Present Day, Barcelona

Churches were unavoidable in Europe. They stood on every other corner, edifices to history and religion in every shape and form, from the stalwart to the ostentatious, the humble to the colossal. The largest ones, built over decades, were marvels of architecture and monuments to the resilience of the human spirit, but few of them were used for their intended purpose in the current, secular age. They were more like museums to belief than places of active worship. I found that appropriate since I’d always been a bit of a skeptic about religion anyway.

My mother had been a lukewarm Christian, attending church on holidays and for important events, but her faith had transcended any rote prayers. She believed in a higher power even though she was not entirely convinced of its name, and her beliefs had shaped me in ways I was still discovering, my moral fabric woven on the loom of her own experience. She was the one who taught me to be generous without restraint, and even though I had allowed resentment to color my generosity over the years, I would not have been capable of such generosity without her instruction. 

My father, on the other hand, made no secret of his distaste for organized religion in spite of his fascination with tradition otherwise. Rather than the teachings of megachurches, he preferred the wisdom of commoners and had hired a shaman to perform rites more than once. He followed various superstitious practices that seemed even more ridiculous to me than the things my mother’s church professed, but his faith seemed as much about research as it was about true belief. He’d taught me to trust my instincts and search for answers, but these skills were as useful in the secular world as they were in the spiritual.

Standing now within the massive walls of the Sagrada Familia, I felt a lack of something I had never experienced before. Since it was an entirely new sensation, I had no way to define the feeling, but it manifested as an aching need to be a part of something greater and to understand how I fit within the whole. What was it about Gaudi’s masterpiece that moved me when Gothic cathedrals with their elaborate arches, stained glass windows and cold ornamentation did not? In scale it rivaled the most impressive cathedrals I’d seen, but the organic design of every surface made it appear as if it had been grown rather than built, a forest of petrified trees painted in every color of the rainbow. The windows each held a word rather than a picture, distilling sacred concepts into language, and the light that passed through their glass hovered in the air with tangible weight, doing with light what the Hunt did with sound.

“What do you think, srček?”

I sighed reflexively, releasing a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. “It doesn’t seem real,” I said as I craned my neck back to follow the branching columns to their conclusion in a ceiling that looked far more like a canopy of crystalline trees. “I feel like I’m dreaming.”

“A forest of stone wrapped in a blanket of light,” she said in a near whisper, as if the space could give even someone as irreverent as her pause. “I’ve visited many temples and shrines, but none of them so fully embody the abstract concept of belief as well as this one does.”

Tearing my gaze away from the architecture to study her instead, I tried to reconcile someone as effortlessly flamboyant as Pehtra with the space around her. The church was at once both mysterious and humbling while also being ecstatic in its exuberance. She fit in better than I expected, her own mystery and energy matching the architecture well, and as I considered her words I contemplated the nature of what she was and the fact that all Unseen were reliant on belief. Without humans believing in their existence they would cease to exist, fading away like Yun Seo’s mother. 

“Don’t you find it threatening?” I asked before I could think better of the question.

She blinked and frowned a little as she focused on me, large brown eyes mostly hidden by a hooded gaze. “Why would you say that?”

“If this is a temple to belief of a kind that doesn’t include you, then where does that leave you and the other Unseen?”

A laugh bubbled out of her throat, loud enough to draw a few disapproving glances. “Do you think belief is such a limited resource?” She wandered a few steps away as she continued, gazing up at the crucifix hanging over the altar. “If that were the case, then how else could any religion coexist alongside astrology, superstition and celebrity hero worship? Human beings are complex. They can believe many things at once and they rarely even notice the contradictions.” 

She turned to look at me over her shoulder as she added, “The Unseen are the manifestation of human fears and hopes. The details of such beliefs might change over time, but we have existed for as long as humans have been able to tell each other stories. To see something like this as competition would be like a mountain feeling threatened by the rain. Perhaps our height might diminish over time through erosion, but what we are is malleable. We don’t need to take the same form forever. We can grow and evolve just like you do, even if the way we change takes centuries.”

I nodded mutely, thinking once again about Yun Seo’s mother who had wasted away as the belief in her waned. She had been forced by his father to sacrifice most of her remaining power, but I wondered if the process of fading in the first place had been avoidable. Had she been given the option to change and refused? I’d always thought of her as a victim because that was how Yun Seo saw her, but perhaps she had made herself a victim even before his father took advantage of her situation. The thought was disturbing.

When I focused on my surroundings again, I noticed Pehtra studying me silently, her curiosity palpable, but she didn’t interrupt my thoughts with a question, patiently waiting for me to reach a conclusion I was willing to share. Rather than fulfilling that wish, I said, “I need some air,” feeling a little lightheaded as we walked through the church and exited on the far side. 

The facade on this side of the cathedral was so different from the ornate entrance that it made me stop in my tracks. The sculptures here were roughly hewn and had an unfinished quality, the figures raw to match the emotion of the scene. Betrayal with a kiss, torture and then a slow, painful death. I knew that in Christian belief this was the darkest point in the journey and that their savior would come out the other side with the joy of resurrection, but I had never been willing to accept that idea as truth, too skeptical to swallow such boundless hope.

I looked away and took a shaky breath, relieved when my phone buzzed in my pocket to give me a distraction. Stepping under the shade of a tree, I felt my heart lift at the sight of Chan Wook’s name on the screen. 

I met a friend of yours today. 

I tried to figure out who he could have meant, but before I could make a guess a photo came through, a selfie of Chan Wook with a woman about his age standing on a trail near the water. I hadn’t thought about Hi Ah in a long time. Remembering how she had once asked me to set her up with Chan Wook, I smiled reflexively. Had she finally gotten tired of waiting and decided to make contact on her own?

How did you meet? 

On a run. She said she met you in the same place.

I laughed, thinking about how I’d been hoping to run into Chan Wook himself that day on the trail. Tell her I said hello.

Rather than a response, he sent another photo, this time of Hi Ah sticking her tongue out and making a face. She asked me to send this to you. She thought it would make you laugh.

I did have the urge to laugh, but the sensation felt strange in my chest, as if it didn’t fit my body at the moment. Posing against the backdrop of the Sagrada Familia’s fanciful towers, I cropped most of the mournful facade out of the frame and held up a finger heart, knowing my expression was far from a smile but it was the closest I could muster.

Show her this and tell her she needs to try harder.

That’s Barcelona, right? Chan Wook replied, ignoring my comment. Did you go there because that was dad’s last trip?

I should have known Chan Wook would immediately make the connection. He’d always had a good memory for these kinds of details, the ones connected to family and meaning. 

Not because, I replied honestly. But I’m glad I’m here.

I’m sure he would be, too.

I put the phone back into my pocket to avoid responding again. I didn’t know what to say and I was afraid I would ruin things if I said anything more. When I realized Pehtra hadn’t followed me to my spot under the tree, I turned to find her in the crowd. She was talking to a tall man dressed all in black, a telltale white square on his collar. What was Pehtra doing talking to a priest? Approaching them slowly in the hope I might catch some of their conversation before they noticed my presence, I strained my ears to hear them over the crowd.

“How have you been, Mateo?” Pehtra asked, reaching out to drag fingertips over his arm in a way that seemed entirely too familiar given his profession.

“Very well,” he replied with a smile that was mostly hidden by his handlebar mustache. He looked like a man who had stepped out of a different century, but his eyes were kind and warm as molten chocolate, twinkling as he continued in a deep, quiet voice, “My hunts have been productive. And yours?”

She smiled coquettishly, the dimple appearing on her cheek. “As lively as ever. If only we hunted the same prey, you and I could travel together.”

A low rumble emitted from him that I belatedly recognized as laughter. “Dearest Pehtra. You are once again forgetting my vows.”

“I thought you forgot them long ago,” she protested, “leaving your parish in Tolosa and wandering the countryside with your pups.”

“You know I prefer the country to the city,” he replied, lifting his gaze to the unfinished towers straining upward to touch the sky. “But my hounds tracked the devil here.”

“To a church?” Pehtra asked, glancing back at the cathedral with wide eyes.

“Of course not,” the priest said with another deep chuckle. “To the city. I thought while I was here I would check on the progress of Gaudi’s great work.”

Humming under her breath, Pehtra nodded, finally noticing me hovering nearby. “Ah, I should introduce you. Srček, this is Father Mateo Txistu. We’ve been friends a long time.”

I introduced myself and bowed out of habit, earning a returning bow from Father Txistu, one that made my own awkward gesture look like a sorry attempt. I vaguely remembered the story of a priest with his name in my father’s journals and wondered if they’d met or if dad had simply recorded a story others had shared. I thought I would have remembered a sketch of such a distinctive face.

“Have you visited the alley yet?” Pehtra asked Father Txistu.

“I left my dogs there with a friend,” he replied. “I’m headed back to pick them up now that I’ve made my pilgrimage.”

“Perhaps we could join you?” She gave me an encouraging look before returning her attention to the priest.

“Be my guest,” he said, leading the way.