no pasa nada

Fr. Echeverría
It sounds like a heated parent-teacher conference in the main office at La Iglesia del Buen Pastor, only the heat is coming from Rosa, the secretary, who left Padre Echeverría a message while he was at a meeting and then sat keeping an eye on the terrified half-drenched white girl who came looking for him that morning.
Were not for the cross adorning the front of the building, Shoshannah may have overlooked the place. It doesn't look like the Anglican churches of European antiquity, more like a public place where people have craft shows and basketball tournaments. Inside has been renovated to more closely resemble a holy place though, and a nursery school and playground sit around back. With the windows in the office cracked Shoshannah can hear the kids shrieking and laughing as they play outside.

The corridor where Rosa bid Shoshannah sit is narrow and brightly lit, runs down the center of the place and leads to a kitchen and a set of bathrooms and a door that leads into a community room. Heavy double oak doors could lead to nothing other than the pews and the pulpit, but the doors are closed and locked now.
When he arrived he most have come in through a back door because he doesn't traverse the corridor to pass Shoshannah before talking to Rosa. One moment Rosa is typing away at her word processor and the next she's out of her chair explaining the girl's sudden appearance this morning. The priest is dressed much as he was yesterday, in khakis and a short-sleeved work shirt, and all Shoshannah can see while he talks to Rosa is his back. He stands with his hands on his hips and doesn't say a whole lot while she gets it out of her system.

And in the end all he says to the receptionist is, "Relajáse, Rosita, no pasa nada," and comes back out into the hall. Clears his throat to get Shoshannah's attention.

"Good morning, Shoshannah," he says. "How are you?"

ShoshannahIt's doubtful that 'terrified' is the word Rosa came up with to describe Shoshannah, though the root of the word may have been the same.  As she had been yesterday afternoon, the girl (who looks half wet cat just now, and about as likely to hiss, bite and scratch) is full of piss and vinegar.  Her temper is lousy under the best of circumstances, and last night plus this morning had done nothing to subtract from it.  Regardless, here she is standing (not sitting; she's wet and has some manners) in the reception area watching the door with her strange eyes [she is a very strange girl, after all] while they discuss her.  When Padre opens to join her, the brunt of that attention (and burn of those eyes) falls on him.

"Shit happens all the time," is how she greets him, though she says nothing of her own intentions.
Her clothes are much the same as yesterday, though the jacket (wet and heavy now, no doubt) is looped through one of her backpack's straps revealing short sleeves and pretty, brightly colored fingerless gloves that cover from her palms to mid-forearm.  Her hair, wet but drying, is curlier than it had appeared then even as it's caught up in a low ponytail at the nape of her neck.  Conversation is stilted, and though she's beautiful (breathtakingly, otherworldly so) - or perhaps because she is - that vaguely apprehensive feeling that seems to go with her presence is just as strong as it had been upon meeting her.

"I'm fine."  This comes with the feeling of being a standard answer; Shoshannah isn't the kind of girl who opens up, who lets people in.  She's not the sort who asks for help unless she can't do something on her own, and has proven it to herself by trying.  "But . . . I could kind of use a shower.  Might help for apartment and job hunting."

Maybe she'd found a place to pitch her tent last night, but it seems more likely that she found a forgotten phone booth or something and crashed there, within easy reach of her bike and all that's precious to her.

Fr. Echeverría
[EFFECT TIME
Entropy 1: Locate Disorder/Weakness.
Coincidental, diff 4 -1 (appropriate to resonance.)
BOOM.] Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (4, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Fr. Echeverría
The girl happens to be standing in a stream of late-morning sunlight, suspended in drifting dust motes, when he decides it would be prudent to make sure he isn't inviting a Marauder into his rectory. All she can feel of the tapestry warping is a sense of illumination, easily shrugged off as the sun coming out from behind the clouds to caress her.

He seems focused on the words coming out of her mouth, hands still on his hips, and when she says she could use a shower he nods and pulls a set of keys out of his hip pocket.

"Let's go into my office for a minute," he says. In this place, with no outside noise, she can hear the grit in his voice. Outside it sounds soft if a bit weathered. Either time hasn't been kind to him or he wasn't, to himself, when he was a younger man. "I want to talk to you about that."

ShoshannahIf asked to put forth a guess, Shoshannah would say that the good Padre is either a rich family's son who decided to step away from that life for something more meaningful to him, or someone who came to his faith through a trial by fire.  Her preference, given his voice and general appearance, is for the latter.  On the movie screen in her head, a youthful Father Echeverría is a more badass James Dean.

She's eighteen, and as far as she can tell he's been kinder to her than anyone else has in ages.  The girl's entitled to a bit of romanticism.

Unfortunately, she's also entitled to a larger than is necessarily healthy dose of cynicism and self preservation instinct; invitation into his office gets her stilling, not all that different than she'd been with the addition of Justin to their conversation last night.  She's still (always) more likely to fight than flee, but like most people her age she isn't anywhere near as subtle about it as she'd like to be.  As she thinks she is.  "Look," she says, hesitating.  "If it's too much trouble I can go to a truck stop or something.  This place was just close, and you said . . ."

She wants him to have meant it, she wants the offer to have been real and genuine.  It had been no small feat to convince herself to come here at all, but being asked into a man of God's office unsettles her so that it actually becomes obvious.  It's not unheard of, that reaction, but it's not particularly common either.

Fr. Echeverría
Attempting to imagine what a priest was like before he became a priest has to be analogous to imagining one's parents before one's birth. As if he couldn't possibly have been anything else, ever, but of course he had to be. Humans start from nothing and they grow bigger and they either flourish or they fall back into the earth.

The way he stands listening to her backpedal he could have been born right there in this spot. He could stand there until judgment day. He waits for her to come to the end of her verbal fumbling and then he blinks and jangles the keys in his hand. Doesn't return them to his pocket.

"I did say," he says, "and I meant it. You're not trouble, and I'm not sending you away. All I'm asking is for a few minutes of your time. I want to make sure you have a plan, that you're gonna be safe after you get your shower, you understand?"

His tone is firm but not frustrated. The sort of tone someone who's used to dealing with troubled teenagers switches to without grinding gears.

"Truck stop," he says, half to himself, before turning and going back into the office. Through there is another door that he unlocks. He waits for her to join him before continuing on.

Shoshannah"I always have a plan.  Sort of."

She's dragging her heels, reluctant in the fashion of someone who expects something bad to happen when she gets to that office, but she's following; it's to her credit, perhaps, that she hasn't left yet.  In the doorway to Padre's inner office, she hesitates again and looks back to Rosa (though she obviously expects no support from that quarter) before entering the room.  She doesn't sit, nor does she remove her backpack, but she does take in the state of the desk, the decor, the hallmarks of religion.  She doesn't touch anything, particularly not the icons of faith, as if those things might burn or otherwise hurt her.

"I've been touring," it's a generous word for what she's been doing, "for a couple years now.  I have some money, and a bit of experience in a few different jobs.  I can take care of myself."

Fr. Echeverría
His office is large enough to comfortably house half a dozen people. Can hardly call it an office for the shyness of his desk. The first thing Shoshannah sees when she walks into the room is a couch, beat-up and teal but sturdy, flanked by two arm chairs, a rug and a coffee table in the middle. Bookcases and framed paintings of Mary and Jesus and an empty easel are the most prominent objects in the room. His desk is pushed into the corner and looks as if he picked it up at a garage sale or inherited it from someone whose home office venture didn't quite work out. Its surface is buried beneath invoices and thick books.
Of course crucifixes hang from the wall. He doesn't spray her with holy water the second the door closes though.

As she defends herself against an unposed question the priest crosses the room, sits down on the edge of the room's lone windowsill, and crosses his arms low on his chest like he's going to give her all the time in the world to talk.

And he is. Just not about the bullshit she's been throwing at him for the last two minutes.

"How long have you been Awake?" he asks.

ShoshannahThe door closing brings the first flinch, and with what little Pan knows about her it's easy enough to guess why; she's been 'touring', all her belongings fit in her backpack or her bike's saddlebags, she carries a tent with her.  It's an easy assumption to make that the bulk of her time, when the weather will allow it, has been spent outside and that being shut in anywhere, even an office that's more living room than anything else, makes her more than a little nervous.

On top of the clear apprehension she was already suffering, of course.

The second flinch comes with his question, and if anything her eyes become (she becomes) stranger in her tension - their light, clear blue becomes more so, and the shiver-inducing presence she has becomes stronger.  Unconsciously her right hand moves to her pocket, finding something that seems to calm her, settle her, a bit there.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says defiantly, all but proving she knows exactly what he's talking about.

Fr. Echeverría
"That's fine," he says, somehow soothing and dismissive at once. She doesn't have to answer his questions and he doesn't have to believe her. Symbiosis without mutual benefit.
To make himself comfortable he shifts on the sill and crosses one ankle over the other. He's wearing black cowboy boots. She can see that more clearly now that he's seated. So much for dissuading her of that movie screen image she'd been playing in her head earlier.

"So as far as I see it, if you want a shower and an apartment and a job, you got two options. First one involves me calling the Catholic church across town, seeing if they got a room available at their women's shelter. You'd get a bed and you could use their communal washroom and they give you two meals a day. They'd ride you till you got a job, and I don't doubt you could at least find something waiting tables or pumping gas. You're young and whatever you're hiding under those arm socks isn't gonna be nothing anybody around here's seen before. Problem is, I don't see you holding that job for too long even if you manage to get through the interview. You scare the crap out of people."

It's not 'shit' but 'crap' is still pretty fierce language for being in a place of worship.

"So, that's option one. Option two: I got a spare room at my house, which is right across the street, and a lot of work needs done around here. You work here a few hours a day, you get three meals and a bed at the house. No strings other than you gotta sleep there at night and I don't allow drugs. If you're kicking something, we got a Narcotics Anonymous group meets here a few times a week."

How he isn't completely unnerved being shut up with her like he is, he hasn't said yet. Mostly he's just waiting for her to get up and storm out.

ShoshannahShoshannah's head is shaking, negating, before Padre finishes the word 'Catholic', though she doesn't actually interrupt.  'Hiding under those arm socks' gets said arms crossed self consciously (defensively) in front of her [a flicker-flash of copper in her fingers - a coin, larger than a penny and closer to the size of a half-dollar, flipped absently between them].  The rest?  Well, he has a point though she'd deny it fiercely.  Despite everything she's gone through to get where she is, Shoshannah still holds some of youth's optimism.  The first response, though?

"I don't do drugs.  Never really have, beyond some mild experimentation."  So she's smoked a little pot, had a few drinks, smoked cigarettes - that's about it.  As street rats go, she's pretty straight edge.  The rest, though, gets more consideration before she adds, "I'm not a cause, someone to save.  I told you, places of worship and I don't usually get on.  That's my string - I work hard, I don't steal, I don't bring strangers into anyone's space.  But I won't be looked at like a project."

'Or like a demon' is there behind her eyes, though she doesn't say it.  And there's enough steel to her that she's likely to keep to her word.

Fr. Echeverría
He hasn't moved this entire time, not even when that flash of what's either a security blanket or a focus appears between the knuckles of her hand. Being at the locus of his attention isn't the most comfortable place for a person to be but she weathers it and between her persistence and her cagey answers the longer she stays here the longer she obviates her prior claim of ignorance in the face of his first and thus far sole question.

"Ain't nobody in here looking at you like anything more than a girl doesn't have a pot to piss in," he says. The language is harsh but the tone is just as mild as it's ever been. "Talking about yourself like you're a busted-up piece of furniture or something. How old are you, seventeen? Eighteen?"

Shoshannah"Eighteen.  I'll be nineteen in a few months."

She's scowling, and 'focus' and 'security blanket' aren't necessarily mutually exclusive . . . concentration or close inspection would reveal there's more to the coin than one might suspect, but given the girl who holds it that can hardly be a surprise.  And no, being at the locus of Padre's attention isn't particularly comfortable, but then neither is being at the center of Shoshannah's, and given his question and continued (apparent) comfort with her certain conclusions can be jumped to.  Based on his profession, at least one other is an easy hop or skip too.

"I'm not Catholic.  Used to be Jewish."  This is grudging, but a way of giving him an obvious excuse to throw her away just in case it happens; it gives her something to blame aside from just being herself.

Fr. Echeverría
Nothing she's said so far has convinced him that he ought to kick her out of here. It's hard to tell what would make him kick her out of here. Seems like the line would be thin enough that instead of kicking her out he'd perform an exorcism.

"This is a nondenominational church," he says. "You can be as used-to-be-Jewish as you wanna be. I'm the only priest here and I don't do baptisms on people who don't already believe."

He unhooks his ankles and plants his heels on the floor like he's preparing to stand up. Puts his hands on his thighs but doesn't boost himself standing yet.

"Anybody looking for you, Shoshannah? Cops, Techs, hunters, anybody else I might wanna know about before they bust my door down in the middle of the night?"

Shoshannah"Not that I know of.  I was in juvie for a few months," nine, it had been, for fighting so hard that she'd done possibly permanent damage to the other party and not having a good defense - never mind that she'd gone with plenty of injuries herself, "but nothing since then.  I kind of doubt my dad's even realized I'm gone, and my mom's not in the country."

In truth, she figures her dad's probably glad to be rid of her and she knows her mom is.

"I don't exactly fly below the radar, but the rest . . . they've stayed away so far."  Shoshannah is a terrible liar, it must be said.  All her flair for the dramatic doesn't extend to outright deception, and half the time she forgets what she's told any given person so her stories are full of inconsistencies.  He knows, of course, that she's Awake and lying about it despite her assertion to the contrary; this only confirms it.

Fr. Echeverría
"Alright."

Like that settles it. He stands then and they don't shake on it because he goes right to the desk and starts rifling around the mounds of papers before he finds whatever it is he was looking for. Puts it in his pocket and picks his sunglasses off the desk and tucks the earpiece into the neck of his shirt.

As old as he is, as prominent as his position in the community is, nobody would blame Shoshannah if she started to wonder if the man couldn't get the answers to any other question he might have without asking her. For what it's worth, he doesn't. Mind magic is palpable in its intrusion and Prime magic is not subtle. Other than that brief reading of her Pattern in the sunlight he has taken her words and even if he has not seen truth in them he has not taken it upon himself to delve deeper.

He also hasn't explained why he's doing this and at the rate he's going he isn't going to any time soon.

"Let's go get you settled in, then."

ShoshannahTo be honest, Shoshannah kind of assumes Padre can find out what she isn't telling him - or could if he wanted to put in the effort, given that she's actually lived on a base in Colorado before (six months), that her father is a fairly prominent figure in the sleeper world himself, and so on.  But then the priest is up and looking ready to move, and this time it's Shoshannah who is solidly immobile.  There are reservations, but the question is simple.

"Padre."  It's a young girl's voice, full of hated vulnerability - there's a face pulled at the sound of it, and the next comes slightly stronger.  "Why?"

Fr. Echeverría
"Call me Francisco."

Francisco is close enough to what Rosa had called him on the phone and then again when he showed up in the office - Pan is what she had actually called him, and Rosa is high up as far as the church pecking order is concerned. Pan, like the Greek half-man god associated with shepherds, pronounced like the Spanish word for bread; Pancho being a diminutive of Francisco, the name he gave her last night.
Her soft voice halts him at the door but it doesn't halt the deluge of preamble rambling that comes before the answer.

"A lot of my parishioners were brought up Catholic, so they all call me Padre, but the Episcopalians use my name. I think I've scared away most of the die hards, you know, the ones who can't call me nothing but Father and think the Bible is sacred. It isn't, but, uh... why."

Like he has to remind himself of the question.

"Because I remember what it's like to be nineteen and be pissed off at everyone in the world even if they didn't do nothing to you, and I didn't know then how bad things could get if you're alone. They can get pretty bad, girl, and I can tell you been through some stuff, but you can turn it around." A beat. "Start by taking a shower, you look like you spent the night under a bridge."

Shoshannah".....alright."

Goodness knows when her feet will feel the need to walk again, or how long (she doesn't think beyond days, maybe weeks, when it relies on people other than herself) this hospitality will last, but it's here now so she might as well take advantage of it as long as she can.  And it's not until he's showing her into a bathroom (and oh, while she'd asked for a shower a real bath would be heaven) that she finally answers his initial question.
"Almost three years.  Eighteenth October, my birthday."  And almost-death day, but there's no quibbling.  As far as she's concerned, Francisco knows more than enough about her for now.

Fr. Echeverría
Thus far he has not lied to her, and in this he has not lied either: the house is right across the street from the church, and after he tells Rosa he's going out and he'll be right back if anything happens he has his pager, he escorts her across the street. Traffic is light and the street is not wide. The house stands two stories tall and one can reach the second floor by way of a staircase separate from the front door. A metal fence separates this property from the one beside them. She can lock her bike to it or to the staircase.

It is up this staircase that they go. The key he uses to unlock the door was the mystery object he removed from the desk and after the door is unlocked the key goes into her hand.

For how long it's been empty he does not say but the place is not terribly dusty and it has rudimentary furnishings, a daybed and an empty desk and a couch, a small pseudo-kitchen without a refrigerator but with a cooking range.

He prepares to leave her at the bathroom, no larger than a closet but boasting a beautiful union between bathtub and shower. Before he can go though she stops him with an answer to the first question he asked her behind the closed door.

The priest nods and takes a moment to digest the answer. Finally says, "It gets easier."

And then steps back out of sight.

Fr. Echeverría[WRAP]