The speaking stopped, abruptly. The prayers stopped too. For a moment, all was silence.
Then the knocking was returned. Tap tap. Gentle, soft. The voice inside, still cracked from ill use, said, "I see you, doctor." Was that the flash of an eye at the grate, peering out? It receded quickly into the darkness of the confessional.
It was not a threat, only a grim acknowledgement in a trembling voice.
"Am I being sought?" the voice asked. It was undeniably Vanessa's. She had that rare quality of husk that was so difficult to fake, and that peculiar, almost gallic pronunciation. "Have you looked far?" A heavy silence in the quiet, quiet room. No sound from outside carried into this holy place.
The door trembled. Had she put her hand against the inside of it? Moved closer to it?
"I am sorry."
It had a weight, a depth, that apology. It ran down to the lowest depths of shame, of the guilt that had dogged her since childhood. She forgot so much, when she went away from herself. Of what she had said to Victor, she remembered more than she wished.
And of what she had seen of him? Plenty of that, too.