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“Come on, lass.”
They walked out of the doors of the castle, and down a quiet path. The birds were singing and she felt something lift inside of her soul. She hadn’t expected that. She expected none of this.
She gasped when they came around the corner and there was a little stone chapel.
“Oh,” she said. “How lovely.”
“There was a whole village here once. And it had everything that people might need.”
“Is that why there was that little place that I stayed in?”
“Yes. Very standard hut that the villagers would’ve lived in back then.”
“And this was the church.”
“For all the good it did them. They clung to life here for as long as possible, but... Well, that’s a history lesson for another time.”
“It must have done their souls good,” she said. “A church like this. I’ve never been in a church.”
“Really?”
“No. As I said. I’ve never left the compound until recently. I have always thought they looked beautiful. Serene.”
“My mother took me to church on Christmas. For all the good that it didher. She was no better than those doomed villagers, was she? And she certainly didn’t manage to do any work savingmysoul. Much less her own.”
“Perhaps you have to meet God halfway.” He stopped walking, and she kept on. “Come on.”
He shook his head, but said nothing, and they continued on into the chapel. There was a priest standing there, collar and all, waiting for them.
“Mr. McKenzie,” the man said. “Very good to meet you. And this must be your lovely bride.”
“Yes,” said Cameron, his voice hard. “Let’s make this quick.”
“Of course,” said the older man, slightly taken aback, clearly, but his gentle demeanor was not disrupted.
They approached the altar, and the priest opened his Bible.
He read a Scripture, and then from the Book of Common Prayer.
The vows were very traditional, the kind of thing she had seen in movies and read in books. But it felt utterly unique. Utterly special and wonderful, as they spoke the words. As if no one had ever spoken them before. And she knew that it wasn’t real. He was not genuinely pledging to love her. They were not going to stay together.
But with the stained-glass window casting fractals of color around them, she truly felt like she might be experiencing romance.
That this might be what they wrote songs about. That this might be what people started wars over.
She was not immune to getting swept up in it.
Though Cameron look swept up in nothing. He was stoic, that ruined face of his completely flat and unreadable.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride.”
Her stomach dropped, her heart giving a great thud against her breastbone. They would kiss. He would take hold of her and lower his head and...
“No kissing, thank you,” said Cameron.
And she felt the sting of that. Of the rejection. Why does it feel like a rejection?
None of this mattered. It wasn’t real. They would never see the priest again after today. There was no one else here to act as a witness.
