An Eternity of Dead Sun (An Eternity of Eclipse Novel Book 2) (18 page)

“Don’t hurt him,” I said to Eclipse, even though I knew the last thing he wanted to do was harm Father Baek.

A muscle leapt in his jaw. “Let’s hope he won’t give me a reason to.”

And on that cheerful comment, Eclipse left, and I was suddenly left all alone in that quiet and somber courtyard.

“If there is a Demon in all of us, then I will show you yours.”
13
: Mysterious Ways

Plunk.

Plunk.

Plunk.

As I watched the rain merge with the fountain water, my mind started to journey back to my family. I thought about the crime scene photos, the possible scenarios that could have taken place when I killed them, and how my life ended up after I was sent to the mental hospital and was forced to grow up alone.

Waves upon waves of memories inundated my mind. Feeling suffocated by it all, I rose from the bench. I didn’t know what came over me. Instead of sitting there and waiting for Eclipse to come back, I began to walk down the hall until I reached the double doors that led into the cathedral.

After taking in a deep breath, I walked in.

The electricity was off, the storm was still brewing, and there were candles laying on various surfaces in the cathedral. Though I felt uncomfortable, a part of me also felt at peace. I walked down the aisle, passed the empty pews, and kept my gaze on the altar before me. My eyes moved over the crucifix and the heavenly images on the walls. The thunderstorm outside gradually became faded background music, only making itself known when a clap of thunder and lightning flashed through the sky, illuminating the world beneath it and flickering within the cathedral through its stained glass.

I took a seat at the end of a pew and stared at the altar.

My thoughts wandered back to my family. I thought about what I did to them and what they (and I) would’ve been like if they were still alive. Despite my own subconscious instructing me not to, I went further with these somber thoughts. I wondered how often I came to this church with them, I wondered about all the prayers that were answered and ignored here, and I wondered about the life that I stole from my family—that because of me, they would never have the chance to come here to pray again. I did not feel guilty about killing them, but in many ways, I felt unsettled. Then, I did something I hadn’t done in a long time: I thought about God and my views on him . . .

I slowly felt my world revert back to when I was growing up in the mental institution—back to the most miserable time of my life. My throat closed up as the emotions welled up inside me, urging me to stop thinking about such despondent things. It was all too late. The dam had been opened and now, I had to deal with the mental destruction to come.

Squeak.

I heard the wet rubber soles of someone’s footsteps moving over the tiles and approaching me in the darkness. I did not turn around, for I already knew who it was.

“When I was younger, all that I believed in was God,” I finally breathed out, unveiling a truth that I had never shared with anyone.

I continued to stare brokenly at the altar while Father Baek sat down beside me, gazing at me like he could understand my pain. He remained quiet as I went on, emotions filling my normally void heart.

“I knew that I wasn’t normal—that I was disturbed. I knew that there was something wrong with me, something inside me that I couldn’t control. Even when I was a child who knew nothing, all I knew was God and all I knew was that he was the only one who could save me.”

I gazed at the crucifix, feeling tears glaze my eyes as all the suppressed childhood pain came rushing back to me.

“I prayed to him every single day,” I spoke in agony, recalling all the memories of me kneeling in front of my bed in the mental hospital, tears cloaking my young eyes while I sought God’s help. “‘Please save me, Lord. Please help me. I need your guidance because I am losing this battle. I am losing and I need to be saved.’” My eyes hardened. “Every single day I would call for him and every single day, I would go to sleep, drowning my pillow with tears because he had yet to answer my prayers. I lost hope every night, but every morning, I would wake up with renewed hope. He cannot abandon me; he loves me. He’s supposed to love all his children so he cannot abandon me. So I kept praying. I kept hope alive because I trusted that he would save me. That’s what he is supposed to do. He’s supposed to save lost souls.”

I swallowed tightly, smirking dryly to myself when I remembered that fateful night when I was crying in front of the fridge, pathetically bingeing on my pizza after a hard day of being bullied in high school. On that agonizing night, I ruminated about all the horrible things that had occurred in my life. I wondered to myself why God wouldn’t answer my prayers.

“I kept praying until one night, I realized that he does not exist.
That
was why he didn’t hear me.” Hopelessness cloaked over the tears that I refused to shed. God was no longer worthy of my tears. “Or if he does exist, then he doesn’t exist for me because for over ten years, I called out to him in the darkest hours of my life.” I directed my attention to Father Baek. “Ten years, Father. In a world where people have renounced his presence, defiled his name, and cursed his existence, I stayed faithful to him. All I asked for was clemency, for him to help me be a better person and for him to show me mercy.” Hatred sifted into my eyes. “How can a God like that exist, Father? How can he create me to be this flawed when he has no intentions of being there for me when I pray to him? How can he give me this life when he won’t even help guide me through it?”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Father Baek finally replied, pain prominent in his own voice. He gazed into my eyes, his pure intentions radiating out like the rays of the sun. “And I know that this is not the answer you would like to hear. You’ve probably heard this so many times before, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Prayers are never ignored; he
always
answers them. It’s just that sometimes—”

“The answer is no?” I interjected with a scoff.

“Sometimes it cannot be answered yet,” he amended, truly believing that.

“The Lord cannot answer me,” I responded, staring at him with desperation, “but you can.” 

I had already made my peace with God’s rejection of me. If a God could be so cruel as to ignore the prayers of a child and allow all these horrible things to happen to me, then I no longer considered him my God.

“Please, Father,” I pleaded. The candles around us continued to flicker in the silence. My disappointment in God would not cloud my true purpose here. “This house was a big purchase for us. As soon as I walked in, I knew there was something wrong. If you could tell us more, it would really help me. I cannot stay in that house unless I feel like I’ve learned everything there is to learn about it. If we can understand more about the family, then maybe we can make an informed decision on what we need to do.” I drew in a shaky breath, my eyes begging him to give me something that God had never given me: clemency. “I know that you hardly know us, but we’re desperate for answers.”

Squeak.

I could hear soft footsteps, and I knew that Eclipse had found us. Walking down the aisle, he took a seat in the pew in front of us and turned to face us.

“Please, Father,” he implored quietly. I didn’t doubt that Eclipse heard everything I said to Father Baek about my relationship with God—or lack thereof. There was a fleeting spark of understanding in his eyes when he glanced at me before he averted his full attention to Father Baek.

“We need your help,” he continued, setting the second part of this interrogation into motion. “Either we move out of that house or we stay. It would be easier for both of us if we got the answers we need. Only from there can we make a decision that we won’t have any regrets for.” He looked at me. “Or resent the other for.”

I had to hand it to him. Using our “marriage” and the possible strain it could put on our relationship was a brilliant move. Eclipse may not be human, but he knew which human emotions to exploit. Father Baek’s kindhearted purity was no match for our callousness.

Silence dwelled over him.

Father Baek divided his glances between us. As though fighting the dilemma inside himself, he peered at the altar. It was long seconds later that he parted his lips and then uttered words that we had been dying to hear all night.

“What do you want to know?”

Eclipse and I breathed a sigh of relief. We had come too far, and if he hadn’t agreed at that moment, then we would’ve had to use the force that we never wanted to impart on him. Thank God. Thank the God-who-will-never-answer-us that it didn’t come to that. I liked Father Baek. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him.

“What was the little girl like?” Eclipse inquired at once. His voice echoed across the cathedral as lightning flashed in the background, lighting up the stained glass behind him.

“A little ball of sunshine,” Father Baek answered painfully, his eyes dim. He smiled at the reminder of the little girl, and I felt my own heart warm. He may not know who I was now, but he still remembered the younger version of me—just like I remembered snippets of him. “Grace always lit up any room she walked into. She was always smiling and always laughing. There was this godly presence to her—”

“Angelic,” Eclipse provided, knowing exactly what he meant.

“A picture of innocence,” Father Baek concurred. “If you were to envision what the grace of God would look like, she would be the personification of that.”

Eclipse nodded in understanding and then asked, “What was the family like?”

“Grace is the youngest of three children.” A look of ache spread over his face. It was too painfully obvious that he loved my siblings. “Faith was the eldest daughter.”

The rhythm of my heart slowed at the mention of my older sister.

Faith.

Faith Hwang.

An image of her sweet birthday note flashed across my mind before I forcefully pushed it aside.
Don’t be distracted tonight
, I reminded myself. There were more important things to be concerned about than a dead sister.

“At fifteen, she was full of smiles. She volunteered to help others and was always so respectful. And then there was Christian . . .” Warm laughter elicited from him at the mention of my brother. “Christian was a bit harder to take care of. Even at the age of thirteen, he was incredibly rambunctious. He was definitely a troublemaker, but he had a truly kind heart.” His visage brightened at the thought of the three siblings together. “Together, the three Hwang children were always the ones who lit up the room whenever they walked in.” He pointed at the pew across from us. “They would always sit there. Faith would always tie up Grace’s hair in little pigtails and Christian would always hold his baby sister in his arms whenever she was too tired to walk. They loved each other immensely—even an outsider could see that bond.”

Sensing the quietness that had overtaken me, Eclipse steered the conversation along to the last ones I was with that fateful night. The last ones I killed.

“What about the parents?” 

Father Baek’s eyes glistened. Sorrow pulsed in his voice when he spoke about them. “They were wonderful parents. They genuinely loved their children. Whenever they came to church, you would see so much happiness from that family. They argued, they bickered, and they’d get into fights like everyone else, but there was always that bond . . . and that bond was forged by Sang and Susi.”

I felt my heart still.

Sang and Susi—my parents.

My body trembled. There was no guilt within my soul, yet it felt like my body experienced the guilt and regret. My parents . . . the family they worked so hard to create . . . In one single night, I stole everything from them.

Father Baek regarded us, his eyes teeming with grief.

“I know the popular questions are, ‘what did that family do to her? Did they harm her? They must’ve been horrible if a little girl could be that disturbed. They must’ve been an awful family for something this horrific to happen.’ The truth is that they did nothing to deserve any of this. No one could mistake the love in Grace’s eyes whenever she looked at them. There was always this sparkle in her eyes—”

“Like she knew that she had been blessed,” I instinctively finished for him, finally speaking up after being silent for so long.  

Father Baek turned to me, his eyes meeting mine. Then, he parted his lips and said something that changed the entire course of the conversation.

“Your whole family loved and adored you, Grace.”

I froze, absolutely thunderstruck.

What . . . what did he just call me?

I glimpsed at Eclipse to make sure that I heard right. When I saw the surprised look on Eclipse’s face, I knew that I wasn’t hearing things. Father Baek truly called me Grace.

I faced Father Baek in a panic. I was desperate to keep my cover. “I’m sorry, you’ve mistaken—”

“I was there during your birth, Grace,” he told me softly, silencing me with the conviction in his voice. “I was there with you until the age of six. I may be old, but that doesn’t mean I’m forgetful or that I’m not attentive.”

My thoughts churned. I smirked faintly when it all came together for me. My mistake was underestimating Father Baek. It seemed that Eclipse and I weren’t the only tricksters in this church.

“You knew it was me all along.”

I surmised then that this was the only reason why Father Baek was willing to be open about the Hwang family. For anyone else, he would never cross that line. However, for the youngest and only survivor of the Hwang family, there were to be no secrets if I asked for the answers.