakably uneven, gruesome lulling silence, comfortably kipping in the corners. "I wouldn't be more grateful to open my heart about such an extraordinarily remarkable topic that affects not only single parents, but also children that feel lonely and unloved by their parents."
--- *** ---
--- A Few Days Later ---
--- 7th of April, 1966 ---
The mid-week became a victim of the slow progress bleeding into the approaching weekend within a handful of days solely.
A couple of remarkably exceeding moments animated in the past few days without a single shadow of doubt. As soon as Madeleine informed the Howards about her partly broken window emanating of the ill-famed serial killer of Vermont and sharing a brief colloquy, instead of earning inflammatory bickers thudding the young woman, the married couple promisingly optimistic emboldened their friend to take care of herself and staying strong, regardless how many confrontations with Cayden she's encountered during the Howards' preciously amorous, romantic honeymoon in Adams for a week. Even though Madeleine paid for the vague damages of her kitchen window, it afflictively agonized to spend a few hundreds of dollars on her glass's repair. Furthermore, she shared the same colloquy with her favorite ladies during the manager of the flower store's absence during their shift in the facility and the response she genuinely covet to earn paralleled to the former pious sister of the church's eventually.
In addition to the former members of the clergy's brilliantly smooth, romantic honeymoon they're having at the moment, they've made love to each other every night and opting to be as quiet as possible if Edward Ralph was either pretending to be asleep or on the contrary was profoundly drowning in the kipping reverie's realm, dwelled out of the absolute reality's raw illustrations. They were regularly fleeing the hotel to discover the majestic magnificence of the small city of Tennessee's landscapes depicting realistically coruscating past their visions and spending less time inside the hotel except for the late nights. They were feeling like their real themselves when they have dedicated solemnly their honeymoon to the nature, love and family harmony just like each newly married couple, seeking in the Mother Nature's bosom its besotted love and unconditional comfort fastening their very essences and bodies, hydrating them with its craved tranquility for solitude from the general population's enormous mass that outnumbered Adam's current inhabitants. It felt like a sweet over the moon paradise.
It has been a handful of days since Sebastian and Martha compellingly critical were recovering from their unspeakably thought-provoking, bone-chilling condition illustrating the opulence of painfully plum bruises tinting their delicate, frail fleshes from head to toes. Anyway their condition's perpetual improvement remarked its utmost upgrade and good news. Further, the incestual pairing haven't had any interactions with the further world even with the ill-famed, vicious psychopath who was namely their solely once beloved inner circle member who didn't want any associations either with his daughter or older brother, due to their subtly plotted concept of their scandalously unimaginable bond the young woman and the middle-aged gentleman traded even were expecting a new addition within a several months solely.
When the wee hours of the afternoon bled into the vibrantly pleasant enormous, rotund gilt sun mounting up the sky blue horizon and bountifully streaming its saturation through the façades' windows and beaming light curtaining palely beautiful their features, Morgan Jill and Andy decided to pay a visit to their severely injured family members in one of Waterbury's hospitals they were eventually hospitalized. In spite of they haven't seen Martha and Sebastian for a long time and having a day-off work for a few days, subsequently they thought it wouldn't hurt them to visit their least harmless family members, factly, they acknowledged thanks to an eerily inevitable phone conversations which was the final one they exchanged with the Italian compatriot about his daughter and older sibling's critically appalling conditions.
A handful of presentably gracious, polite raps on the door caught off guard the medical student who was the only patient that hasn't drifted off asleep, collecting sufficient nutrients and rest throughout the noon hours unlike her uncle who hasn't blinked a single eyelid for an hour at least.
"Come in!" The initial thought of one of the nurses or the doctors accompanying comfortingly discrete crossed the juvenile brunette's hurricane of thoughts, readjusting her posture to find its comfortable recline of her back sloppily supporting her against the mere head board, furrowing her thin, elegantly dark eyebrows to cusp the bridge of her button, dainty nose and flicking her groggy chocolate brown optics at the shut yet door. The absence of nurses and doctors granted myriad of consoling rest for the medical student, in fact, she struggled to fall asleep or cat nap freely, dedicating her paralyzed muscles and cells to the peaceful doldrum interrupted by the uneven, humdrum sync tingle of the heart monitor linking Sebastian's oddly vigorous hammering heart into his torso.
"Martha," In the meanwhile, the Romanian compatriot accompanied by her cousin gently set foot in the patient room labeled 206 on the second floor of the medical institution and the electrician managed to gentlemanly, gracefully hold the exquisitely polished door allowing to his cousin to enter in the site to interact with the nefarious serial killer's younger daughter. "My goodness! What happened?" When a flabbergasted, overwhelmed gasp elaborated the duo, attempting to muffle the relentless megawatt decrease of the decibels puncturing their surprise, consequently they seated on the edge of Martha's patient bed immediately and examining in a scrutiny her severely bruised and conservatively orthodox mauve tinted young-looking complexion, whereas her elvish, unhealthily pallid, white-knuckled hands fashioned into balled fists to rub her groggy, satiny optics for a split second until her vision's haziness petered out drastically in a jiff and enchanting the clear smoothness of her absolute reality's optical illustration.
"N-Nothing!" Playing the pretending game as if nothing has happened whirled and twirled in the juvenile brunette's mind, factly, it dumbfoundingly overwhelmed her since when her relatives demonstrated even modicum of their lethal concerns, disquietude about her critically unutterable condition embodying the medical student's physical and mental agony.
"Don't lie, please! It's amidst the fewest times when we can be frankly kind to each other or at least redeem ourselves."
"Redeem ourselves for what, Morgan Jill?"
"Well," At the moment, the both young adults manifested to snatch gingerly, friendly the younger woman's petite, unhealthily marbled hands into their consoling grip on reflex and kneading their swan thumbs on circles gracing with myriad of altruistically doting comfort, unconditional warmness and murderous love which the ill-famed psychopath's daughter has always longed for from the bottom of her heart. "We haven't seen each other for a long time. You aren't an awful person, Martha!"
"W-What, cousin?"
"You aren't an awful person! Trust me! There's something leery interweaving its elastic strings of your marionette self." Darting her coffee brown optics to scan from head to toes the foreign character of her older brother whom she has solely heard of his name and somewhat of his life, however, never having the sheer, fantastic opportunity to exchange a personal interaction with him and within each blink of her huge, expressively poetic eyes glittering profuse translucently dew layer of sorrow and homesickness to the unfamiliarity and undiscovered family secrets, flourishing a radiantly sympathetic, tearfully vague smile adorning authentically her attributes and quietly sobbing to herself. "It's not your fault at all, Martha! It's not your fault, because you are still young and fresh. Your life experience and knowledge are crying for learning and discovering undiscovered realms and world and you are far cry from unforgivable than your father whom tried to freeze me to death in the fridge," Meanwhile, the timid, girlishly bashful nod of Martha's head in strong agreement for the vividly explicit flashbacks throbbing into her vortex of thoughts at the thought of her young childhood how due to her immaturity her older cousin was on the verge of the life and demise. "You remember?"
"Mhm!" A meek, low hum in approval of her emphatic answer, the young lady couldn't sort her mind for her emotional reunion with the electrician lastly, whose stare pierced hers platonically tender, speaking opulence of emotions in their indiscernible sable pupils blazing the incarnation of their homesickness and desperation for being unable to get to know each other in their earlier lives.
"Martha, Martha," The failed attempts of the older lady's persistence to attract her younger cousin's attention was due to the brunette's utter focus in a much different realm. Much different world. Much different emotional fragment's settlement.
"Andy?"
"My lovely younger sister!" Crooking his satin, protectively muscly arms to brace his younger sibling's upper back and drawing her in his soothingly loving, platonic embrace, the equal sync of their fragile hearts steadily escorted sinisterly one another's humdrum rhythms as the medical student buried her tear-stained, inwardly sobbing complexion in the crook of the electrician's arm and knotting the nape of his delicate neck with her spidery pallid, pristine fingers. "I've always waited for that moment to see you as one of a kind!"
Author's Note: I'd like to apologize for writing solely one scene with Jude and Timothy per a chapter, but I want to diminish the quantity of words even give also the keen potential the other characters deserve to be spotlighted!
Do you fully agree with Judy's speech in the church and what are your thoughts on my personally favorite scene? Do you think Madeleine is capable of avoiding Cayden's manipulations, despite her strong abhorrence? What are your thoughts on Morgan Jill and Martha's controversial relationship as cousins? Did they accomplished the divine atonement or not exactly?
Don't forget to leave your feedbacks! I'd like to hear your thoughts on your favorite moments and what inspired you as well! I hope you liked and enjoyed the new chapter! :))