Searching the rest of the space, I realized that we were not alone. It wasn’t like me to miss things like this, but it seemed as if the very act of searching had created the people before me. Unveiled, I saw, eleven pairs of men standing in different parts of the warehouse. There was a familiarity about them. Not that I knew them, no. More like they were as Matthew and I. One person, head hanging, dilapidated life—the other, a guide, but no less stricken. I met each gaze in turn, inspecting them as they inspected me.
“We must change,” said Matthew. “It’s almost time.”
Matthew moved towards the wall to our left, where twelve chests waited. As had the others like him, he opened one and withdrew two robes. The green one he gave to me.
“Wear this.”
The other robe was a patchwork of golds and purples and greens. Where mine was tightly spun satin, his was made from a hundred different fabrics. Although gaudy, no one would ever mistake it for finery. It was the robe of a penitent man.
“The green color stands for faith. Purple is for Justice and the gold stands for power. These are the colors of Mardi Gras. They are the colors of God.”
As I pulled the robe over my clothes, he reached into the chest and withdrew two more objects. One was a crown of thorns, the other was a gold ceramic mask, blank except for two eye holes. No nose. No mouth. No contoured features. Just blank. This he passed to me.
“Wear it, as I wear my own.”
He placed the crown of thorns atop his head and I winced as immediately several trickles of blood began to flow. He merely smiled. Just as suddenly his smile turned to a frown and a gurgle escaped his throat. From around the warehouse, I saw the same thing happening to the others.
I placed the mask over my face. For a few long seconds, I fought claustrophobia, but there were rules here and if I was going to figure this whole thing out, I would have to play the game.
He jerked me towards the back of the platform where a piece of plywood served as a ramp. Stopping at the third post on the left side, he let me go.
“Bind me,” he said, holding out his hands.
After a few false starts, I managed to secure Matthew to the post.
“Now what?”
“We wait, I suppose. I mean I’ve never really done this before.”
“And The Shrove? You trust them?”
“Why not? It’s all a matter of degrees,” he said. “Who would have ever believed that the death of one man would release the world from sin?” The chains rattled as he brought his hands up to his head. His right scratched hard at the ear. Twin lines of blood appeared.
I grabbed at his wrist to keep him from hurting himself, but he jerked away. His right hand gripped his crown and he pressed it deeply into the flesh.
“They say...” he gasped, “they say it’s time.”
From where I stood I could see every inch of the room and except for the deep shadows along one wall, there wasn’t a place to hide. The harder I stared into those shadows, the more uncomfortable I became. The feeling grew until a buzzing crept into my mind. It felt as if a million ants had moved in. Fighting to ignore the feeling, I stole myself to stare deeper into the darkness. The buzzing increased and my hands flew to my head, then the darkness swirled as something moved within it. For the briefest of moments I could have sworn I saw the tip of a tentacle. Green. The color of faith, I remembered.
“Let me tell you of the smell of leaves burning in winter.”
“What?” I staggered and reached out to steady myself. My hand found his chest and came away wet with blood. His face was pinstriped with red.
“The smell of leaves burning in winter. It’s why you’re here, to listen to my confession.”
“Tell me,” I said, trying to ignore the darkness.
“I know the smell of leaves burning in winter,” he said. “I have awoken to the screams of a child. I know the sounds of flesh burning.” He sagged to the floor at my feet. His arms rose in supplication. “Forgive me father, for I have sinned and all my confessions before this are as nothing to what I will tell you now.”
The request was unorthodox, but there was no mistaking the suffering underlying