Divine Intervention

It was 11:58 PM on a bustling Fourth of July eve, yet Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan stood almost empty, save for a select few parishioners scattered among hardwood pews.

The absence of a full house was conspicuous. As midnight approached, an unorthodox Christmas Mass was slated to begin...in summer?

The zig-zagging commotion of cars, cabs, and buses, motoring outside of this Anglican ecotopia, couldn't rouse the devoted from their ecclesiastical readings; A dozen heads pressed against their respective Bibles, awaiting the arrival of Father Pascual.

Two minutes later (on cue), a hooded figure clad in a magenta cassock storms up a steep set of unseen stairs behind an ochre-tinted wooden altar. Silken green fabric is draped across the chancel top, and snow-white candles furnish this ceremonial showpiece amid a cavalcade of crucifixes and ornate flower bouquets.

Every single pair of eyes dart upwards, as interconnected hands press their palms in eucharistic enthusiasm, and exasperated sighs of relief from each parishioner ring truest to the eardrums of the center stage cultish maiden.

It isn't Father Pascual, yet for some reason, the churlish folk in attendance don't seem to care? They're spellbound.

Her face is cloaked, and it's well past the witching hour of Midnight now. Parishioners continue to honor her with bows and religious pleasantries. She seems reluctant to remove her hood; what does she have to fear from these people? Or Heaven's gaze?

She moves around the altar with the fluidity and grace of an aristocrat and seats herself in a grand, decorative chair. Perhaps it isn't fear fueling her avoidance, but a sense of self-assuredness, even superiority. She opens her pursed lips and utters her first words.

"I count twelve of my plain-clothed flock. Before I begin, I require each of you to cede your allegiance to God Almighty and swear an oath to me—I am your new Goddess now."

One by one, every person stands and ceases their relationship to God. They do so wide-eyed, possessed or paralyzed unto instruction. Nonetheless, they blaspheme.

"Perfect. Now, outstretch your hands and feel my vibrations. Tonight is nigh for my miracles, and I know everyone here needs one. Fortune favors the faithful, for tonight I have taken charge of his angels, and their wingspans are as vast as mine!"

She finally removes her hood, revealing the face of a wrinkled, aged woman. Gray streaks of hair glisten beneath bright church lights, her dark brown irises are cocooned with bloodshot veins, and her hands are weather beaten. Each crease folds inward like papier-mâché as she presses them against those of her adoring audience.

"My name," she roars, "is Mother Esther. Father Pascual is your usual pastor, correct? He won't be attending for...a while. An early retirement from his priestly duties was in everyone's best interest."

Stained-glass windows depict sylvan portraits refracting light from beyond the conclave of the church; toying with every spectrum of the color wheel. Balmy reds, purples, blues, and yellows wash over Mother Esther's face as she begins an impromptu, impassioned speech.

"Why talk of eliminating poverty when afflictions of mental illness undercut predestined generations to come? Are they already gone? It's hereditary heurism, people live and die with no legacies or rapport, only shame! I am nature's steed, your salvation."

The twelve churchgoers nod in agreement. One of them, a mid-twenties woman with short, blond hair, wearing a white top and plaid pants, begins stroking Mother Esther's cassock.

"Hands off, my dear. I am the hand of the real God, and my vestiges are as sacred as he."

"I-I-I'm so sorry!! Mother Esther, I meant no disrespect!"

The woman's eyes fill with tears, and she's taken aside by her idolized leader. "Look into me, can you feel a new genesis within? As I press my thumb against your forehead," she whispers, "Imagine I am ridding you of your pain, your woes, your cancer."

The woman gasps and steps back. "How...how did you know?"

Mother Esther smiles sweetly, her back turned to the churchgoers as they look on curiously. She gently rubs the woman's right shoulder and ushers her into the confessional booth.

Mother Esther opens the door of the confessional, and the blond woman curtsies before tiptoeing inside. It closes with a soft click. For several seconds, nothing happens. The eleven remaining parishioners exchange nervous glances, unsure whether they should be concerned or safe under the tutelage of their comely idol.

A muffled scream erupts from inside the booth, causing several of them to jump. A second scream, louder than the first, peals from within the booth. Some parishioners cover their ears until all that's left is...silence.

The door opens, and Mother Esther calmly departs from the booth, arms folded across her abdomen. "The burden has been lifted," she proclaims triumphantly. Turning toward the altar, she walks slowly down the center aisle, her footsteps echoing throughout Trinity Church. Icy rain begins pelting the roof, darkening the stained-glass windows, and casting the enormous interior anew into an umbrageous hellscape.

"Pain is merely the body's confession," she continues, her voice carrying through the nave. "And confession requires a keen devotee." She reaches the altar and places both hands upon it with her head down, gibbering in a language none can interpret.

The parishioners sit as still and stiff as mannequins, listening on with some unease.

Mother Esther whips around to face them, closing her eyes and tensing her brows, as an elderly man seated next to the now-vanished blond worshipper begins to tremble. He looks down at his chest and gasps as a faint, pale light emerges from beneath his skin. "Mother Esther?!" he whispers.

"Yes, my lamb? Surely, you cannot wish for another decade of catatonic depression? Let me take this pain from you, paltry Jesuit. You've wandered a lonely road for too long." The light slowly rises from his body, taking the vague shape of a tiny, green human figure, before floating toward the altar.

Mother Esther opens her mouth and inhales his figure deeply, swallowing with a grin. His essence, so it seems, is hers.

His skeletal body falls on the hardwood floor in a crumpled heap. Nine parishioners stare in disbelief as the same thing begins happening to them. One after another, like clockwork. Their souls are drawn from their bodies, each one appearing as a small, luminous replica of the person it belonged to. Mother Esther opens her mouth and sucks frenetically.

The souls careen toward her, disappearing down her throat as she writhes in sacrificial pleasure. She wonders where the tenth person went? Cocking her head to one side, unperturbed, she assumes they ran and hid.

The lines across Mother Esther's face begin to disappear. Her skin tightens, her silver hair slowly darkens, and her posture is hunchbacked no more. She looks younger; her eyes are icy blue, and her lips are supple and crimson. She smiles to herself, revealing teeth that seem far too sharp for a woman of the cloth.

"There is but one of you left, come out, little lamb, come out! Death is only another portal, and insurrection is the only cure. Blessed be to Baal for my many, many resurrections!"

Before she can scour behind every pew, the great doors of Trinity Church open and slam shut repeatedly. Every candle in the building extinguishes simultaneously, and violent gusts of cyclonic gales tear through the nave. Mother Esther staggers backward. She shields her face and peers at the impossible.

A young woman stands before the entrance; the twelfth. How can the doors be swinging freely? Mother Esther had bound the church with an entrapment hex before commencing her sermon.

Nobody could enter, and pertinently, nobody could escape.

"JEZEBEL," the woman roars.

She's dressed in weather-beaten robes likened to an ancient prophet. Her long brunette hair is bound by a beige headpiece, and she's holding a burning bible in her left hand, yet her skin isn't scolded? She recites biblical verses with spell-like precision.

Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice.

- Psalm 55

Mother Esther's expression hardens, and then she erupts with laughter. This laugh is maniacal, no longer gentle or reassuring. It's deep, bitter, and primordial. "Elijah," she replies. "After all these centuries, you still insist on following me to the ends of this fucking godforsaken earth. What a pretty ruse, the body of a petite young woman?! I killed you once; do you not think I can do it again?"

Mother Esther's tongue extends outward, serpentine and slithering on every syllable that follows: "So, we have one sour apple in my Garden of Eden? I'LL MAKE THIS AN UNHAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!"

"My name is Elena. I am not Elijah; I'm his chosen descendant, for he is the conqueror of nonbelievers on Mount Carmel. I've been sent to stop you forevermore, and for fucks sake, your name isn't even Mother Esther. Is that the best you could come up with, you scheming Baal heretic?"

Mother Esther was Jezebel disguised all along? Her face twists into a sour smile, and her elongated tongue is now sharp and barbed, coiling its way toward Elena.

"Elijah warned me thousands of years ago, filthy peasant. I outsmarted everyone with my marriage to King Ahab, ha! I've lived a thousand lives, tasting everlasting power," hisses Jezebel.

Elena shakes her head. "No. You merely postponed your inevitable punishment. Whatever you call yourself in this life, there'll be no reincarnation. We have one true life, and only the Son of God is resurrected. Amen." She grabs hold of Jezebel's tongue with reflexive ease as it reaches her eyeball and snaps the sharpened end with a swift wrist flick.

Jezebel flinches and then levitates toward Elena at hypersonic speed, grasping her throat with now-youthful hands. "I am greater than God, or his pathetic son, to think a descendant of my nemesis can destroy me? Foolish girl!" Elena's face doesn't move an inch; she simply pouts and points upward.

"Then let the keeper of the dead come for you." The stained-glass windows explode with a deafening BOOM. Shards pierce the floor around Jezebel, sealing her in a makeshift prison as an angelic figure with vandalic, moth-eaten wings, descends from the squally sky. His fingers are impossibly long.

The figure approaches Jezebel, pointing its index finger and using it to feather her face. She immediately begins backing away. "No," she whispers. Elena stares at her coldly. "Meet Azrael, I believe you've heard of him? He's come to collect you and your zealous soul."

An obsidian void opens behind Azrael like an open mouth. There is no fire and brimstone, only an endless expanse filled with distant voices, each one cursing Jezebel. "You cannot touch me, infidel angel!" she screams. Yet, she hears familiarity in the fervor. Every person she's deceived, every soul she's consumed, every life she's stolen reverberates from this preternatural portal.

"No," she says, shaking her head. "I will not go there. This is blasphemy against the true God—ME." Elena strolls around her in circles, "You were given centuries to repent and look at what you've become. More deceptive than ever," she snaps. Jezebel stares Azrael square in his hollow eyes.

"I have nothing to repent for. I made a pact with Baal, you have no power here." Azrael sniggers yet never speaks. "Baal is not the one, true God," Elena whispers. "You've avoided his eye, I'll give you props for this, but it's over. Give in without further theatrics."

Elena moves nose-to-nose with Jezebel and utters two words: "Merry Christmas."

But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth; they shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be a portion for jackals.

- Psalm 63

Azrael violently grabs Jezebel's wrist. She claws at the chipped floor, desperately trying to resist him. "Elena!" she screams. "I can change! I can repent on earth!" Elena watches without sympathy. Jezebel's fingernails scrape against the marble stone as Azrael pulls her toward the void. "I am immortal! I am fucking IMMORTAL!"

Elena shakes her head. "No, Jezebel. You were sinning on borrowed time. God sees all." With one wrought cry of finality, Azrael drags her into his murky portal; her body is ensnared like she's falling into a vertical pool. Elena stands alone in the darkness, the bible in her hand stops burning and dissipates to ash.

She wanders to the altar, and stares at the seat where Jezebel sat as Mother Esther. A single black rose rests upon it. She grabs it, nitpicks each petal off amid light prayer, drops the thorny stem, and takes a seat.

The bells of Trinity Church begin to ring. Twelve times.

Meanwhile, below the heady heights of New York's sky-high streetscapes, tunneled beneath the subway and unmarked graves, Jezebels descent of permanence and penitence is complete. The portal, the void, whatever it was, led to Azrael's concentric underworld is a playground of punishment, and Elena had given him...stern instructions.

Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve!

- Psalm 94

Jezebel won't be allowed to die, never knowing true peace, nor will she be permitted to forget. For every soul she consumed, she will atone for eternity. Every life she cut short, Azrael will ensure her suffering is tenfold.

And for every year she greedily stole to fuel her own existence? Azrael will add another year to her sentence neverendingly. The festive season has had no influence on his sense of leniency, clearly.

Back at Trinity Church (or what's left of it), Elena picks up Jezebel's Mother Esther cassock, shaking her head as she tosses it aside. She stands tall with confident posture as dawn breaks and morning churchgoers carrying Christmas presents crowd inside, navigating around broken glass and rows of splintered and mangled pews with quizzical expressions.

Reporters from Fox News, CNN, and The New York Times arrive on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street, all bidding for a scoop and first interview with Elena, the Christmas hero. One chubby, bespectacled man in his mid-forty's races up to the altar, clumsily pressing his hands together in prayer as he asks Elena, "What the hell happened here?! I was looking forward to a July 4 Christmas. This place looks like a bomb crater, are y-y-you responsible?!"

Elena smiles gently and rolls her eyes. "Not completely, but please, turn your camera off and take a seat on the floor. Cross-legged is how it was done in Elijah's day, particularly around the silly season." She clears her throat and, despite the gob smacked expressions from people huddled inside a roofless church, addresses them with no conjecture.

“I am Mother Elena, and this is the last (and final) call for jolly repentance. My Bethlehemite mass is now in session—merry Fourth of July to all!"

(c) Edward Swafford 2026

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