"Mary, Mary. Quite Contrary... how does your garden grow?"

He had asked her if she had wings. Show them to me he had asked and she had looked away. Solemn faced and humble as she stood in the center of the church.

"They will call you Jezebel. They will call you Belladonna. Perhaps they will call you Salome. Remember Ever."
"They will call me what they will but they will never know me."

A whisper. The delicate whispers of cloth the white cloth upon her flesh as she descended to kneel one knee after the other.

There was no offering of ignorance to the one that spoke to her. Her eyes would know the armor well. The blazing crest of a blood red cross.

In silence her lips would move. Prayer.

Haven dark were those eyes, holding a solemn purity that could not be touched or owned.

"You realize outside they die, outside they burn in your place... and there is not one thing you can do. Never. You can only ... watch."

Head bowed. Lips moving faster as lashes crushed the vulnerable dark of her eyes.

Silent save for the tears that would fall on the fourth day... and those tears seemed endless. Ever lasting.