A woman was crying.

He could hear her sobs, which echoed with a sound like a flock of geese arguing over fish. She blew her nose with a hearty honking sound and quieted some. Still, her hitching breath sounded sharply in the empty church.

In the nearly empty church. Because Pip was sitting on the alter, where the wine and waffers usually sat, between two burning pillar candles, each etched with a silver cross. But their flames cast no shadows, and when the bleary-eyed mourner looked up she saw only the empty alter, and the promise of redemption.

Pip looked sadly at the woman for a time, even when her fit was spent and she was dabbing the drawn mascara from her face. He didn't know what had drawn him here tonight, but he had come, for once of his own volition, and sat through the late-night mass in silence, revelling in the wonderful echo of voices that floated thick through the floor boards of the unused attic. When the church had cleared, he wandered down dim, and sat watching the alter boys light the candles and retreat to a game of cards in the priest's ready-room.

Then this woman entered, and he felt compelled and ashamed at once. He wanted to offer her comfort, but what comfort could an apparent demon give in any time of suffering? And as the woman shuffled out, Pip sat transfixed by the sound of her shoes clacking against the hard wood floor. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. It was only once the heavy door fell shut on a flurry of snow that he straightened and looked around.

The familiar image of a pained man stared back at him from every direction. He had met Christ once, and though he knew better than to believe he was the son of anyone Up, the carpenter had been something. It always baffled Pip how the church depicted him as this sallow, suffering man. If there was one thing for which Christ could be counted on, it was a laugh. And possibly some fish. The man liked his fish.

They've got the right idea, anyway, he thought. Churches are alters to Purpose, to Order, even if the access is somewhat skewed. They're trying, at least. Pip scaled the pillars to the attic, where he had found a hole in the wall, where pigeons had nested. But as soon as he entered, he felt something was wrong - the soft, loving coos of the pigeon pair were gone. He sniffed and darted to the shadows, where his heart began to hammer, as something moved across the room.