Silent Night

If not already clear from the rules, please make of this prompt what you like.  I did something for Halloween this year, and also Thanksgiving, so here's our Christmas prompt.  Feel free to write something religious, or go somewhere else with it. 

The prompt for this week: The night was silent ...

Enjoy!

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My response:

Inside the cathedral, the night was silent.  The thick, stone walls blocked out all the noise from the city, which was still with the deadness of deep winter.  The candles had long burned down.  The bells hung silent.  The steeple clock sat at one thirty two, as it had for the past ten years.

Miss Alexandra Rapture knelt in the third pew back, her knees on the pad, her shoulders hunched over, so no one could see her, without looking down the aisle.  Her dress floated out in a cloud around her, layers of muslin and lace, enough of it to outfit a small sailing ship, and a veil that hid the streaks on her cheeks, had anyone been there to see.  She'd stopped crying hours ago.  Her chest ached from sobbing, and her tears had simply dried up.  She suffered in stillness, eyes half open, chest barely moving with breath.

They would find her.  Tomorrow morning, when they came to the church, she'd still be there.  She had no where else to go, no other sanctuary to flee to.  She could not run to the hills.  Her feet had never known anything but silk slippers.  An hour in the forest would be the end to her, and she'd be back anyway.  She was not brave enough to cut her hair and hire onto a sailing ship.  Her fine, soft hands pressed together in prayer, worked pretty embroidery and waved fans.  She could not tie knots.  She didn't have the heart to take herself to the cliffs.  Sixteen years of her mother's instructions gave her just enough arrogance to be loathe to throw herself away.

But neither could she bring herself to smile as time marched her towards her fate.  She'd told Lord Craye she did not love him, had no desire to be his wife.  He'd arched his eyebrows and whispered in her ear that he was glad it was not her choice, then, for he would not give her up.

Alexandra sent up her last desperate prayers ... and all she got in return was the silence of the night.