Chapter Twenty-One: The Church

We stood in an empty parking garage, the writer holding a notebook in one hand and a can of kerosene in another, Tulip in a white wedding dress, and me, holding a bouquet of flowers and trying not to sneak desperate glances at her, ashamed of the feelings that were stirring within me.

Would the ORACLE want this? Did she arrange it? She had been the most beautiful thing I had seen before this, but now...

My head hurt and I didn't know what was going on. The writer consulted his notebook again and then started pouring the kerosene in a circle around us.

"A burning ring of fire?" Tulip said. "That's the shortcut?"

"Almost," he said. "Give me the flowers." I did and he dipped them in kerosene as well. "Hold onto these," he said and gave them to Tulip. The bouquet included some of her namesake as well, until the writer lit a match and set them aflame.

"Whoa," Tulip said and nearly dropped them.

"Hold steady," the writer said and dropped the lit match on the ground where the kerosene circle was and a wall of flame erupted.

The wall of flame grew until it reached our faces and then shrunk downward and suddenly we were no longer in a parking garage. Instead, we were inside a church, huge and tall, but covered in ash and soot. The pews were burned out husks and the whole thing looked like it might collapse at any second.

"Where are we?" Tulip asked and I turned to look at her and gasped. The wedding dress she was wearing, pure white a second ago, was now as gray as the walls of the church, covered in the same soot and ash.

"Our Lady of the Immaculate Conflagration," the writer said. "And you are the substitute bride. The real bride isn't here at the moment, but she'll be back soon. We don't want her to catch us here, so don't let go of the burning bouquet, that's our way out."

Together, we walked down the aisle until we were a foot from the podium and the writer made another circle in kerosene. The flowers were almost burned to their tips now and Tulip was having a hard time holding them.

The writer allowed us to step into the circle and Tulip finally let go of the flowers as the fire burned them away and the circle of flames grew around us again and then died down and we were outside in a field of wheat.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Near the center," he said. "Close to the turning point. Let's go."

We followed him, as we had followed him through fire, to unknown lands.