Tangled With A Catholic Priest

 Ivie knew that the girl, Precious, had not committed suicide, she knew the girl had not been manically depressed, she knew that the girl had been pushed, she knew what pushed her to her death. It was easy to blame her suicide on manic depression, and it was easy to blame it on manic depression because the dead told no tales. Ivie could pretend to believe the girl committed suicide, but that she did it because she was manically depressed was brow raising. St. Stephen was such a big school, but they had enough staff to manage the number, they had counselors, therapists, confessors and so many extra curricular activities that being depressed did not sit well with Ivie. 

 To say that she knew the girl was a terrible lie, they had not been friends, in fact, she did not know there was a girl named Precious until the girl named had died and the news spread like wildfire that a girl named Precious had fallen from the stair and a note had been found on her body. Another suicide. Ivie doubted the authenticity of the story, and so because she did not accept what the school said, she visited the scene of the incident. 

 The start of the stairs had a blockade, ribbons arranged perpendicularly to each other, and it was going against the school rules for her to trespass, but she trespassed. She told some freshers, ordered them to stand at the entrance and watch, while she ventured inside, removing red triangle and walking quietly and carefully down the stairs. 

 She stood there, trying to imagine what had happened, how she had fallen, and she came to the conclusion that it would be difficult to land how the girl had landed in the picture if she had fallen freely. Daringly, she climbed on the railing and imagined jumping, she would fall, and it might kill her, but she wouldn't fall in the position the girl was in in the picture. From the picture she saw, the girl looked like she was in pain, like she struggled to be alive, like she tried to hold the railing to support herself, and the way her neck was bent and the way her arm stretched out in a loose grip on the rail, and the way her leg curved told Ivie she hadn't let gravity take her. She was pushed. It made more sense than suicide. But why? And who?

 She had climbed down the railing and walked down the stairs carefully, with tiptoed steps to where the dried patch of blood still laid. Why hadn't the school cleaned it up? Ivie stretched her hand to touch the dried patch of blood and when she did, her vision snapped. She retracted her hand quickly and looked around even though she knew no one was watching. She stilled her heart and readied herself. When she touched it the second time, she saw the girl walking down the stairs, probably on the day of her death, in a carefree spirit. Then suddenly the girl stopped and looked around as though she heard something, a ruckus behind. She had a frown on her face and when she continued her steps, it was slower, her eyes rolling and watching around. 

 Then Ivie saw something creep behind her. The girl noticed it too because she quickly turned around but Ivie doubted she saw it as she kept looking around when it was right in front of her. The ghostly creature smoked up, becoming grotesque silhouette, and it pushed the girl so hard she fell on her bottom, confusion written on her face. She got up and looked around but it came before her, forceful now, and pushed her against the railing. She fought, but it was a futile battle, how could she win a battle when she didn't know who her opponent was? Her legs were already dangling on air, her body already looming over the railing. She tried to regain her balance but she had already been pushed and she fell, her hand waving in the air, looking for support as she stumbled against different stairs until she landed on the final step, dead. 

 Ivie removed her hand and had rushed to Gaga to say she knew what had killed the girl, Precious, and Gaga had asked her with a genuine curiosity what killed the girl. 

 "Okay," Gaga had said, after she finished explaining her vision, with a pacifying tone reserved for the mad, as though within the hours Ivie had gone to the incident scene, she had gone mad. 

 She had told her she needed to tell the school and Gaga had asked her, in that placating tone used for a child as if humouring her madness would make it go away, what exactly she was going to tell the school. It was then Ivie paused and realized that although she could go to the Dean and tell him what she saw, she could not possibly say it without her bringing attention to herself and rumours spreading that she was a witch, so she kept quiet. She couldn't even believe it herself, but she knew enough of the queasiness in her gut that it was true. 

 And because she knew it was true, when a new priest was announced to come to St. Stephen Immaculate College, she didn't like him even before she saw him, because she had a dream. 

 In her dream, some students conveyed at the bleachers, waiting for him with welcoming pleasantries written on a placard which they waved. The bleacher was rowdy, students perched on the chairs. Then a car drove in and they rose up to cheer as a pair of feet appeared when the door was opened. She could not see the priest's face, only his lower body and the bag he carried. The bag looked heavy, as if something was in in and she watched the pair of feet walk towards the bleachers, the students went crazy. They stretched their hands to touch him and he let them, maybe he touched them back, Ivie could not tell since she only saw his lower body. But she saw the moving of his feet, the moving of his feet until he came to stand in front her. He stayed longer when he stood before her and maybe that was why her eyes lingered on his bag. 

 The bag looked nothing out of the ordinary, but when she looked deeper, she found a pair of eyes watching her. Before she could decipher what it was, it leapt from the bag and lurched at her. It was a cat. Ivie screamed and started to run. She ran to the back of the bleacher and picked a stone. Throwing it at the cat, she expected it to move back. It didn't move back, it slowed its step, stalking graciously and she watched, horrifyingly, with each step it made, it brew bigger, had more fur, until transformed into a wolf or a fox, Ivie was not quite sure, but it still had its cat head. She did not wait to think before running again, sweats breaking and rolling down her temples. The students at the bleacher still watched the new priest, oblivious of what was happening, and distracted by looking at them, she tripped and fell. She quickly rose to her feet, but fell down as quickly again, she had hurt her ankle. Turning back, horror filled her eyes when she saw the not-a-wolf-not-a-fox cat, make it's final leap towards her, but before it could get to her, she had woken up. 

 It had scared her a little, but not enough to make her decide to stay back when, a few days later, the new priest did arrive. She was curious, she had always been a curious being. 

 She stood amongst the other girls at the front row of the bleacher, like in her dream, but unlike them, she did not hold any placard. She did not understand why they would carry placards to welcome a priest in which words like; 'WELCOME', 'GREETINGS', 'GOD BLESS', 'GOOD PRIEST', and many other were written on it. Gaga's was the most ridiculous, she had written 'I LOVE YOU'.

 "How can you love somebody you have not seen?" Ivie asked, raising her voice a little higher than the noises from around. 

 "You love God, have you seen him?" Gaga asked back. 

 "That's different, Gaga."

 "I don't see how different, a priest is supposed to be a close person to God, if I can love God who I have not seen, I can definitely love a priest who I shall see. Oh, he's here."

 Ivie looked from her to the driveway from which the car drove into the school garage. The students started cheering, raising their placards, Gaga waved hers, and just did not stop screaming Ivie wanted to cover her ears. She watched as the new priest alighted from the car, holding a bag that looked heavy and made his left shoulder slant, and the cheering increased. The bag? The bag in which the cat had emerged from in her dream. Everything felt the same, like she was dreaming again. 

 "They did not say it was going to be more than one priest," Ivie said when another priest and a Sister joined him, but she doubted Gaga heard her. She had not also seen them in her dream, there was a difference after all, maybe no cat would jump at her and change into a wolf and eat her. 

 She watched as the new priest, the one that alighted first, began to wave and smile and the increasing double folded. 

 "He's so good looking," Gaga said to her hearing. 

 "He's supposed to be a priest." But she was sure Gaga was no more interested in talking. 

 Then the new priest started to walk towards the bleacher, like it had happened in her dream. "He's coming, he's coming," Gaga said, hysterically, as though she could not believe it. "How do I look? How do I look?"

 Ivie nearly cried. "Why should you care about how you look, he's a priest!"

 But Gaga disagreed, thrust her placard into Ivie's hand and fetched her lipstick from her purse. She smeared it mercilessly across her lips and smacked them until she felt contented. The priest had reached the bleacher and the girls stretched their hands, placards forgotten, to touch him. And he let him, him in his white soutane, smiling and waving, let them touch him. 

 When he got to where they stood, Gaga had just finished smacking her lips, and she smiled at him, shining her teeth like a roasted goat. The new priest smiled back at her before glancing at Ivie. Then his eyes caught the placard she was holding. 

 "I love you?" He read, his voice in a rising tone so that it would be a question. "What a good way to be welcomed." He looked at her, his gaze questioning. 

 Ivie was going to say it was not hers, but a movement from his bag caught her eyes and she looked, only to find a pair of eyes looking directly at her.