The Last Handful of Clover - Book 2: Gifts Both Light and Dark

2.59 Breathing in the Dark

June 15, 1:22 am

They went somewhere familiar.

As soon as Tuilla said that it was necessary to have a quiet and peaceful place where he could begin his training in the Fourth Gift, Richard knew exactly where they needed to go. And fortunately, it was less than a hundred yards from where they stood.

Together, the pair left the courtyard and passed the reflecting pool, heading toward Temple Square. But rather than turning right or left at the iron fence that separated the plaza from the Temple Grounds, they just walked forward and through the bars. The temple itself was not their goal. They skirted the marble edifice on the left, along the face that had been the backdrop for untold thousands of wedding pictures, and passed through another wall.

The complex of buildings that made up Temple Square in Salt Lake City was actually two separate compounds. The Temple itself was located on the west side of the enclosed block, behind the high outside walls. But there was also a wall that cut the block in half, separating the sacred, private grounds of the temple from the more secular, and more public, half of Temple Square. Tuilla and Richard passed through that inner wall, and in front of them was the building they were looking for.

Completed in 1875, the Tabernacle was even older than the Temple, and an architectural and acoustic wonder in its own right. Richard's mom loved the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and had dragged him to performances here for more than a decade.

The building was closed and silent now. Quite unlike a typical summer afternoon, when there would be a steady stream of tourists passing through, whispering amongst themselves, and waiting their turn to see a demonstration of the building's acoustics. Richard had seen that demonstration a half dozen times, where a tour guide at the far end of the building would literally drop a pin into a plastic dish, and the click of it could be heard echoing through the vast chamber.

Richard and Tuilla passed through the heavy doors of the Tabernacle and made their way along the wooden pews to the stage, situated at the foot of the choir risers. The huge pipes of the famous organ towered above them like a thick stand of aspen, as the two of them sat on the carpeted steps. The vaulted white ceiling of the tabernacle, once smooth and unblemished, was now adorned with racks of theatrical lighting used for the television broadcasts that were made every Sunday morning. "Music and the Spoken Word" had been broadcasting since 1929, and had been a staple of his youth.

Despite the warmth of summer, the Tabernacle always seemed cool, and on a night as dreary and wet as this one, the emergency lighting gave the whole place a close, comforting atmosphere. It always amazed Richard how quiet this space could be, and he felt the majesty of the building lulling him into a complacency that he could ill afford. Looking up at the imposing pipe organ, Richard felt the silence bearing him down.

"This is the perfect place," Tuilla said, startling him out of his reverie. "Let's take advantage of the time we have."

Richard shivered and brought his attention back to the old woman. "Okay, what do we do now?"

Tuilla didn't answer, or perhaps Richard just didn't hear whatever it was she had to say. For at that moment, he felt a sudden pressure drop in his head. It was like the feeling you get when you descend rapidly in an elevator, but your ears refuse to pop. He tried to shake his head to regain his composure, but suddenly everything seemed strangely surreal and disorienting...

He knew what that feeling meant. The Wanderer was knocking at his mind. He was nosing into his consciousness the way a snake would slide under a tent flap. The feeling made his hands clench into fists, and he gulped a sudden intake of breath.

"He's here," Richard said, the words swallowed by the immensity of the Tabernacle. "I feel him probing at my mind."

Tuilla turned pale.