“The boy is broken.”
Sister Angelina of the Catholic hillside monastery almost seemed to spit the words at the Father, as if the child were a rancid piece of meat. She stared at the hunched shape on the bed and wrinkled her nose. “Broken,” she repeated, remarking on how the child’s lifeless eyes peered vacantly at the rain splashed window of the room.
But Father Adansoni refused to accept her assessment. He shook his head and drew the folds in his face taut with the palm of his hand. Adansoni had nourished the boy back to a semblance of physical health with all the guile and skill he possessed. And whilst he accepted that the wounds within would take longer to heal, for everything that he was worth, the Father was determined to draw the child out of the living corpse which sat before him.
Since their arrival a few days ago at the small monastery south of Kraków, the young boy called Poldek Tacit had done nothing but sit on the edge of the bed, staring to the rolling fields and mountains beyond, partaking in a little soup silently, wordlessly, whenever it was brought to his side, standing and walking lifelessly around the grounds without murmur or resistance whenever it was commanded that he do so for some restorative air.
On a night, he could be heard to whimper and cry, both as he dreamt and when his nightmares threw him awake, drenched and panting, knotted tight within his sheets.
“Send him to the sanatorium in the city, Javier,” the Sister pressed. “They will make his life more comfortable.”
“No, Angelina!” the Father replied sternly, his fists clenching into balls against his cassock, his eyes on the boy, desperately trying to fathom the thoughts in the child’s inaccessible mind. “I’m taking him back with me to the Vatican.”
“You cannot mean that, Father! You don’t drink from the cup which is cracked!”
“As long as it holds water, then why throw it away?” Adansoni countered, drawing his arms about his chest. He didn’t look at her. Instead he continued to study the boy, looking for anything which proved his hope was not in vain. There was something which captivated him about the child. He felt an ownership over him, a responsibility, a belonging, the likes of which he’d never known before, with either object or person.
After a long while he said, “Sister Angelina, you have always offered wise council. May I ask you something?”
“Of course, Javier.”
“Do you believe in prophecies?”
“Depends of which prophecies you speak? There are plenty which are given voice but few that deserve any credence. Why do you ask?”
“When I found him …” and then Father Adansoni’s voice trailed off, as if the memory of that scene in the mountains was still raw, too grievous for even the man to recollect. “When I found him, he was the only one alive. His mother and father, both slain, the murderous Slavs who had attacked their home, dead too.”
“What are you trying to say?”
He turned his eyes slowly onto her. “I think some divine power saved him,” he said, before looking back at Tacit. “Either that or this child killed those men himself, trying to save his family.”
The Sister could barely contain her snort. “A twelve year old child? Kill … how many did you say you found?”
“Four of them.”
“Kill four grown men?” She scoffed and flapped a hand in mockery. “A passing soldier maybe? A mercenary, perhaps, came to their assistance? But the boy?!” She forced a cold, short laugh.
“Surely had it been a soldier or a mercenary, they would have aided the child further? They would have stayed with the boy, or would have taken him away to safety?” He looked back at the lifeless shape sitting on the bed. “But there was no one, no one but this child amongst the dead.”
“Then if you ask me, it sounds like you have brought something tainted into the church. Have you not asked the boy what happened?”
“He has not spoken of the event. Indeed, he has barely spoken all the weeks he has been with me.”
“Well, when he does,” Sister Angelina said quickly, “he will reveal the truth. There are good samaritans yet in the world, many good things which still happen to people, many miracles. He was saved by good chance and the miracle of a passing stranger. Mark my words.” She touched his arm kindly, as she turned from the room. “You’ll see.”
“Yes,” Father Adansoni replied, looking to the window out of which Tacit was staring, “you are probably right. But from where the miracle first came, I do not know,” and he allowed his eyes to turn in the direction of Italy and a sky heavy with greying clouds.