One wonderful Winter’s night, a devout woman of faith was kneeling down in her bedroom to pray for her heart’s desire from the Holy Ghost. This night, her heart was burning with the desire to become closer with her maker, at any cost. “Please my God, she cried, eyes welling up. “Let me see your face! If you show me this I will be able to love you all the more than I do now.” “I cannot show you that’, said the sonorous voice. “A mere glimpse of my visage would cause your eyes to combust simply from the radiation of the holy light I emit. You are too dear a child to harm in such a way”. “Oh, I beg to differ!”, cried the doleful wretch. “Blindness is too cheap a price to catch even for the bat of an eye your holy light! My eyes are as useful to me as the rusty nails that bore into your son’s blessed hands!”
“But you will need those eyes to serve my purpose, my sweet creature. Do not throw away the gifts that I have given you when I formed you fearfully and wonderfully in your mother’s womb”.
“Then give me the strength the see without the need for eyes, that I may amaze the world with my dexterity only attained from your grace!”
“I will not give you a vision of me, my daughter. However, I will give you a sight of the gates if you heed my instruction closely.”
“Of course.”
“There will be three visitors in the next three consecutive nights. The first is a woman with a child who is looking for shelter and food. You will let her in and feed them both heartily. In the morning she will pay her thanks and leave. The following night, there will be another guest, a travelling cleric. You are to confess to him as if you confessing to me for my salvation, bestowed upon you by the eternal godhead. Finally, on the third night, there will be a prominent knock at your door. This time, however, you will not answer it. It will keep knocking, yet you are to keep the door closed. A voice will try and persuade you to open the doors but you are not to listen to it. The following morning, you will be rewarded for your subservience with a vision of my sacred gates as a foretaste of your life after death.” “Thank you for entrusting me with your quest, my Lord! I will enact each stage of your design to ensure its completion!”
The voice of God then left her and she fell to her knees, head dug into them as if she intended to blind herself. She uncontrollably wept and moaned for a total of three hours and twenty-two minutes.
The following night this creature was making an evening stew when she heard the door knock. At first, taken aback she then lit up with glee at the arrival of her first test. She opened the door to find a woman carrying a child wrapped in white cotton. Immediately she greeted them and gave them room to sleep in her bed while she slept on the carpet in the main room. She fed them and took great care as if she were keeping the Blessed Virgin Mary with the Holy Babe in her house. In the morning they thanked her and left.
The next night this blessed creature was playing her wooden psaltery when suddenly there was a knock at the door. When she answered, the person was revealed to be a cleric from Chester. She was almost too stunned to speak but let him in hastily. The cleric sat with her by the fire and they discussed many things before the woman shared with him the instructions that the Lord had given her. She then began to weep uncontrollably, while the cleric comforted her. All through the night she confessed her wrongdoing and was shriven by him until the breaking of dawn the next morning. The cleric then left her in peace and good tidings.
On the third night, the creature began to write a Latin hymn that she was transcribing from memory and sang during a service at the Parish Church she attended. The fire from the hearth did not seem to warm her.Her quill danced along the page in beautiful curves and broad strokes. Sure enough, a booming knock came at her door, only metres from herself and her work. A rich voice called to her and said, ‘I am a traveller from York. I heard that you are a worthy prophet of the Lord Almighty. I come bearing news from above.”
The woman considered a response but kept her silence.
“Are you the woman men call, Sara?”, he asked.
The woman became perturbed, and responded sharply, “I am not to talk to any strangers this night. I was commissioned by our Lord and Saviour to keep my abode shut from company.” “I have a message from the creator himself, my humble creature. I was given your name in a dream and then I asked many bishops and clerics over in Waverton if they had heard your name. I was thenceforth led here.” “Seize your stories now. If you tell the truth, you may come back tomorrow night when I am not commanded to solitude.” “The lord commissioned me this night, it is an urgent warning. To avoid the lies of a false angel who intends to destroy you.”“You are the true messenger of the devil. I will maintain my position.” “I must come in, the security of your soul depends on it.”
The word began to infiltrate Sara’s heart but she kept steadfast on the words vouchsafed to her in private. She retired to her room and lay in bed. The knocking continued and kept her awake, yet she remained diligent.
The next morning she immediately rolled out of bed and fell down to the floor in delicious anticipation. She wept tears of bliss and spread her arms out to receive the voice of the Father from the firmament.
“I am ready to see your gates to Paradise, my beloved!” she cried.
There was silence for a time. Then, as the Lord spoke to Samuel, a vivid voice spoke through the air and said, “You may now let the man who knocked in to receive my sacred message.”
There was another knock at the door.
“Are you sure this you speaking, my Lord, and not a friend of the Devil? You told me never to let the third man into my home”, she humbly asked.
“I am the same. This man is a discipline of mine. I instructed him to tempt you with words and you faithfully resisted. That makes me happier than if you were to cry loud, anguishing tears for the entire period from Palm Sunday to Easter.”
She hastened to unfasten the door from its latch and swung it open to witness the man sent by God. What she found however was a man with no eyes. He had evidently been recently blinded judging from large fleshy chasms left behind where eyes should be and the fresh streams of crimson blood flowing down his cheeks and dripping down from his chin excessively.
“No!’ she exclaimed in horror. ‘Who did this to you, my brother? I should have let you in last night!”
The man pushed his way into the house and collapsed onto the floor. She ran to grab a cloth to dab his eyes with and
to try and quench the bleeding.
“I narrowly escaped a dark-winged demon who descended upon me as I slept in a stable nearby’, he said. “I woke up to the sharp sensation of claws but passed out again. But when I next awoke I could also only feel the throbbing of my head and the warm streams of blood”.
The woman left him momentarily and came back bearing a bowl of fluid. “Here, I have this ointment made from honey and myrrh’, she offered.
As the man lay convulsing in agony, she used a small brush to apply the mixture to his pulpy sockets. Each application caused another scream from him followed by wincing and grinding his teeth.
He continued, “The devil sent one of his unholy flock to prevent me from delivering to you the Lord’s sanctimonious message. I never thought even the Devil himself could be capable of such a horrific deed. I may bleed to death before I am able to utter the message I was commissioned to deliver by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Oh, deliver me from this turmoil my God! Damn you infernal legions for your iniquity against the highest!”
‘Damn then! You must confess your message in spite of the plots of the fallen angels! I promise I will carry on your good works and propagate your name at my parish for commemoration!”
“Yes, thank you, my sweet fellow creature. I will tell you the message from the Lord.” The woman knelt before him and listened with intent.
“I have come to deliver the message that you have fulfilled the Lord’s instructions faithfully’, he said, “and for that, you will be rewarded in heaven and placed on the highest dais next to the King of all King’s throne.”The woman already felt her ducts well up with divinely bestowed tears.“...And with the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, you will be accompanied also by his beloved wife, Persephone.”
The woman’s eyes widened.
“You have fulfilled the King’s work well, and you will be granted eternity amongst the fiery lakes and in the perdition that is bottomless and in darkness that is strangely visible.”“No, this can’t be! All this time...”
The woman in utter terror ran to her room and threw open the top drawer of her bedside cabinet to seize her handmade wooden rosary with glass beads. When she returned to the room where the false prophet lay, the man who at first had recoiled in agony was now standing perfectly erect. His appearance was generally the same except for stubby goat horns jutting from his head and sharpened talons for his hands. The woman stretched the rosary out in front of her.
“I command you in the name of God to stand back, you villain!’ she exclaimed, “Did you possess the poor man who was sent to me as a prophet?”
“Indeed” the demon replied. “I possessed his body and tore out his eyes with my bare claws.”
The woman shrieked as her tears streamed for a very different reason.
“Begone!’ she cried. “Go back to hell where you came from.”
“We men of the King are free to do what we wish, to fly from hell and back again at our leisure. You might even enjoy it.”
He opened his claws and took a few strides towards the woman.“Oh God, shield me from the scorn of this scourge!” the woman wailed.
Yet, despite her calls to her divine maker, the devilish being we would call by the name ‘demon’ seized the wooden cross from her pale, trembling hands and threw it off to the side of the room. Now defenceless, he pulled back his arm in preparation for the attack as the woman ran as fast as she could. However, as her eyes were shut in terror she could not observe that she in fact was running still. Whatever this beast was it had the power of keeping her in one place unable to move beyond the liberty of her limbs. She did not have time to reflect on whether the voice from above previously was really from God or if it was the other king speaking to her the whole time. The world became eternally dark and the choir of fallen angels sang a hymn of celebration for their newly arriving devotee.