Sanctuary 2 – Lesson 6

Miguel, who is 16, nearly 17, is half awake when he hears the soft squish-squish of combat boots below the window next to his cot. He arches himself up on his elbow and peeks out. In the moonlight, he spots five shadowy figures in combat gear creeping toward the adobe church in which he and his sister Juanita, just turned 13, are hiding. One of the figures, obviously the leader, uses hand signals to dispatch two of the figures to the other side of the building, then leads the remaining two toward the front door.

Miguel is momentarily paralyzed. He can’t breath. Can’t think. Then he crosses himself and crawls over to his sister’s cot, putting his hand softly over her mouth so she won’t cry out when he wakes her.

“Juanita, wake up. Shhh. Soldiers.”

“Where?” she whispers, her eyes wide with panic.

“Outside. We must go.”

“You said we would be safe in a church.”

“This isn’t a church, it’s an annex. We must get to the nave.”

She whimpers. He can feel her shaking. He takes her by the hand.

“Shhh. Come!”

Until a month ago, Miguel and Juanita were insignificant peons living in an insignificant village in Guatemala. Then government soldiers attacked their village and massacred nearly everyone. It was a miracle, thanks be to God, that they escaped, but now they’re on the run. For the last week, they have been sleeping in the annex loft, waiting for the authorities to forget about them so they can make a run for the border.

He can’t risk turning on the electric lights, so he has only the moonlight seeping through the window to illuminate the discarded pews and lecterns stacked randomly in the loft. Then he steps awkwardly on something, grabs a cabinet for balance and knocks a pile of hymnals onto the floor. The crash seems as loud as the church bells on Sunday. His heart stops.

Shouts come through the window: “This way!” And “Hurry!”

“Let’s go!” he says, lifting Juanita by her armpits and carrying her down the stairs to the ground level, almost tripping on a stack of surplus surplices piled on the top step. They are about to race down the corridor that leads to the church when he sees flashlights at the other end. He slams the door to the corridor closed and jams a chair against it. It won’t stop the intruders, but it’ll slow them down.

“This way,” he whispers as he opens a wedge-shaped door in the skirting enclosing the bottom of the loft staircase. They huddle under the stairs and he pulls the door shut. He can smell his sister’s terror. She whimpers again.

“Shhh!”

He’s thinking more clearly now, breathing more evenly, calmer, able to plan. When they arrived at the church, the priest showed him a secret trap door. He squats down and feels around for the recessed ring latch in the floor. He can’t find it. He hears the soldiers running down the corridor. Panic grips his throat. Then he locates the ring under his wife’s foot. He pushes her foot aside and raises the trap door. The soldiers are pounding on the door at the end of the corridor. He hears a shot, then another. She lets out a small cry, like a lost cat. He dangles one leg down into the dark void, feeling around for the top step. He finally locates it a good meter down. He puts his other foot down, then pulls her to him by the wrists. She resists. He knows she is petrified.

“Juanita, you must come now!”

They hear the corridor door crash open, then the soldiers running up the stairs inches above their heads. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist. He staggers under the weight, but she is small and light and he is able to keep his balance as he feels around for the next step.

The soldiers are in the annex loft.

“Where are they?”

“Keep searching. They must be here somewhere!”

 He reaches up and closes the trap door. It latches with a soft click. Juanita is still clinging to him like an infant, her head pressed into his neck. They descend in the dark, step by step, until he feels the bottom. There is absolutely no light. He visualizes the basement as he saw it with the priest: a long, narrow cavern hewn out of solid rock, one of the few catacombs in Central America, with niches full of skeletons carved into both walls and random bones scattered on the dusty stone floor. He is old enough to be skeptical, but he knows his sister still believes in the ancient superstitions passed down by the village crones. If she touches any of the bones and realizes what they are, she’ll probably melt down, so he tells her that she must stay close behind him and keep both her hands on his hips so they don’t lose contact.

He feels around to get himself oriented. His target is the other staircase, cut into the bedrock at the other end of the basement, leading to a secret panel in the back of altar. When he’s confident he’s pointing in the right direction, he takes a step. His little sister follows in lock step. The air is stuffy, musty, cool. He feels around and takes another step. And another. There is no sound. Then he steps on something soft and there is a squeal. Juanita’s hands tighten around his waist and she hugs his back.

“Courage, little sister. We are almost there,” though in truth he doesn’t know how far they have to go.

They keep shuffling forward in the dark, step by step. Progress is slow. There is no way of knowing how long much time has passed. Are they going in the right direction? He’s having trouble breathing again. His heart is pounding. Has he failed in his duty to protect little Juanita?

Then a priest removes the wooden panel in the back of the altar and light floods down the staircase into the basement. Suddenly, they can see the cavern around them, and Juanita realizes with a shocked gasp that they are in a subterranean graveyard. She crosses herself and prays an Ave Maria as she pushes past Miguel and runs to the stairs.

“Hurry,” she calls back. “We must not disturb souls in pain.”

The priest gives them a hand up as they scramble up the stairs and into the sanctuary.

“You are safe now. The soldiers are at the door, but Father Francis has informed them they must not enter the sanctuary with evil intent, on pain of eternal damnation. They are all good Catholics. They will not risk their souls for this government.”

Juanita and Miguel, bathed in multi-coloured early morning light streaming through stained glass windows, fall on their knees and thank God for delivering them from certain death.

© 2026 Paul McLaughlin