Exit Kingdom

snow. So too the distant foothills – so too the sky. The features of the world grow indistinct inside this spitting cloud. It is a place that loses its absolutes – a lightless murk
neither of earth nor air, a suffocating desolation where people roam like ghosts grown used to the purgatory they inhabit.
    One man wrapped up in a parka walks by them. Moses stopshim.
    The citadel, he says to the man. Where is it?
    The chapel? says the man. He points across the courtyard and continues on his way.
    Then, in the distance, they see the spires of the structure. There are seventeen of them lined up in a row, grey spears standing ten storeys tall against the grey sky. It is unlike anything
Moses has ever seen before. Dangerous is what it looks like,a structure of sharp steel edges and spikes – looking so like a weapon that Moses imagines it swung by one vicious giant against
the jugular of another. Or a row of monstrous teeth, calcified to pale white – the petrified jaw bone of some ancient dragon.
    Jesus, Moses says. That don’t look like any cathedral I’ve ever been in.
    Moses, please, says the Vestal Amata and takes his arm atthe shoulder. The snow is collected on her choppy red hair – as though the winter itself would make her disappear.
    Come on, he says. I been around a long time, and if there’s one thing I learned it’s that the things that look most dangerous usually ain’t. It’s the ridiculous-lookin
things you got to watch out for.
    So they cross the courtyard, holding their arms before their faces toblock the wind and snow. They are not dressed for this weather, and Moses can feel his beard icing up.
    They go around the side of the chapel. A ramp leads up to the glowing doors like the protruded tongue of a sleeping beast, and they climb it. They enter through the wide double doors and find
themselves in a huge hall lined with pews – the buttresses of the seventeen spires creating a rowof triangular ribs inside that gives you the impression of having fallen into the belly of a
beast. But there is an odd violet glow in the place, a perverse warmth that does not seem to jibe with the bitter grey outside.
    Then an old man approaches them. He wears a suit and tie and moves with surprising alacrity from some alcove in the side of the place across a line of pews and up the aisletowards them. It is
the Pastor Whitfield, and he introduces himself with a smile.
    You are seeking sanctuary, maybe? the old man asks. We welcome all.
    That’s nice, Pastor, says Moses. But I’m just carryin her for a friend. A monk who goes by Ignatius.
    The old man smiles widely and claps his hands together.
    Ignatius! he says. A dear old friend of mine. I’m so pleased to hear heis still with us. Are you part of his congregation?
    Us? Moses says. No. Well, I ain’t at least. He told me to bring you her. She’s a Vestal.
    The old man looks at the girl with the cropped hair and smiles benignantly.
    A Vestal, he says. I’m not sure I understand. She’s . . .
    She’s special, Moses says.
    We’re all of us special in one way or another. I’m sure this young woman—

    Special as in the slugs don’t want her, Moses blurts out. The man’s kindness makes him nervous – along with the purple glow of the place, the sense of peace, the downright
civilized tone of it all. He is unused to the niceties that come along with comfort and safety.
    They don’t— the old man begins, but stutters. They don’t—
    That’s right, Moses confirms. They don’t want her. It couldbe she’s an angel or somethin. At least that’s what the friar speculated.
    You mean, the pastor says, she’s immune?
    Immune? Moses says and looks to the Vestal. I don’t know if you’d call it immune. If she died would she not come back? Beats me. But they’re not interested in makin her a meal.
I reckon we could give you a demonstration if you got any slugs around. I don’t know if it meansanything.
    If what you say is true, sir, says the pastor, then this young lady means a great deal indeed. But maybe more to science than to the Church. Please follow me. I would like to introduce you to
some of my friends.
    Moses doesn’t like being called sir. He can’t remember the last time it was done. It fits him ill. He longs suddenly for the barren wilderness, the brokedown countryroads, the
collapsing structures, the wandering dead. It is there, in that place of ragged leftovers, that he knows how to behave.
    But the old man seems kindly, and