Trembling beneath the gaze of saints, Emily strained her pale blue eyes in an effort to reciprocate that Holy vision, that sacred sight. She had traveled long and far to arrive at this moment and now that it was upon her she found herself lacking, unable to meet the eyes of those who stood before her, haloed and emanating sheer white light. Squinting, she realized suddenly that her failure was not one of chastity - as she had feared it might be ever since that distant, torrid night in Sao Paulo - but one of endorsement. Her sanctity had not been validated by anybody but herself and Marco. He was dead now, swallowed by the insurrection which had indirectly liberated her from the thrall of the Texas papists, and she alone was not consensus enough to breech the much loved and hallowed ranks she had strived so diligently to join. Or was she? Did she really require anyone else to believe in her? As she had learned through one hard lesson after another, everything is relative. The faith she had in herself might be bright enough to outshine this saintly crowd and more if she could only find it.

Marco had been the one to find that spark in the middle of her darkness, the one to protect it and feed it with bits of his own tattered soul, to fan it until it was a righteous blaze simultaneously consuming and regenerating her heart. She felt that heat even now, rising from the center of herself, illumining her eyes, sending sparks from the tips of her fingers and the ends of her blonde hair. . .

- excerpt from the unwritten novel, The Transfiguration of Emily Clean, not written by Richard Cody in the year of someone's lord 2002 -