Chapter 3 - TWO ATHEISTS, ONE GAME.

Valeria's spirit matched the color of her ginger hair, fiery, also rebellious, exciting and sincere. She was a true friend, an atheist like me. I've been around too many ravenous catholics to know that they never questioned God's existence but simply, blindly believed, so when Valeria had asked me if I believed in God, I knew right the way she did not. And she confirmed it without hesitation. With pride, even.

She'd put on quite a show of a quiet, pious type when around others, but in private she was ungodly, to the point of dangerous, fearless enough to not follow the rules of Saint Benedict, skilled enough to go unnoticed.

For starters, she resided in the monastery on sufferance, 𝘶𝘯𝘣𝘦𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴. Her name was not Valeria. It wasn't even sister Jeanne by which she went in the convent. It was Andrea. Between us two, she asked me to call her Valeria. And frankly, I thought Andrea, or Jeanne for that matter, didn't suit her as well as Valeria did, so I gladly went on with the latter.

She was the Copperfield at going unnoticed amidst many eyes. She'd make me laugh by making faces while others were in prayer. She'd curse. She'd drink. She'd sneak out of the convent, or into my cell to gossip about other nuns during grand silence, or hide bread rolls under my bed during sacred fasting on Fridays. For the food I was beyond grateful as the portions I was given would never fill my stomach and I always starved. So her contraband was always much appreciated.

Once she had even managed to smuggle a log of salami and a brick of ham into the convent, which she hid in aluminum foil behind the fridge in the kitchen. To my question of where she had gotten it from, she'd responded – from 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘵 𝘨𝘶𝘺.

Apparently there was a boy whose family had often visited the monastery's chapel to pray with the community for someone's well-being. She told me also that she and the hot guy had an affair. Inside the cloister. In the barn full of chickens. In a pile of hay. In broad day light. Like I said, she was fearless.

Fearless and impious enough to conjure spirits. Right inside the convent. And God how I wish I'd never joined her in this…undertaking.

I remember our first cliché seance like it was yesterday, us sitting on the floor amongst the few silent candles, otherwise in total darkness of her cell, as Valeria spat mockeries at Ouija board. "Well hello, Father Hamlet's ghost," she sniggered. "Are you there?"

Silence.

"Is anyone here? We wanna chit-chat."

Silence.

"Hell-o-o-o?"

Silence. The planchette stayed static.

She circled, more like jerked, the pointer over the board once again to revive it.

"Come on, shy thing. We're growing old out 'ere. Grace us with your presence, whoever you are." She half spoke half laughed, winking at me playfully, flames reflecting in her darkened eyes.

We sat in total silence for another five-or-so minutes. Occasionally, Val uttered questions far from polite or respectful. She said stuff like, did I summon a deaf spirit? Did you die of bubonic plague? Are you bored with me, fancy pants? Why so serious? At least give us a sign that you're here, blow a candle or something. Don't be a buzzkill!

Not one candle shivered. Everything besides Val's impish presence was absolutely quiet and still, too still, it seemed, but that was just my imagination mixed with conditioned apprehension.

When Valeria had had enough of playing around, her fingers slid off the planchette. "What did I fucking tell you? It's all bullshit."

This 'bullshit' happened often, specifically when Val was in an irked predisposition, had too much of useless worshipping, or, for instance, had to endure funeral rites (a common service in our monastery) and listen to preposterous eulogies of the deceased soul's reunion with 'Father' in heaven. She believed in cold reality of a dead end, not in afterlife rainbows.

There were always some kind of attributes that she'd use, pentagrams, crystal balls, candlelights, mirrors and a bunch of ridiculous spells that went along, all to conjure yet another otherworldly agent whose existence Valeria yearned to refute.

She wanted to prove it all wrong, all the gods and religions and spirits. She hated false hopefulness faith promised its followers and had her reasons for it, escaping from something unfortunate just like me.

"See?" She'd say. "There is no divine purpose to our existence. It's all about eating, shitting, sleeping, and dying into nothingness. So thank your parents for fucking when they did and make this parasitic life count while you still can."

†††

It was one of those days, a wedding this time, and every sentence the bride pronounced made Valeria tsk. "What kind of idiotic vows are these?" She whispered, as we sat in the back pews.

"The lord instructs me to be your wife—"

"Pfft."

"It is written in heaven—"

"Yeah, okay."

"Our union is eternal—"

"Ple-e-ease…"

I sat beside her and grinned.

"Well," I whispered back, surveying the bride that was a full head taller than her groom, "they sure do compliment each other."

Valeria rolled her eyes.

"…and as guardian angels protect children, may God's angels guard our love forever," concluded the bride. At that one even I tsked. 𝘚𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘭𝘴, I thought.

"Guess what we're doing tonight?" Valeria threw me a laughing glance.

"What?"

"Summoning angels."