Above the piazza, the sky began to brighten. Dawn had arrived. The appointed hour.
Still prevented from entering the square proper, the crowd outside its barriers – now swollen to maximum capacity and filling the connecting streets like a great, unmoving parade – could almost be heard to whisper amongst itself: ‘It’s now . . . this moment. This place.’
The Swiss Guard continued to keep them at bay as thousands upon thousands of necks craned upwards with the fading of the darkness, but even a few of their highly trained members couldn’t resist the urge to lift their eyes a little higher than surveying the crowd required, captivated in their own right and wondering just what the changing colours above them would bring.
The sky grew a shade brighter.
The mess of humanity was a mixture of expectation and doubt. The prophecy that had drawn them here claimed that dawn would be stopped. Yet dawn was breaking, as it always does. But, as they all seemed to feel, something was coming. Could the two things be true together? Or was their expectation failing here, finally, as the sky brightened over them?
Minutes passed, the air above the rooftops becoming shades lighter with each one. The murmurings of the crowd gradually went soft, then silent. The whole world seemed to be staring up into heaven, waiting.
But nothing happened.
Angelina stood next to Ben, frantically surveying the crowd, trying to spot someone out of place – but everyone was frozen, heads tilted back. Was she wrong? Had they all been wrong?
Finally, a single ray of sunshine crested the roof of a building. As if aimed by some mocking version of providence destined to disappoint the thousands who had gathered, the ray pointed straight into the heart of St Peter’s Square, illumining the cross atop the great obelisk at its centre.
The sun was shining.
Of course the sun is shining, Angelina spoke inwardly. It always does.
Then, a singular voice from somewhere in the thick of the crowd. ‘Look, over there!’
It was followed by the sound of countless bodies in motion, trying to locate the ‘there’, scanning the sky above them.
Then, another voice. ‘There!’
Arms flew upwards, pointing to the sky.
The voice became three, and a hundred, and then thousands.
As they cried out, a wall of black cloud billowed over the rooftops with shocking speed. It was not the grey of a raincloud but a black like slate, specked with flashes of orange, and it spread over the square like a blanket.
The cries went silent, awed. Then they returned as screams of terror and confusion.
The black cloud overtook the sky, blotting out the singular ray of the rising sun, and pushing away the dawn that did not come.