To the east of Cloverdale, in a different small town mostly overlooked by history, a plaque marks the spot where the Church of the Holy Lady once stood. The history of who originally built the church had long been forgotten in favor of two contentious legends. The first, and likely the truer, told that a missionary group became separated from a larger settlement, traveled further west into the unknown wilds, and settled. They formed a small community and built the church from the surrounding timber, even before they built their own homes. The settlement grew over the years as the country formed around it.
The second version of the tale is the favorite to be told around campfires. A family of five, parents with their adult children, two sons and a daughter, fled from the persecution of other settlers over who could be called the most righteous. Though it likely derived from petty local competition, the family supposedly bore the mark of witches. They ran into the woods, away from mapped paths and known civilization. Their pursuers did not follow them, content to let the family be devoured by the wild beasts in the forest beyond.
The family took refuge under the thick canopy of oaks and pines, relieved they had escaped. They had lived in the New World long enough to know how to survive with nothing. They established a small camp, scrounging for berries and fresh water. Safe, but wary, they soon realized why the woods had been unexplored. The mother worried about wolves or panthers or other creatures that find it amusing to prey on the weak, but the forest was silent. No sound except the crackle of their own fire, which seemed to be on the verge of vanishing into the encroaching darkness. And then, whispers.
The family did not talk about it for days. None of them wanted to be the first to admit hearing the disgusting suggestions. The father would look at his wife, and the words would snake through the air like a faint smell, "Wet and hot underneath her dress...delicious snatch hungry to be fucked by your cock...or someone's cock..." His eyes would cast over to his two sons, who shared the same tormented gaze.
On the sixth morning of their stay in the forest, the family woke to find the patriarch sawing down a nearby tree. They had stopped talking on the the third day, but each understood the man's goal and went about various methods of helping. By the end of the sixth day, the foundation timbers had been laid down. Days passed, and the work continued.
On the ninth day, the elder son washed himself in the nearby stream. He heard the whispers for the first time during the day. "Watching you...running your hands across your body, running her hands across hers, mimicking your touch, imagining it trail across her body, her breasts, her tits...wanting to be squeezed, slapped, pinched...aching for the feeling of you pressing down on her, taking her breathe away as you fuck into her...its what she deserves...what she wants...what she's always wanted...she's close, she knows you're hard under the water..." He shook his head and noticed movement in the bushes behind him. The familiar blue hue of his sister's dress. He returned to work, feverishly trying to erect the sanctuary.
On the eleventh morning, the younger son had vanished. The mother wanted to cry out for her son, to run shrieking through the woods until he called back to her. The others did not seem to notice. The church was almost finished. The father ended the day nailing together two sturdy dogwood limbs in the shape of a cross. They took shelter within its walls for the first time, sealing the makeshift door behind them. The building was roughly made and did little to keep out wind or rain. The floor was mostly dirt, but it housed the makeshift cross. The father knelt before it all night, uttering prayers while clutching the family's prized book of scripture. None of them slept. The mother wept for her lost child, and the remaining children huddled in silence, avoiding each other's eyes.
The twelfth day's dawn brought a strange sense of relief. As though they forest had taken from them what it needed, and they were now free of its torments. The family went about mundane chores, while starting to dream about leaving the woods and putting their dark period behind them.
The daughter rummaged through the shredded limbs of the trees used for construction, gathering the leftover wood and leaves for fuel. She saw the man standing about ten yards away from their camp. He was familiar, but still a stranger. He wore no clothes, and his cock stood rigid in front of him. Slowly, he stroked it while watching her, an unholy grin on his face. She noticed that the oppressive silence had returned and harsh whispers filled the air. "Suck him off, fuck him, stick it in your juicy ass, let him fuck your creamy tits you little cumslut you always wanted it give in touch your dripping cunt your pussy your snatch let him spill seed spray cum on you lap it up from his cock feel it trickle down your leg spread your fucking legs you wanted it always want it want it" The words bombarded her. She turned her eyes down and, with deliberate steps, went back to the church and joined her mother on her knees to pray.
Night came. The four remaining family members huddled around a small fire within their new sanctuary. The father continued his prayers, calm in his zealotry. The mother and son stared blankly into the flickering fire. The daughter watched the door, peering through the cracks in the timbers through which darkness seeped in like ink, oozing over the timbers until the direct light drove it back.
With a loud crack, a brilliant red light illuminated the clearing outside of their church. The rays scattered through the cracks in the building, dancing across the stunned faces of the family. From outside, they heard a clear, laughing voice. Curiosity drew the daughter to the door, she pressed her face against the wood, looking out into the night. The others huddled closer to their praying father.
A woman stood next to a large, brilliant fire. Nearby, the man she had seen earlier waited, dressed in a dark suit, like she had only seen in picture books. The woman wore a flowing red dress, which seemed not to touch the dirty forest floor. Red gloved hands reached out to playfully touch the flames. Despite the oddness of the strangers, the daughter's eyes were drawn to a small table placed directly between the church and the fire. Though she had little experience in furniture or worldliness in general, she could see that the table was ancient and lovingly kept. On it, an ornate crystal glass sat, helping to splay the light of the fire, and within a dark red liquid.
Behind her, she heard the faint murmur of her father's prayers, and the gentle sobs of her mother, her older brother clinging to her hem. The bar on the door lifted so easily, though her limbs were so weak. She faintly heard a cry out from behind her, trying to stop her, but the door flung open, and she happily walked out in the warmth.
The story, as it was told by campfires with different embelishments depending on the audience, hinged on the idea of never letting in the devil, no matter what temptations are laid before you. Warmth, companionship, greed, or lust - only the strongest in faith can survive. In some versions of the story, the father's faith kept them safe. In others, the daughter's weakness led to the downfall of the whole family. In all the versions, the church burned either in contemptuous demon's fire or in righteous fire to repel the darkness.
The remains of the church itself leave legend and follow a much more tangible path. Over time, other settlers moved west. They discovered the burned church. While they thought it curious, failed settlements and lost families were common in those days. The foundation remained solid, despite the fire and the years of wear. New people built a new church right on top of the old one.
Congregations grew and shrank, and more than one fire took that church down to its base timbers. The Revolution saw the entire town razed by the British, and after that no one wanted to return to the area. But solid wood wasn't easy to find, and none seemed more solid than the remnant of the old church. They were loaded up into wagons and sold off to various builders and entrepreneurs looking to start new lives. One or two made it as far west as Colorado, but the majority of them all wound up in one place, Cloverdale. Where they were used, coincidentally most people thought, as the foundation of a brand new church, one that would stand for hundreds of years, even as the world around it fell into commercialized ruin.
The basement of the church still has the timbers exposed. For decades after its original construction, men would dare each other to touch them, claiming that the wood retained an impossible warmth, as if it had only recently been pulled from a fire.
***
Father Edwards stood at the door of the church, greeting his congregation as they filed by. He shook their hands with glee. None of them had seen him so pleased or excited on a Sunday morning in years. He gripped Candice's hand with a broad smile on his face as he welcomed her, and she couldn't help but smile back at him. She walked into the old church and took her normal seat on the fifth pew.
