Tuesday, October 2, 2007

   No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Hay guys..... I am depressed right now. My Trovarsh might have Cancer........ His name is Dustin.... Me and him are close..... He is like a bro. He told me today in German class and caused me to cry. I am sorry but here is the story.

She shut her mouth with an audible click, but her eyes sparkled with mischief, even when she took his hand to get to her feet. He shook his head in despair, shaking snow out of his coat while walking over to pick up the lonely candlestick.
“Oh, so now you’re all right with picking it up for me?” she jibed gently, chuckling when he rolled his eyes.
“Well, it seems that you can’t be trusted with it,” he sniffed, elbowing her as she fell into step again next to him.
She elbowed him back; lower lip stuck out in a pout, and then skidded on the ice with another squeak.
Wordlessly, Abel grabbed her under the arm before she could fall. When she seemed to have her footing again, he left his arm draped across her shoulders, tucking her securely in against his side. After a moment, he felt her tiny arm loop around his waist. Together, they proceeded up the steps in silence, although he could feel Esther’s head tilting to glance up at him occasionally.
He let her go only after he closed the great wooden doors behind them. Gazing down at her thoughtfully while she stamped her boots free of snow, he finally handed her the candlestick with a wry smile. “You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by not coming to look for me, you know.”
“I know,” Esther replied, finding something extremely interesting to look at in the candle wax. “Actually, I – well, you missed Christmas here, Father, and I had a gift I wanted to give you.” She hurriedly pulled a small, brightly wrapped package from her overcoat pocket, and pushed it into his astonished grasp, before backing away down the hallway. “Goodnight, Father Nightroad,” she blurted, then turned and scampered away, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind.
“Good night, Esther,” he said faintly, watching her hasty retreat.
He sighed finally, glancing in the opposite direction down the long, broad hallway. Caterina would be waiting for him to check in, although she was probably not overly concerned about getting the entire report tonight. But before he did that –
The package was oddly shaped, lumpy and soft in one area, hard-edged in another. He tugged the slim, dark green ribbon free and the cloth wrapping fell open in his hands. Curiously, he pulled it aside to see the contents, and his eyes widened in appreciation. The lumpy, soft section he’d felt was a stack of meal tokens; Vatican personnel were allotted a few every week to use in the café as they chose. Esther must have saved hers up – a quick count revealed at least forty.
He swallowed against a sudden tightness in his throat, remembering how often he’d pestered the girl for her extra tokens. It had been more of an excuse to irritate her than anything else, although he did admit to having a bottomless pit for a stomach. Apparently she had taken it to heart.
The second part of the gift was a small, cunningly wrought octagonal box, its glossy surface patterned with different colors of inlaid wood. Pocketing the ribbon, wrapping material and meal tokens, he turned it about in his hands, admiring the workmanship. The crafting mark on the bottom wasn’t familiar to him, but the whole item had the general feel of Rome, so perhaps she’d found it at one of the local markets. It took him a moment to discover how to open it, but when he did, twisting one side of the octagon to allow the lid to pull up, he gasped in delight.
Chocolate.
Little chocolate paillettes, in a cellophane wrapping so they wouldn’t stain the box. They were slightly melted from being in her pocket; chocolate was probably not the best thing to store there, he mused absently, pulling off a glove and extracting one of the pieces to pop into his mouth and savor. It was delicious anyway.
There was a note. He licked the trace of melted chocolate from his fingertips and gently poked it open.
Dear Father Nightroad,
I thought you might need something to store your candy in, since you had so much trouble finding your ID last time.
He grinned at that. She would never let him live that down, would she?
I thought a wooden one might be better than metal; I would hate to see you accidentally weld it closed.
Now that was actually quite thoughtful. Still, it unnerved him to think that Esther would take his Crusnik form into consideration when buying a gift. Weld it closed, indeed...
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me; even though I’ve been so much trouble you’ve always been so kind. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. I lit a candle for you.
Your friend,
Sister Esther Blanchett
Abel stared at the note for a long moment, absorbing the content of her measured, even penstrokes as a now-familiar wrenching sensation pulled at his heart. “Dear Esther, you don’t know the meaning of trouble,” he murmured with a sigh. Perhaps she troubled him, but that was nothing she had control over. He deftly folded the slip of paper again, returned it to the box, and slid the cover closed, slipping it into his own pocket alongside the tokens.
He had to go to Caterina’s office, before it became too late. But first…
Esther dried her hair with a towel as she walked back to her tiny room from the bath, humming thoughtfully as the thirsty cotton swept through the red tangles. She hoped that she hadn’t been too frightfully forward, giving Father Nightroad his gift right there in the entryway. In truth, she’d still been in shock; she’d experienced so many emotions in that brief span of time outside that she wasn’t even quite sure what had happened anymore. Except – the feel of his arm around her shoulders lingered even now, and a part of her still wished she’d been brave enough to wrap both arms around his narrow waist before he’d opened the door.
She shook her head nervously, trying to dispel the thoughts. Honestly, it was entirely inappropriate, she thought in a fierce tone. There, she’d put herself neatly in her place. She would say her prayers and then go to bed. She would not wonder if Abel was catching a cold from walking around in drenched clothing, nor if he was being kept from a warm bath by delivering his report. She wouldn’t think about what that report might entail or how many horrible things he might have seen – or been involved in – while he’d been gone – oh, honestly! Stomping her foot so that pain shot up her ankle from the impact, Esther opened the door to her room with a violent twist of the knob, and then froze in astonishment.

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