THE TRIQUETRA OF LIFE: Wisdom, Wealth, and Wellness

An Excerpt from Chapter Twenty-Nine

Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous

I woke convinced I was still inside a nightmare—the kind where your body responds to terror before your mind can tell you whether you’re awake.

An empty grave stood open beside the Abbey, a six-foot hole reached by a step ladder. I leaned over its rim and felt my stomach clench. To die there, forgotten beyond those walls, struck me as a fate worse than death itself.

That night we slept in a temporary pavilion raised on wooden planks, its metal frame wrapped in translucent plastic that stirred faintly with the night air. Two made beds waited for us, crisp sheets and army blankets, while unmade cots lined the sides like an Army barracks. By nine p.m., the monastery fell silent—and I slept.

At the midnight hour, I woke to my fully clothed travel mate standing in moonlight at the foot of my bed, gripping my foot and shaking it violently. He glared down at me—eyes bulging, mouth drawn tight, his handsome face twisted into something monstrous. Still half asleep, my mind reached for comfort: a nightmare. Then I understood. This was real. Terror clamped down in that cold instant.

He stepped closer, scraping his hunting knife along his thumbnail, the faint metallic rasp filling the space. Filings fell toward my face. He laid the cold edge against my cheek, testing it, as if to shave me—or to open my throat, my jugular spraying red blood across the white sheet beneath me.

The empty grave closed around me.
Could he hear my heart hammering?

“You all think you’re too good for me, eh?” he muttered. “You’re all going to die tonight.”
The words landed with the weight of a sentence. He promised mass murder—me first. I had no reason to doubt him.

My instincts commanded silence. Any sound could provoke bloodshed. If I cried out, would anyone hear? We were beyond the reach of the sleeping Brothers.

I bit my lips until I tasted blood. My body surged toward fight or flight, with nowhere to go. He grinned, savoring it.

Prone in bed, I could not rise fast enough to overpower him. He was taller and stronger than I was, gripping a six-inch blade. My only recourse was to pray. I prayed as if all of heaven must be moved to hear me.

At some point, the terror loosened its grip. A strange certainty settled in me—solid, immovable, like a fortress set on a hill.

By early light, whatever had inhabited him shrank from the sun. He behaved as if nothing had happened and left at the sound of the tolling bells.

Still shaking, I dressed for Lauds. Incense met me at the church door. The Novice Master pointed me to a cedar choir stall. I traced the worn carvings with my fingers.

In the hazy dawn, monks in white habits and black scapulars shuffled past toward their stalls. I looked for my travel companion but did not see him in the choir.

His absence tightened something in my chest.
Would I have to face another night under threat from him?

From the memoir-in-progress, nearing publication:
Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous
—a spiritual epic for truth-seekers, contemplative mystics, and all who long for God.

Visit www.RMDellOrfanoAuthor.com and pass it forward.