She scurried down the many stone steps from the entryway of the cathedral. The whole place stood like a medieval castle, guarding the town from the shadows of the Black Forest that impatiently swayed behind the church grounds. She stopped at the base of the stairs, breathed... then slowly sunk onto the ground, staring down at the dust. Though the twilight warmed every surface of that gothic village with sunset hues, to the girl, warmth was nothing but a watered-down tint.

And the pressure on Elisabeth’s heart—oh, it killed her. Seeing Sister Agneth’s frail body lying there in the coffin during the Vigil didn't give her any closure whatsoever. Yet what had her run out during service so quickly was how non-compliant everyone else was to human emotion. How customary it all was to them to sit there dead-eyed with a holy cadaver placed in front of them, ticking the phrases, “A passing misfortune was all it was. All part of a bigger plan was all it was. Just have faith. Just have faith.” Elisabeth found a hint of despise towards that last statement. She quickly shut the thought out. She forced herself to accept the logic that she had to grow up, had to move forward, forward all alone as just another passing foster kid until she could finally join an abbey within the next two years.

“Why’re you crying?”

Elisabeth flinched at the voice of the small boy, who parked in his tricycle in front of her. Like the rest of the town, he shimmered in the setting sunlight.

“Hallo, there,” squeaked Elisabeth, too morose to provide her voice any breath. Or was this a start of an asthma attack? So she pulled out her inhaler, shook it more than needed, and gasped in a shot. She cleared her throat and spoke against her will. “Well, I lost someone very dear to me and… and that makes me very…” Elisabeth sighed. “Sad.”

“Who’re you lookin’ for?” said the boy, innocently. Elisabeth couldn’t help but feel burdened by this child. She wasn’t in the right mind to speak, and she certainly didn’t want to be the first one to tell the kid that the people he dearly loves will all die one day. But the caregiver in her wanted to humor him.

She said with a melancholic sweetness, “I’m looking for a dear woman. She can bake the best cakes, smile the biggest smiles, and teach little girls and boys beautiful wisdom.”

“Wisdom?” the child asked. It suddenly dawned on Elisabeth that she can’t exactly define the term "wisdom." She found an alternative.

“Ja, wisdom,” she trailed. “Like… Like this one time, when I was very small, like you, I played around in the snow and Sis—the dear woman was with me. I dug through the snow, and I found red dirt underneath. She then said to me, ‘Wenn eure Sünde gleich blutrot ist, soll sie doch schneeweiß warden.’ And then we went back into the classroom, and she wet a towel with warm water and helped warm my hands…” Elisabeth stopped. A lump painfully lodged itself in her throat. She twisted the rosary beads coiled around her left hand.

“Elisabeth,” said the boy. Elisabeth shot her head up in confusion. The boy watched her, slightly confused, himself. “Don’t you know me?” Elisabeth frantically recalled any and all faces of the children she helped in the Wohngruppe and at Sunday School, but all she succeeded to do was to inhale sharply through clenched teeth. The boy, a little down, said, “It’s okay. You'll remember me one day. I wanted to tell you there’s a big spider coming for you.”

“Huh?” Elisabeth finally noticed the black, palm-sized spider right next to her. The next girl would cause an unnecessary scene. This girl only exclaimed a delighted, “Oh!”, followed by a frightened, “Oh!” Elisabeth looked up at the cathedral.

“The Vigil will end any minute. The spider will be smooshed!” She lent out her hand. The spider stayed put. “Come on, little guy,” she said. As though by command, the spider tiptoed onto her fingers. She cupped it in her hands and she turned to the boy.

“Thank you for telling me—” The boy already left.