Standing quietly along our country’s main thoroughfare is a shop bearing my name: Riviere Antiques.
On that particular day, a man in a black uniform walked through the door.
“Henri,” I said, and after he had set down his umbrella, he gave me a quick bow. He was with the police department that kept Cururunelvia, the land of prayer, safe. Me, I helped handle cases relating to sancta, and if Henri was visiting my shop, there could only be so many reasons.
“Let me guess. Carredura’s on the move again?” I said as I brewed some black tea.
Henri nodded, looking grim. “That’s right.”
Someone working under the name of Antiques Carredura had been going around sowing misery in this country for some time now. She seemed to appear out of nowhere and disappeared just as suddenly. Neither the police nor I had had any success in catching her. I could see from Henri’s dark expression how much that galled him.
“Another case we only learned about after the fact,” he said. As he spoke, he handed me a sancta—an old object imbued with a special power. In this instance, an item Carredura had sold to her victim. “By the time we realize what was happening, it was already too late. She’s gone without a trace. In search of new prey, I can only assume.”
I took the sancta from him, inspected it, and then took it to the storeroom in the back of my shop. In my store, I actually sold only the least dangerous sancta. More perilous items, like this one, I put under lock and key, until the time came when I would disenchant them, removing the power bestowed by the prayer that had been put upon them. It was an ability that I alone in this country possessed—and it was the one thing I could do at this moment to oppose Carredura.
My “vault” was packed with other sancta that Carredura had sold, patiently waiting their turn to be disenchanted. I added the sancta Henri had given me to the collection.
How long could this go on?
“I just don’t know,” I answered myself with a sigh. All I could do was say a silent prayer for this country.
Please let Antiques Carredura do no more harm.
Let no one else experience grief because of a sancta.
As I wished with all my heart, my gaze drifted out the window once more. It was raining and had been for quite some time.
It felt like it had been raining forever.